Comparison of translations of The Seafarer by Burton Raffel and Ezra Pound

Promt: Compare the two versions of The diddley by Raffel and outsmart and take back reasoning for why one is a break in translation, in terms of preserving the Anglo-Saxon poetical tradition and the general opinion of the metrical composition.

It would not be possible to translate The Seafarer perfectly, retention all of its patently Anglo-Saxon poetic devices intact. Because much of their poetic tradition involves the sounds of the boys themselves, un little there were similar-sounding synonyms in modern side for each there is no delegacy to duplicate the current feel. Regardless, two of the translations we looked at took some(a) measures to preserve the Anglo-Saxon fine art that went into The Seafarer. The translation by Ezra whip did more(prenominal) to capture the cowcatcher essence of the metrical composition than Burton Raffels version, though.

The differences begin at mental strain one. Raffel takes the limit and translates it for stringenting, ignoring the playscript order. Pounds version, on the other hand, keeps the word order by and large the same as the original, even though the syntax doesnt truly make sense. Raffels word of mouth is more immediately understandable, besides it loses some of the meaning and makes it sound less like a poem and more like the beginning to any old story. In the secondment line Raffel moves even farther from the original, while Pound once over again adopts as similar a word order as possible, and even has some of the alliteration. Line triad has only three words, but Raffel scantypolates a few extra meanings from the word earfoth, meaning harsh, and throwian, to suffer. His interpretation seems technically accurate, but Pound uses less words to make the line feel more like its Old English counterpart. He even keeps the word oft, since its meaning has not really diversifyd. Theres more alliteration in line four, and once again Pound elects to stay align to the poetics while Raffels translation talks about a century ships, something apparently invented by the translator himself.

In the second fractional of the poem Pound continues to do a much better job of representing the original material. In the fifth line he mentions a keep, which at first seemed strange, but then I realized that maybe he is referring to a castle, which would make sense because the word seld means throne or high seat. Raffel kinda talks about a thousand ports, once again inventing a number and at the same time development a word that was not in the poem, or at least not explicitly. But in the next line it is Pound who adds a half-line of his own creation to preface the line after. The first half of line six is a fairly direct translation in his though, as is Raffels. In the second half of his own translation Raffel talks about sweat in the cold, once again seemingly not link to the original but reasonable in terms of general meaning. Pound uses more alliteration in line seven, fairly closely mimicking the sound of the Anglo-Saxon version as headspring as the meaning.



Raffel is uncharacteristically accurate here as well, but he does not try to duplicate the alliteration. Pound and Raffel both treat the last line similarly, but Pound took it to mean the ship came close to wrecking, whereas Raffel interpreted it as the ship existence smashed. Raffel seems to actually have the original text in his advance here for once, although Pounds still retains more of the original wording. Pound did change the ?he? of the ship to a ?she? to fit the English way of referring to boats. I dont like this change as it takes away from the regular(a) Anglo-Saxon feel, but it is really pretty minor.

From my analysis of the antithetical translations of The Seafarer, its pretty clear which one is more successful at imitating the Anglo-Saxon poetic traditions and style. Ezra Pounds The Seafarer is still understandable notwithstanding the mixed word order, just as the original poem may have been a bit confusing, but overall comprehensible, to a speaker of Old English. The version by Raffel seems less foreign and confusing, but it loses some of its complexity and overall poetic feel. Pound does a superior job of mixing Anglo-Saxon tradition with modern English words.

BibliographyTranslation of The Seafarer by Burton RaffelTranslation of The Seafarer by Ezra Pound

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