Abstract
Beneath that evergreen energy we have for perfecting our English versions of Charles Baudelaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, Garcia Lorca and others, there runs a counternotion, a reluctance to translate authentic verse at all. Let me not translate, not render the precarious adequacy of poetic language even more precarious. And when a writer must remake his native tongue to speak what he has to, as Paul Celan did with German, and when he builds into his speech a drastic questioning of language and poetry themselves, then I feel the translator’s reluctance all the more keenly, almost as a matter of principle.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Selected Works Cited
Bahr, Ehrhard. Nelly Sachs. Munich: Beck, 1980.
Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke. Ed. Beda Allemann and Stefan Reichert, with Rolf Bücher. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1983.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2009 Beth Hawkins Benedix
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Felstiner, J. (2009). Mother Tongue, Holy Tongue. In: Benedix, B.H. (eds) Subverting Scriptures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101296_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101296_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37648-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-10129-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)