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"Rising in speech we do not speak": Lyric Survival in Three Books of German Poetry by Stevens et al.

Authors :
Eeckhout, Bart
Source :
Wallace Stevens Journal; Fall2024, Vol. 48 Issue 2, p154-188, 35p
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

For Judith Butler, the act of translating reminds us that in a global world we need a "multilingual epistemology," but also that all languages have foreignness built into them. A special issue on Wallace Stevens in relation to Germany offers the perfect occasion to investigate how his poetry survives in German. Of the seven book-length collections of Stevens's verse that have appeared in German translation so far, three are retained for analysis: Der Mann mit der blauen Gitarre (1995), Hellwach, am Rande des Schlafs (2011), and Teile einer Welt (2014). After a consideration of the remarkably different ways in which these books present themselves to the reader, and what their respective selection mechanisms are, a discussion of five clustered features seeks to demonstrate how Stevens's German translators combine "domesticating" and "foreignizing" approaches, respond to three formal aspects of his poetry (stanza formation, end rhyme, meter), deal with the sentence unit, arrange and rearrange line endings, and compose German varieties of heteroglossia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
01487132
Volume :
48
Issue :
2
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Wallace Stevens Journal
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
181547766
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1353/wsj.2024.a945705