User:Phil wink/Translation workshop

Discussion

I know the "hour" line is a bit of a cheat, but I think the rest is reasonably solid ... stanza 1, not so much yet. Phil wink (talk) 04:31, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

First (and possibly final) draft done. I wish I could have hit the mark more often, but I think some lines are good, and I think that the final 2 lines of both stanzas have a good ring to them, leaving the reader with a good taste in the mouth. Thoughts? Phil wink (talk) 18:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

• Also, looks like this needs a <ref>...</ref>. Phil wink (talk) 18:46, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

This is the source of the text from the nineteenth century in Polish with English translation of each word.

Adam Asnyk, Uwielbienie [w:] El...y [Adam Asnyk, pseudonym], Poezye [Poems]. Tom I. [Volume I] Poprzedzony słowem wstępnem [With a foreword]. Wydanie nowe z portretem autora [A new edition with a portrait of the Author], Nakład Gebethnera i Wolffa [Edited by Gebethner and Wolff], Warszawa [Warsaw] 1898, p. 118.

Perhaps it is not much important, but I want to explain that Gebethner and Wolff was a very famous publishing firm at that time, something like Penguin Books or Wordsworth Editions today.

You work quickly, I go some steps after You, but have already added some sections to my sandbox about Sapphic stanza and other strophes derived from this form. (Anagram16 (talk) 00:46, 3 September 2016 (UTC))

Discussion

I think this Sapphic stanza is comparable - as an imitation of Old Greek measure - to Alfred Tennysson's Milton in Alcaics. Perhaps it is not much English with its feminine endings, but it should be somehow unusual, as it is not a common form in its Czech environment, either.

A couple requests, and a comment:

• Please add a source for the text (you can put it in <ref>...</ref> right at the end of the Czech text above, just as you normally would). If this is the whole poem, then that's enough -- if this is an excerpt, then please note line numbers too.
• How would you describe the tone of the original? My sense was to go for something like "calm; idyllic", but with just 4 lines, it's hard to be sure whether my call was right.
• I think you may overestimate the unnaturalness of feminine endings in English verse. Most of our 2-syllable words are paroxytonic, and of course a lot of our 3+ syllable words are too. So (to me, anyway) verses like those above do not sound at all exotic... "sable" is a little unusual, but because of its diction, not its rhythm; likewise "bells are" might be a little unusual, again not because of its rhythm but rather this type of enjambment seems a little modern, more like a bad habit from the 20th century. It is true that in rhymed verse, feminine endings become much more prominent: certainly more self-conscious, sometimes yielding a lighter tone; and it is a challenge for a triple rhyme to be anything other than hilarious (whether intentionally or not). But this is all when feminine endings become feminine rhymes -- not only doubling the number of syllables normally thus emphasized, but also massively limiting the words available in those positions. Then, of course, the degree of self-consciousness created corresponds in part to the frequency of feminine endings: eventually they get tiring, but more quickly in rhymed than blank verse -- and I don't think any poetic trick could get tiring in 4 lines.

Cheers. Phil wink (talk) 20:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

1) I added a source.

2) I added lines of the poem (which consists of six stanzas).

3) I don't think all femininine endings are bad in English verse, and I don't think all masculine endings are bad in Polish verse, either. You are right, someone can write a long poem in English using only feminine endings (like Robert Browning in One word more) or in Polish using only masculine endings, when they are unrhymed. But when You read some dozen poems by poets of the "Young Poland" (end of 19th century), who enjoyed using masuline rhymes, You are fed up with that. (22:54, 25 August 2016 (UTC))

Thanks. Re tone: I may try to make it just a little more somber then. Phil wink (talk) 23:50, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

You can experiment, but I think this version is good enough. It is said that Horace, when shooting a bow, hits his aim mostly at the first time. On the other hand, Adam Mickiewicz - as far as I know - made five versions of the first line of "Akerman Steppe", the first of the "Sonnets from the Crimea". Of course, there can be two versions, suitable for different purposes.