Mihail Eminescu
(1850-1889)
|
_
|
|
|
Sale price: $15.00
|
|
|
Haunting Hedonism of Sound - by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, University
of Western Ontario
International Comparative Literature
Association
Literary Research/Recherche littéraire 17.34, (Fall - Winter / automne
- hiver, 2000) 447-49
|
Mihai Eminescu, Poezii alese/Selected
Poems. Translations by Adrian George Sahlean; preface by Dumitru Radu Popa.
Bucharest: Univers, 2000; 150 pp.; ISBN: 973340747x (hbk.)
It couldn’t help but be an exercise in fair complexity: the translation
of Eminescu into English is implicitly an exercise in alienation. However,
investing heavily into the figura of this late romantic (“National Poet,”
all right?) is a favorite pastime of Romanian culture. It also is its chief
claim to that superlative realism that aestheticizes nationalism unto the
sacred. In the hottest nationalistic cauldrons of that culture it is held
that Eminescu is “the most complete man of Romanian culture,” and even that
“the 21st century will either be Eminescian or it won’t be at all.” Charged
with such a limpy array of, historical responsibilities that the duty to
beauty did and does impose on his her(m)itage, Eminescu is supposed to be
acidly defaced in translation. Thus, the task of his translator proves to
be as hard as matter: he’s to betray text and country. On the other tongue,
this “untranslatable” poet translates well, in the sense in which the loss
of sublimity can be tamed and retained beautifully. One prime example is
the glossy “Glossa” (1883), a text which has elicited championships of “this-sounds-so-good-in-English-too”
versions. Adrian George Sahlean joins the club, en maître:
Time goes by, time comes along. / All is old and all is new; / What is right
and what is wrong, / You must think and ask of you; / Have no hope and have
no fear, / Waves that rise can never hold; / If they urge or if they cheer,
/ You remain aloof and cold.
Translation is a hellish work, thus not devoid of the pleasure of choosing
– ad infinitum, as the monolingual St. Augustin would have it. Once the code
of trans-lation is found, once the music in-between takes over both choice
and the meanness of meaning, sense begins to flow as freely as language allows.
I suggest that such poems are not translated but “translating”: they become
in the in-betweenness between source and target; unlike both Zeno’s arrow
and the corporate thought of the arriviste, they float Mozart-like. This music’s
accomplished task overcomes the translator; it also overcomes the readers,
no longer pressed to claim the authorship of their reading: to poems in read,
readers in love.
Sahlean has chosen the primacy of music; while loyally and almost flawlessly
rewriting Eminescu’s prosody, he veils the challenges of translation under
the effortlessness of smooth. This is fraught with the dangers of “mere sounding”
that Eminescu himself was warning against: the reader could easily fall into
the melopoea which renders meaning useless, thus offering the faint purposelessness
of a puppet-mirror. Yet, there is redemption in this danger: wearing itself
off in the repetitive patterns characteristic of Eminescu’s prosody, the pleasure
of sound comes to haunt the readers and force them on the escape route from
meaninglessness. This is the hope of meaning that Sahlean’s virtuos(o), soft
versions offer as meaning: one is to – as if in protest – salute their emergence.
Blushing and the sublime don’t translate; but
the subtle reaction to both – melancholy – does, as in Sahlean’s version
of “Peste vîrfuri” (Over treetops, 1883):
Over treetops, white moon wanders / Forest boughs shake gentle leaf / Sounds
a horn with distant grief / Alders bow their heads asunder. // Far away and
even farther, / Softer still, its fading breath / Soothing with a dream of
death / My soul’s unrelenting ardor. // Why your music from me sever / When
I turn to you, forlorn – / Will you sound again sweet horn / For my soul’s
enchantment, ever?
Sahlean is the latest in a line-up of notable translators from the “local
universalism” of Eminescu’s Romanian into today’s oecumene of AmerEnglish.
Rehearsing imperfections which call attention to their virtual elimination
in song, he mutes them after polishing repetitions, and chooses wisely to
let music choose for him. He takes the implacable defeat of translation –
gracefully; grace, thus, awaits the reader. This is how he renders, most memorably,
the stanzas telling of the Evening Star’s flight through space to find the
Maker and ask to be released from cold im-mortality:
A canopy of stars, below; / Above, a starry dome: / An endless lightning
seemed to flow / And through the heavens roam. // And in the dark that streamed
around, / As on the first day’s morn, / He glimpsed the chaos vales unbound
/ From where the light is born. // He flies aswim through seas of light /
With love on wings of thought... / Until all perishes from sight, / Until
all turns to naught; // He goes where there’s no bound or bourn, / Nor is
there eye to know, / And time itself from voids uptorn / Struggles in vain
to grow; // For there is naught, yet it is there / A thirst that draws him
on, / A depth that lingers, like the snare / Of blind oblivion...
