Rilke and self-identity

A.N. Wilson reads Rilke:

If you have ever read W G Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, you will realise that this cult book of the 1990s is heavily influenced by the Malte Laurids notebooks. Rilke completed it in 1909, when he was 34.

The book takes the form of meditations by a young Danish aristocrat, living a lonely and impoverished life in Paris and observing the extraordinary street "characters" of that city. [...]

The central question of the book is self-identity. It ends with a retelling of the Prodigal Son, who runs away from home precisely to escape being loved on his family's uncongenial terms. In his return, he wonders whether he is ready for the love of God - about which, in his reading of St Teresa of Avila, he has already meditated.

He wonders, moreover, whether God is ready to love him. If I had to teach creative writing, I think I would use this book as a text.

So many bad books - either novels or autobiographies - charge artlessly into their theme, assuming that the author's soul is (a) interesting and (b) self-evidently existent.

Rilke's prose masterpiece reminds us of the questionability of either statement.

Given the connection Wilson makes between Rilke and Sebald, it would be interesting to read Laird Hunt's The Exquisite alongside The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (since the former was inspired by The Rings of Saturn).

(via The Literary Saloon)

Loving Rilke

Yesterday marked the beginning of Rilke Week at Chekhov's Mistress. In his introductory post, Bud mentions what sparked the idea and remarks, "I don’t suppose Rilke is too controversial – either you love him or don’t know him." Too true.

My own little contribution went up today. Which poems do you love? Why? What is it about Rilke that has inspired and resonated with so many of us? I really look forward to reading imminent posts and all of your own thoughts on his work.

from The Seventh Elegy

It is breathtaking simply to be here. Girls, even you
knew, who seemed so deprived, so reduced, who became
sewers yourselves, festering in the awful alleys of the city.
For each of you had an hour, perhaps a bit less,
at worst a scarcely measurable span between while and while,
when you wholly were. Had all. Were bursting with Being.
But we easily forget what our laughing neighbor
neither confirms nor envies. We want to show it off,
yet the most apparent joy reveals itself only after
it has been transformed, when it rises within us.
    My love, the world exists nowhere but within us.
Withinwarding is everything. The outer world
dwindles, and day fades from day. Where once
a solid house was, soon some invented structure
perversely suggests itself, as at ease among ideas
as if it still stood in the brain.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
translated by William Gass

Greater than logic

Am thoroughly enjoying William Gass' discussion and translation of Rilke. Such rich work to sink my teeth into.

Not all properties of the conceptual systems we use to describe experience are characteristics of experience itself. Obviously we can use the German language to talk about the world, to say Die Welt ist alles was der Fall ist, or employ arithmetic to measure a room, or use a thermometer to take the temperature of the roast. But Nature does not speak German, the space of the room is not infinite just because between any of the numbers used to measure it there are an infinite amount more, and 20°C is not twice as hot as 10°C to the leg of lamb. Logical connections do not exist in Nature, only in Logic. And poetry is merely...merely poetry.

This is the first of Gass' work that I've read, and I'm thrilled (yet again) by how my expectations are being exceeded. I hope to write (quote) more soon, but his blow-by-blow account of his word choices in translating Rilke--in the face of 14 other translations of the same work--is revelatory. (And his unfailing sense of humor keeps everything in perspective.)

I've long thought that poetry transcends logic--that although it is a contruct (being a "created" thing), it makes much more than "sense." I'm reminded of Walker Percy's "Metaphor as Mistake" and the mystery of how literal "lies" (a living heart cannot actually be made of ice) come closer to truth than "factual" renderings. It's a favorite line of thinking that I'm finding traces of in what Gass is exploring in Rilke.

Another goldmine.

When fidelity is treasonous

Don Paterson's brief piece on translating Rilke explains,

The one thing a poet must avoid, however, is pretending that both the meaning and the music of the original poem can be carried into the new language. Because a poem works on the heretical principle that sound and sense are the same thing, a poem is locked for ever in its original form. The poem's effect, which is all there is of it, can no more be "translated" than can a piece of music.

Yet we are compelled to seek some new incarnation for foreign poems in our own language. The two main strategies are the "translation" and the "version". In the translation, you work on accurately representing the words and their systems of relations; here, the integrity of the means (your skill and qualifications as a translator, say) justify the end. In the version, you work on representing the poem's idea and "spirit"; here, the integrity of the end (your inner conviction that this somehow "captures the vibe" of the original) justifies the means. A translation mirrors the original and stands alongside it; but a version tries to be a new, free-standing poem in its own right. In order to achieve that level of semantic and musical integration, it has, at some point, to forget the original and complete the course on its own.

