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Ras Het posted:Poetry is trash. lol at having wrong opinions
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Mar 6, 2015 21:42
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Well you wouldn't be focusing on rhyme there you'd be focusing on alliteration. Seamus Heaney's translation does a decent job of communicating the sound. Didn't a Tolkien translation get published recently? HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum, þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah, oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning! Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned geong in geardum, þone God sende folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat, þe hie ær drugon aldorlease lange hwile; him þæs Liffrea, wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf, Beowulf wæs breme --- blæd wide sprang--- Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, fromum feohgiftumon fæder bearme,
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Mar 6, 2015 21:49
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What really pisses me off? "Translations" of Chaucer. Why not "Translate" Shakespeare while you're at it? Hell, Wordsworth? Walt Whitman? I'm not sure why any of those should piss you off? There are plenty of modern English translations of Shakespeare. The point of these is not as a substitute but as a companion to the original text, because many people find it easier to read original/modern versions side by side than to read the original and stop every two words to look at a footnote. That way you get the meanings but also stay in the flow of the scene. If it helps people learn, what's wrong with it?
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Mar 6, 2015 22:14
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Earwicker posted:I'm not sure why any of those should piss you off? There are plenty of modern English translations of Shakespeare. The point of these is not as a substitute but as a companion to the original text, because many people find it easier to read original/modern versions side by side than to read the original and stop every two words to look at a footnote. That way you get the meanings but also stay in the flow of the scene. If it helps people learn, what's wrong with it? Because they're used as a substitute for reading the original, instead of as a supplement. If it's a side by side two column deal, that's one thing.
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Mar 6, 2015 22:44
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Because they're used as a substitute for reading the original, instead of as a supplement. If it's a side by side two column deal, that's one thing. I'm with you here. Chaucer is the easiest Middle English to read, and it requires a little adjustment but you can get into the swing of things after a while. And plus half the fun is his seemingly effortless rhythm and rhyme. But there's not a lot of ME the lay reader can read without translation.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:03
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Because they're used as a substitute for reading the original, instead of as a supplement. If it's a side by side two column deal, that's one thing. Thats like being mad at the concept of a summary because some people read summaries instead of reading the actual books they are supposed to read. The purpose of modern translations of Chaucer and Shakespeare etc. is to educate, it's not really the fault of the translators if some people use that to be lazy.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:20
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J_RBG posted:I'm with you here. Chaucer is the easiest Middle English to read, and it requires a little adjustment but you can get into the swing of things after a while. And plus half the fun is his seemingly effortless rhythm and rhyme. But there's not a lot of ME the lay reader can read without translation. Malory is easier imo
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Mar 6, 2015 23:21
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What's interesting is to read Chaucer alongside Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. They are roughly contemporary but Chaucer was from London and the author of Gawain was rural. One is part of the English language's direct lineage but the other is almost illegible, despite them ostensibly being the same language.
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Mar 6, 2015 23:21
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Smoking Crow posted:Malory is easier imo From a linguistic standpoint, sure, but I think his prose is pretty difficult compared with Chaucer's verse. Both great fun, though. poisonpill posted:What's interesting is to read Chaucer alongside Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. They are roughly contemporary but Chaucer was from London and the author of Gawain was rural. One is part of the English language's direct lineage but the other is almost illegible, despite them ostensibly being the same language. While that's true, it's worth bearing in mind that it seems like recent scholarship has shown the author also is trying to purposefully use obscure dialect words and archaisms, so it might well have been difficult for its day. But the contrast could not be more marked. I personally prefer SGGK over anything else in the period. It's the best English verse narrative of all time, and nobody can change my mind. 
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Mar 7, 2015 00:05
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Interesting, I had not heard this. Why do they think so?