The sorts of language draw high and near for any translator of “Luceafarul”
(“The Evening Star,” or “Lucifer,” 1883), the one hundred-stanza poem offered
as the standard and Romantic expression of the impossible love between the
star and a maiden. Petre Grimm translated, à l’ancienne, its first
and fairy-tale-like stanza, as:
There was, as in the fairy tales, / As ne’er in the time’s raid, / There
was, of famous royal blood / A most beautiful maid.
Corneliu M. Popescu, Eminescu’s teenage translator, renders it with British
breath:
Once on a time, as poets sing / High tales with fancy laden, / Born of a
very noble king / There lived a wondrous maiden.
Sahlean’s “no-hiccup, non-nonsense” version runs:
... Now, once upon enchanted time, / As time has never been, / There lived
a princess most divine / Of royal blood and kin.
The bilingual reader, particularly the diasporic intellectual to whose class
the now New England-based Sahlean belongs, can appreciate that these translations
have the energy to build a fictional country for their own dwelling. Heidegger
thought that language is the house of being (it might look so from the unmoved,
Archimedean standpoint of myth-ridden Black Forest), but for an expatriate
like Cioran, la patrie is a tent pitched in the desert. The tent is made of
words, no less, and this country on the move, this transatlantic movement
of people and texts, gives the reader the leisure to repose in between. In
this floating country no Wronglish could be spoken. Sahlean’s versions collapse
the small infinite that separates emigration from immigration with the large
one that looms between source and target. Translation here is a sign of the
easy age where metaphorical exile and actual commuting take over the dramatic
exile of those hard times that make up the human fabric of futures past. Translation
here becomes a faked exile: a self-effacing rendition of Eminescu’s “deportation
in being.” When dis/hardening of meaning, empty words bear lovely music.
Calin-Andrei Mihailescu
University of Western Ontario
|
Eminescu in “New World” culture
Romania Gateway -
Apr 11, 2001
|
A symphonic concert by American composer
William Toutant, on the lyrics of the famous “Glossa” by Romania’s national
poet Mihai Eminescu, has been performed in Los Angeles, California.
The premiere was hosted by the Recital Hall at California State University,
Northridge, on March 16, 2001. The baritone was David Sannerud and the pianist
was Carol Roberts.
The European premiere will take place at Festival Forfest in Kromeriz in
the Czech Republic on June 23, with Petr Matuszek as the baritone and Alexej
Aslamasov on the piano.
Several people among the Romanians who were at the concert commented that
they never thought it would possible to have such a poetically accurate translation
of Eminescu into English.
William Toutant’s composition was inspired by an English version of “Glossa,”
which Toutant had found on the Internet, after his wife had stirred his interest
in Eminescu by presenting him with the bilingual edition of “Luceafarul” (The
Legend of the Evening Star).
In his e-mail to Romania-Gateway, the author of that English version of
Eminescu’s “Glossa” – Adrian G. Sahlean – expressed his pride and satisfaction
with his modest contribution, as a mediator, to making Mihai Eminescu’s work
better known internationally.
BUCHAREST, Apr 11, 2001 – (Romania-Gateway)
|
Editura Univers a lansat un volum bilingv
din poezia lui Eminescu.
Actuala versiune in limba engleza pare sa fie cea mai
buna din toate timpurile.
|
La Uniunea Scriitorilor a avut loc lansarea
volumului de poezii alese (selected poems) din creatia lui Eminescu. Editura
Univers a facut acest efort de a prezenta cititorilor in anul Eminescu o versiune
excelenta in engleza, apartinand lui Adrian George Sáhlean, plecat
din tara din 1985, intemeietor al celebrului grup Song, care si-a continuat
studiile in SUA, sustinand un doctorat in psihanaliza si fiind efectiv un
carturar de valoare pe noul continent. Atasamentul sau pentru Eminescu reprezinta
atat miza unei dorinte personale de desàvarsire, cât si un act
cultural patriotic pentru a face cunoscut lumii nord-americane un poet clasic
important, mai ales intr-o asemenea perioada cand in SUA poezia clasica nu
prea e prizata, iar traducerile cu atat mai putin. Cu câtiva ani in
urma, dl Sahlean, cu ajutorul unor sponsori, a publicat la o editurã
americaná o versiune a Luceafãrului in limba engleza si a intregii
legende ce a generat poemul.
Au prezentat volumul Denisa Comanescu, redactorul sef al Editurii Univers,
redactorul cãrtii, criticul literar Dan Cristea, directorul Editurii
Cartea Româneascà, eseistul Sorin Alexandrescu, consilier al
presedintelui Romãniei, artistul plastic Dan Erceanu, director al Bibliotecii
Nationale, care a discutat meritele realizãrii grafice a cartii, ce
se bucura de ilustratiile cunoscutului grafician si profesor la Academia
de Arte Mircia Dumitrescu. Toti cei care au vorbit au avut in vedere valoarea
si importanta traducerii, considerand-o cea mai reusità de pâná
acum. Eminescu sunã mai bine in engleza decat in franceza tocmai fiindcã
in limba engleza, datorita concretetei unor imagini si a unor structuri lingvistice
scurte si expresive, transpunerea unui poet profund are mai multe sanse de
izbanda decât are in altà limbá. S-a subliniat faptul
cã traducãtórul a reusit sa nu cada in capcana byronismului,
redând spiritul eminescian in asa fel incãt pare mai degraba
inrudit cu Blake sau Coleridge decât cu clasicii romantismului anglo-saxon.
