Re: Re: Any XXXXXXXXXX Finns here?

From: Mikko Rintasaari <mikrin_at_...>
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 22:12:18 +0200 (EET)

> > > http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/index.htm
> >
> > It's one of those rather tragic translations. Of course one can
> sort of
> > follow the plot from those, but it doesn't sound or feel right at
> all.
>
> Now you aren't that fair Mikko. Modern English simply isn't flexible
> enough in form so you can't expect trochaic tetrametre with
> satisfactory resemblance in plot combined into one translation.

I don't think it has to be tetrametre. It's just that modern english translations of beowulf evoke the same feelings. It sounds the same and feels the same.

But I know that poetry rarely translates =(

Incidentally, I can write poetry much easier in english than in finnish. English is an easy language for poetry. So... uh, sloppy. Lots of words that round in the same way, and so on.

Finland is very precise, but it has huge amounts of synonyms to use.

> I'd
> prefer that the story is understood at least at some level.

That's of course true, and a good goal. Sorry if I came off snooty.

> > The poetic style of Beowulf is much closer to Kalevala, I think.
> Simple
> > repetition is not right, there's got to be rhymes (in the first
> > syllable, no less).
>
> That would be alliteration, not rhyming, but that you knew already,
> didn't you?

On some level of my tired brain I did. :)

        -Adept