Oct 20, 2009

but soft!

"... in 1995 Pinsky published a new translation of Dante's Inferno."
so many beautiful works are translated again and again into user-friendly english.
but we be english speakers, thus we must study and take classes to understand the parlance, so old it no longer makes sense to us...for us, Hamlet in English must be performed using the original words!

do other countries re-translate it year after year, excitement and outrage at each new translation, some better some worse?
listening untutored to the archaic speeches in Hamlet would be like listening to a strange opera in an unfamiliar language. quite beautiful, the meaning inferred from the performers' expressions and actions.

oh but we don't think of it as music, as sound, as accoustical performance art.
and does anyone say for example, "but soft!"? How terrible would it be if instead they said "Quiet!" or even "Hush!" or even a whispered "stfu horatio."

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