Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T07:16:04.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 14 - Decadent Poetry and Translation

The Suffusive and the Prosodic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

Alex Murray
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast
Get access

Summary

We live in a post-translation world in which we are learning to extend our perception of what constitutes translational activity and its consequences. This chapter explores two aspects of the translational practice of poets of the 1890s: its suffusive nature and its prosodic experimentalism. By suffusive translation is meant a translation sourced in a roundabout way, relying on different kinds of formal and multi-sensory bricolage and filtering, such that the poems translated are re-metabolized, infused with new expressive colourings, as much as they are simply assimilated. At the same time, these translations explore a new prosodic range in their sensitivity to phrasal rhythms or cadence, to tonal shaping and to vocal inhabitation. Verlaine is the principal but by no means only French presence in this loosening and developing range of expression, and the examples discussed are drawn from the work of, among others, Lord Alfred Douglas, Arthur Symons, John Gray and Theodore Wratislaw. The chapter argues that the translations these poets undertook made a significant difference to the ways in which verse might be envisaged by the following generation of English-speaking poets.

Type
Chapter
Information
Decadence
A Literary History
, pp. 254 - 271
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×