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In the looming shadow of an oppressive dictatorship and imminent world war, George Seferis and George Katsimbalis, along with other poets and writers from Greece's fabled Generation of the 1930s, welcomed Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell to their homeland. Together, as they spent evenings in Athenian tavernas, explored the Peloponnese, swam off island beaches, and considered the meaning of Greek life and freedom and art, they seemed to be inventing paradise. In a lyrical blend of personal memoir, literary criticism, and interpretative storytelling, Edmund Keeley takes readers on a journey into the poetry, friendships, and politics of this extraordinary time. A remarkable work of cultural history and imaginative criticism, his book recreates a lost paradise of immediate charm, literary greatness, and mythic reach.… (meer)
I recently had the great good fortune to meet Edmund Keeley and his wife Mary Stathatos-Kyris at a party at the home of Landon and Sarah Jones. I am ashamed to admit that it is evidence of my very bad education that I wasn't familiar with Dr. Keeley's work. Generously, Lanny told me just how accomplished was the charming gentleman with whom I was able to chat for a few moments. I won't give you the full boat, but you can certainly go here for his long list of credentials and accomplishments, although I'm sure you're all far better educated than I and am well acquainted with Dr. Keeley's work. What I will tell you is that Dr. Keeley is the Charles Barnwell Professor of English Emeritus at Princeton University, where he served for some years as the Director of the Creative Writing Program and the Program of Hellenic Studies. He's written novels, poetry and nonfiction, including Cavafy's Alexandria, and is the friend and noted translator of many important Greek poets. I had so much of his work to consider it was difficult to know just where to begin.
I was familiar, in small measure, with some if the poets Dr. Keeley has translated -- Cavafy, George Seferis, Yannis Ritsos, Odysseas Elytis -- and so I began my introduction to Keeley's work by going back to a wonderful anthology I have called Against Forgetting, 20thc. poetry of witness, to re-read the section on "War and Dictatorship in the Mediterranean (1900-1991)" in which their work is anthologized. Sure enough, all are translated by Keeley. It seems I am more familiar with his work that I knew.
The City by Constantine P. Cavafy Translation by Edmund Keeley
You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried like something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally." You won't find a new country, won't find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You'll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses. You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere: there's no ship for you, there's no road. Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.
I don't speak Greek, but I can't imagine the original was more poignant, more evocative. I am often disappointed by translations, not because I can compare them to the original language (I speak only English and a passable French) but because translations often sound rigid to my ears, as though they're trying too hard, calling attention to the translator's effort rather than the author's intention. Invisibility is an art.
TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW, PLEASE GO TO: www.inpraiseofbooks.blogspot.com Thank you. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
--C. P. Cavafy, "Ithaka"
Opdracht
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
In memoriam
Philip Sherrard and Kevin Andrews remember me, . . .
heap my mound by the churning gray surf
so even men to come will learn my story.
--Homer, Odyssey, 11
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
In the spring of 1939, Henry Miller was restless in Paris.
Citaten
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Their story is another story, in part mine as well, and that being so, this seems to me the right moment to end this story, before I'm tempted to start another in the inimitable first-person mode of my elders.
In the looming shadow of an oppressive dictatorship and imminent world war, George Seferis and George Katsimbalis, along with other poets and writers from Greece's fabled Generation of the 1930s, welcomed Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell to their homeland. Together, as they spent evenings in Athenian tavernas, explored the Peloponnese, swam off island beaches, and considered the meaning of Greek life and freedom and art, they seemed to be inventing paradise. In a lyrical blend of personal memoir, literary criticism, and interpretative storytelling, Edmund Keeley takes readers on a journey into the poetry, friendships, and politics of this extraordinary time. A remarkable work of cultural history and imaginative criticism, his book recreates a lost paradise of immediate charm, literary greatness, and mythic reach.
Google Books — Bezig met laden...
(2.67)
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I was familiar, in small measure, with some if the poets Dr. Keeley has translated -- Cavafy, George Seferis, Yannis Ritsos, Odysseas Elytis -- and so I began my introduction to Keeley's work by going back to a wonderful anthology I have called Against Forgetting, 20thc. poetry of witness, to re-read the section on "War and Dictatorship in the Mediterranean (1900-1991)" in which their work is anthologized. Sure enough, all are translated by Keeley. It seems I am more familiar with his work that I knew.
The City
by Constantine P. Cavafy
Translation by Edmund Keeley
You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.
I don't speak Greek, but I can't imagine the original was more poignant, more evocative. I am often disappointed by translations, not because I can compare them to the original language (I speak only English and a passable French) but because translations often sound rigid to my ears, as though they're trying too hard, calling attention to the translator's effort rather than the author's intention. Invisibility is an art.
TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW, PLEASE GO TO: www.inpraiseofbooks.blogspot.com Thank you. (