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The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation pp 21–37Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Translating the Poetry of Nelly Sachs

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ((PTTI))

Abstract

German Jewish poet Nelly Sachs, a writer who fled the Nazis, and a translator whose translations of Swedish Modernist poets profoundly affected her poetic expression, is often considered a difficult poet. Her poems have been translated into English by several different translators. A comparison of different translated versions is thus possible, and Boase-Beier argues in this chapter that such a comparison not only sheds light upon the translations themselves and the particular interpretations that underlie them, but also, by highlighting points of ambiguity or stylistic complexity, upon the original poems. The insights thus gained, in the context of critical engagement with her work in its original German, can help us to see how future English translations of her poems might be undertaken and presented.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Jean Boase-Beier

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  1. Jean Boase-Beier
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Correspondence to Jean Boase-Beier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Jean Boase-Beier

  2. Independent Scholar, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Lina Fisher

  3. Department of English, Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan

    Hiroko Furukawa

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Boase-Beier, J. (2018). Translating the Poetry of Nelly Sachs. In: Boase-Beier, J., Fisher, L., Furukawa, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75752-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75753-7

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