As frightening a prospect as this sounds, it does make a lot of sense. I'm willing to admit that my predisposition has always been to the more "literal" side, but perhaps I owe this to a somewhat Romantic notion of authorial inspiration? That is, the closer something sticks to the literal meaning, the closer we are to authorial intent. But is this merely an almost mystical trust in the efficacy of words? (Especially as Paterson himself admits that Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus "appear to have been less composed than dictated to the German poet - as if they had been sitting around elsewhere, waiting for someone to channel them into speech. In an earlier time, we would have had no trouble in describing the Sonnets - in their oracularity and their visionary power - as a prophetic work.") On the other hand, I'm beginning to see such an attitude as exhibiting a lack of trust: authorial intent is far from the only issue that must be examined when analyzing a work of literature.

Meanwhile, Bud comments on this other excellent article and explains how "even reading in your own language is a translation":

What is translation if not an interpretation? Once we think in those terms, we've opened the door for the sometimes less than literal result of different translations over time. [...]

If I read a book in English (the only language I can read in) and I look up a word, aren't I then imposing Mr. Webster's and my own meaning on that word and therefore the author's intent? [...]

The best analogy comes from music - a performance of a symphony is a translation of a composer's music (often with the help of notes, either latin notation or annotations). At one level each conductor's music may sound the same - ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta (can't you tell, that's Ode to Joy), but listening more closely, changes in timing or tone (not to mention possible reinstrumentation) can make the music sound quite different.

Angel Gurria-Quintana (in the article Bud quotes) points out the interesting dichotomy between "clarity" and "precision," ultimately deciding that

In the best literature, form is substance. Similarly with translations. Puritans may take issue, but it is undoubtedly a translation’s beauty - rather than its careful imitation of an original - that finally nudges it across the language barrier and enhances the pleasure it provides. Even if translation is treason, it is a necessary form of treachery on which readers of world literature depend.

Interestingly, it's my father (a native Spanish-speaker) who has opened up my mind to the reason clarity *must* supercede precision in a translation. Communication doesn't always have to indicate a loss of fidelity. Literalism (whether it be whimsical or heavy-handed) is ultimately more about not offending the author than it is about fully serving the work. And if fidelity means putting the essence (or meaning) of a work in second place, who or what is actually being betrayed?

And last--but far from least!--Jeff announces that The Unbearable Lightness of Being is finally (!!) being released in the Czech Republic. (I somehow think that a retranslation into English is now called-for...although that might take another ten years!)

(The two articles came via The Literary Saloon and were posted on my birthday. I'll take that as a nod that I'm heading in the right direction...)

Sound advice

Wislawa Szymborska counsels would-be poets:

• “Your existential pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’ we found ourselves floundering in a shallow pond. You should think of your life as a remarkable adventure that’s happened to you. That is our only advice at present.”
  
  
• “We have a principle that all poems about spring are automatically disqualified. This topic no longer exists in poetry. It continues to thrive in life itself, of course. But these are two separate matters.”
  
  
• “Rilke warned young poets against large sweeping topics, since those are the most difficult and demand great artistic maturity. He counseled them to write about what they see around them, how they live each day, what’s been lost, what’s been found. He encouraged them to bring the things that surround us into their art, images from dreams, remembered objects. ‘If daily life seems impoverished to you,’ he wrote, ‘don’t blame life. You yourself are to blame. You’re just not enough of a poet to perceive its wealth.’ This advice may seem mundane and dim-witted to you. This is why we called to our defense one of the most esoteric poets in world literature—and just see how he praised so-called ordinary things!”
  
  
• “A definition of poetry in one sentence--well. We know at least five hundred definitions, but none of them strikes us as both precise and capacious enough. Each expresses the taste of its own age. Inborn skepticism keeps us from trying our hand at our own. But we remember Carl Sandburg’s lovely aphorism: ‘Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.’ Maybe he’ll actually make it one of these days?”
  
  
• “In school no time is spent, alas, on the aesthetic analysis of literary works. Central themes are stressed along with their historical context. Such knowledge is of course crucial, but it will not suffice for anyone wishing to become a good, independent reader, let alone for someone with creative ambitions. Our young correspondents are often shocked that their poem about rebuilding postwar Warsaw or the tragedy of Vietnam might not be good. They’re convinced that honorable intentions preempt form. But if you want to become a decent cobbler, it’s not enough to enthuse over human feet. You have to know your leather, your tools, pick the right pattern, and so forth. . . . It holds true for artistic creation too.”
  
  
• “Perhaps you could learn to love in prose.”

(via The Page)