100 Bits of Happiness 92/100

[mabith]

On the Term of ExileNo need to drive a nail into the wall

Comments

[mirazandar]

I read this and thought it a bit atypical, and found the german one, and the norwegian translations, and I am amazed by how different they are.

Translating poetry is hard, but i'm a bit fascinated by the fact that your tranlator put in rhymes that weren't there before.

[mabith]

It did seem odd, but I wasn't sure of the year on it, or if it was written for lieder or what, so I thought "well, I like it anyway."

Here's the explanation from the translator:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poemcomment/242100

So I'm guessing he was trying to more completely add a song aspect to it. I'm definitely not a fan of translators who add rhyming where there were none before.

The little group it's part of doesn't seem to be in my book of Brecht poems, which is relatively complete,

[mirazandar]

I do like this version, though. The Norwegian one feels very clunky, although the translator was a very skillful modernist poet, but.. there's something that doesn't work, something rythmic. But then it's very directly translated when it comes to giving each line the same meaning as the original, - and that doesn't always work as intended.