In final, dl Sahlean a citit in engleza ,,Stelele-n cer”, ,,La steaua”, câteva
strofe din ,,Luceafarul”, acordând chiar si un bis reprezentat de celebra
,,Glossá”.
Faptul ca un tãnãr intelectual consimte sa lase pe plan secund
propriul orgoliu creator si isi asuma gestul de umilitate al traducerii este
pana la urma o biruinta de ordin spiritual. In anul Eminescu Editura Univers,
una din primele edituri ale tarii, a adãugat reusitelor editoriale
de pana acum si acest volum de exceptie. (D.S.)
|
ANUL 2000-ANUL EMINESCU - Ipotesti, 14-17
iunie 2000
Decernare medalii / Lansari de carte
Zilele "Mihai Eminescu" 14-17 iunie 2000
|
La Botosani si la Ipotesti, în
perioada 14-17 iunie 2000, au avut loc Zilele Mihai Eminescu, manifestãri
ce fac parte din programul Anul 2000-Anul Eminescu. Organizatorii au fost:
Ministerul Culturii, Consiliul Judetean Botosani, Inspectoratul pentru Culturã
al Judetului Botosani, Memorialul Ipotesti si Centrul Judetean pentru Conservarea
si Valorificarea Traditiei si Creatiei Populare Botosani.
Programul manifestãrilor a cuprins: inaugurarea amfiteatrului
în aer liber din cadrul Complexului Muzeal "Mihai Eminescu", decernarea
premiilor Concursului National de Poezie "Porni Luceafãrul...", un
salon de carte, vernisaje, prezentãri si lansãri de volume,
spectacolul "Doina. Închinare lui Eminescu", sustinut de poetul Cezar
Ivãnescu si de trupa de muzicieni Baad, precum si spectacolul Teatrului
National din Bucuresti "Si mai potoliti-l pe Eminescu", de Cristian Tiberiu
Popescu, în regia lui Grigore Gonta. A avut loc vernisajul expozitiei
de picturã de Horia Bernea în prezenta aristului, care a fost
prezentatã de Constantin Prut si Alexandru Titu. Directorul Memorialului
Ipotesti, Valentin Cosereanu a prezentat CD-ROM-ul "EMINESCU 2000-Opera completã",
volumel I-XVI, proiect realizat în colaborare cu Centrul National de
Studii "Mihai Eminescu" Ipotesti sub egida Ministerului Culturii.Au fost prezente
la toate manifestãrile numeroase personalitãti culturale din
tarã si din strãinãtate.
Un eveniment deosebit a fost conferirea medaliei comemorative "150
de ani de la nasterea lui Mihai Eminescu" pentru contributia deosebitã
în studierea, editarea, promovarea si interpretarea operei lui Eminescu.
Au fost medaliati traducãtori si oameni de culturã din România
si de peste hotare.
Au fost medaliati:
Marco Cugno - Italia
Pham Viet Dao - Vietnam
Kiril Kovaldji - Rusia
Luciano Maia - Brazilia
Emanoil Marcu - România
Paul Miclau - România
Ion Milos - Suedia
Milan Nenadici - Yugoslavia
Adrian George Sahlean - SUA
Christian Schenk - Germania
Simone Reicherts Schenk - Germania
Ileana Ursu - Yugoslavia
Miljurko Vukadinovici - Yugoslavia
Victor Alegria - Brazilia
Dumitru Grumazescu - România
Lucia Olaru Nenati - România
Stefan Nicolau - România
Marius Rogojinschi - România
Medaliile au fost înmînate în
numele presedintelui României de cãtre minstrul Culturii, Ion
Caramitru. Dupã eveniment poezia eminescianã a fost rostitã
în portughezã, englezã,rusã, germanã, kazahã,
vietnamezã, sîrbã, suedezã si, bineînteles,
în românã.
Ceremonia de acordare a medaliei comemorative "150 de ani de la nasterea
lui Mihai Eminescu"
|
Un volume bilingue roumain-anglais Eminescu
(Bucarest Matin)
|
"Bien qu'Eminescu soit considéré
comme un poète intraductible, j'ai commencé à le traduire
simplement par passion", a déclaré Adrian George Sahlean. "La
langue que j'ai inventée pour traduire Eminescu est une langue proche
de celle de la fin du XIXe siècle", a ajouté le traducteur.
Dan Cristea, directeur des éditions "Cartea Romaneasca", présent
au lancement, a estimé que la traduction, "belle et fidèle",
réussissait à transposer en anglais le lexique "simple, mais
pas simpliste" du poète et à conserver la musicalité
des vers. Les illustrations du volume sont réalisées par Mircea
Dumitrescu.
|
|
|
