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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3998 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 30, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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The Summa is a big 'un and unless you seriously mean to delve into mediaeval logic and theology, better to just look up particular queries in it (e.g. what did Aquinas say about X?)

All the thumbs up about The Divine Comedy, especially if you mean to stick with all three volumes and not drop out after Inferno. I would personally recommend the Hollander translation, which is about twenty years old now, but all available on Kindle on Amazon.

You might throw in a little poetry by Wordsworth and Tennyson and Browning as well; generally The Idylls of the King for Tennyson as his take on the Arthurian legend. Browning has long poems but also lots of short ones which might be easier to read at a go.

And because I love the sound of the words, even though I can't speak Italian (modern or mediaeval) or Occitan, but just mangle them aloud in a bad French accent, here's a bit from the Divine Comedy:

"Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman,

qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire.

Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan;

consiros vei la passada folor,

e vei jausen lo joi qu'esper, denan.

Ara vos prec, per aquella valor

que vos guida al som de l'escalina,

sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!"

Poi s'ascose nel foco che li affina.

'Your courteous question pleases me so much

I neither can nor would conceal myself from You.

'I am Arnaut, weeping and singing as I make my way.

I see with grief past follies and I see,

rejoicing, the joy I hope is coming.

'Now I pray You, by that power

which guides You to the summit of the stairs,

to remember, when the time is fit, my pain.'

Then he vanished in the fire that refines them.

The Summa is a big 'un and unless you seriously mean to delve into mediaeval logic and theology, better to just look up particular queries in it (e.g. what did Aquinas say about X?)

On the other hand, a good introduction to Thomism would help clear up a lot of the confusion a modern person would have going into Aquinas. Edward Feser is a good contemporary Catholic philosopher whose books are very illuminating.

For a broader book on medieval thought, Etienne Gilson's Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages is tough to beat.

Can someone please explain to me the point of reading translated poetry? It’s terrible. It straight-up doesn’t work. The aesthetic form is gone, and what’s left reads as clunky for no reason as a result.

Since I don't have those languages, I can't read them in the originals. So it's English translations or remain ignorant. The Sayers translation is very good on the problems of trying to turn terza rima into English rhyme, she's good on the technicalities (the resulting translation may not be the best poetry but hey, I can't write poetry either).

I agree that if you can read in the original, there are all kinds of nuances you get that are missing from translation, especially if you compare the original with the translation and see the word choices and why the translator picked this not that, but it's really 'half a loaf is better than no bread'.

Learning all the languages of the world on a level that enables one to appreciate poetry is kinda hard. For that reason, people choose to use translations, while realizing that they are not the same as the original, they still can be enjoyed. Sure, the Iliad is best in its original Greek. But if you don't understand ancient Greek, you can still appreciate it in a good translation. There's no reason to be a snob about it and declare that anything short of genuine performance by a genuine rhapsode is not even worth trying.

I found the Iliad at least engaging in Greek and grindingly boring in English. On the other hand, I found Beowulf quite engaging in modern English, so maybe it’s translation quality+how close the languages are.

Of course, the quality of the translation hinges on the quality of the translator, among other things. There are two schools for translation - one says "stick to the original as close as possible not matter what", other says "get the inspiration from the original and try to achieve the same result by whatever means you find necessary". I have seen both ways have pretty strong successes and dismal failures, and sometimes a strong translator completely overtook over the author and made a good work - but very different from the original. When I can read the original, I usually would prefer it, but since I'm not learning Greek anytime soon, I'll take as good a translation as I can get, maybe even multiple ones. Sometimes taking a half-dozen of translations and comparing how they dealt with a certain piece is even more fun than just reading it once.

You can get rhyming translations that try to maintain the spirit of the poem while making it amenable to English ears.

I don't buy it. The aesthetics of a good poem go much deeper than rhyme.

I've seen the breakdowns of poetic translations by their authors, and the rabbit hole goes much deeper than just getting the words right and making them rhyme. Yes, there are self-centered translators, usually well-known poets themselves, that just freestyle, but that's basically counts as reading a new poem by them and not a faithful translation.

The ones I'm speaking about actually break down the poem to identify all the tools the author used and reproduce them in the translation. Enjambment and an accompanying caesura? Alliteration? Metric deviations? Internal rhymes? All of this is examined, analyzed and reproduced so the translation has the same effect on the reader as

Of course, the further you get from your own language family, the harder it gets. How do you translate a kireji in a haiku?

It's a whole new poem if the translation is decent, and if you do not know the language of the original, why not?

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