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Mar 7, 2015 00:15
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Smoking Crow posted:HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum, just give me a week and I got this
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Mar 7, 2015 01:10
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Reading Old English is fun to learn. It's probably a lot easier if you already know some other Germanic language, you can guess the meaning of a lot of the vocab if you know German, Dutch, Frisian or a Nordic language.poisonpill posted:What's interesting is to read Chaucer alongside Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. They are roughly contemporary but Chaucer was from London and the author of Gawain was rural. One is part of the English language's direct lineage but the other is almost illegible, despite them ostensibly being the same language. Yeah as I recall, the Southern dialect of ME became the prestige dialect after Anglo-Norman fell out of use among the nobility, and gradually became dominant. I forgot the details though.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:18
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Smoking Crow posted:Malory is easier imo Malory is early modern english, not middle. The spelling is a little weird and the prose dense, but he's v different from Chaucer. Cf: Chaucer posted:WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot Malory posted:It befel in the dayes of Uther Pendragon, when he was Kynge of all Englond and so regned, that there was a myghty duke in Cornewaill that helde warre ageynst hym long tyme, and the duke was called the Duke of Tnyagil. chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 02:21
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Mel Mudkiper posted:just give me a week and I got this I realize y'all are giving me poo poo but seriously with a good handbook and some audio tapes you do. The grammar is fundamentally pretty similar and there are only like a few thousand total known Old English words, most of them with modern derivatives, so it's genuinely not that hard. Honestly the most difficult part is learning what letters all the little runes stand for. After that it's a week or so of studying vocab, a few hours of listening to tapes so you have the pronunciations right, and you're golden. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 02:25
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That rich estimation of yours is still an absurd amount of effort considering all of Old English literature is basically Beowulf and The Annual Chronicles of Nicholaeus Dickweede of Plymouth Monastery.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:39
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Ras Het posted:That rich estimation of yours is still an absurd amount of effort considering all of Old English literature is basically Beowulf and The Annual Chronicles of Nicholaeus Dickweede of Plymouth Monastery. Book of Exeter
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Mar 7, 2015 02:46
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If we're talking Middle English literature, there's always Sir Tristrem, too. I was at Ertheldoun With Tomas spak Y thare; Ther herd Y rede in roune Who Tristrem gat and bare, Who was king with croun, And who him forsterd yare, And who was bold baroun, As thair elders ware. Bi yere Tomas telles in toun This aventours as thai ware.
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Mar 7, 2015 07:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I realize y'all are giving me poo poo but seriously with a good handbook and some audio tapes you do. The grammar is fundamentally pretty similar and there are only like a few thousand total known Old English words, most of them with modern derivatives, so it's genuinely not that hard. Honestly the most difficult part is learning what letters all the little runes stand for. After that it's a week or so of studying vocab, a few hours of listening to tapes so you have the pronunciations right, and you're golden. Its just amusing to me because I use Beowulf in my ESL classroom as an example of why English is a stupid language
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Mar 7, 2015 09:01
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its just amusing to me because I use Beowulf in my ESL classroom as an example of why English is a stupid language How difficult is it for native English speakers to learn German? To you find it harder than French/Italian or is it about the same?
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Mar 7, 2015 11:02
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Ras Het posted:That rich estimation of yours is still an absurd amount of effort considering all of Old English literature is basically Beowulf and The Annual Chronicles of Nicholaeus Dickweede of Plymouth Monastery. Judith? The Wanderer? Dream of the Rood? True you can fit all OE poetry in one book, but it's a great book if you learn the language.
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Mar 7, 2015 14:25
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Boatswain posted:How difficult is it for native English speakers to learn German? To you find it harder than French/Italian or is it about the same? I don't have a lot of experience with either but its difficult to compare the two because English borrows from romance and germanic languages in different ways so each has its own benefits and difficulties.
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Mar 7, 2015 17:08
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I have learned both French and German to some extent and I did not really find one substantially harder than the other. While we have a lot of vocabulary of French origin, we also have a ton of vocabulary of Germanic origin, as well as a lot of Germanic grammar stuff, so German is still pretty easy for an English speaker to figure out once you get the basics of how the language works.
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Mar 7, 2015 17:25
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Basic German sounds more like ENglish because the most common words sound the same but after that French is probably easier. Once you get past the present tense in German the grammar becomes entirely different to that of English. French just maintains being a little bit different the whole time.
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Mar 7, 2015 17:25
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Hahah so basically my experience is the opposite of what Earwicker said. Ultimately it really depends on how you learn, honestly if you really try and learn either and expose yourself to the language enough you're not going to find one substantially more difficult than the other.
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Mar 7, 2015 17:27
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to be fair I also learned German at a younger age than French and had a close friend who was German at the time so I'd often hear German being spoken when over at his house, that probably made it seem easier however I do think German verb tenses are easier to deal in with in general than French
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Mar 7, 2015 17:30
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Thank you for your inconclusive answers.J_RBG posted:Judith? The Wanderer? Dream of the Rood? True you can fit all OE poetry in one book, but it's a great book if you learn the language. I love The Ruin which I think should feature in most anthologies. A nice chunk of elegy.
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Mar 7, 2015 20:43
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Look, I'm just saying, being able to read & pronounce Middle and Old English got me laid more than once with English majors in college. Also after college. So, you know, fringe benefits.
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Mar 7, 2015 23:13
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End Of Worlds posted:Look, I'm just saying, being able to read & pronounce Middle and Old English got me laid more than once with English majors in college. Also after college. So, you know, fringe benefits. The mægþ love it
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Mar 7, 2015 23:20
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Motto posted:A question about foreign literature: how important is choice of translation? This is an unsolved issue I have had regarding Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe. I had heard that the first English translation wasn't great, it cut out some parts and the translator didn't understand philosophical terms; then an unabridged translation came out and made a bunch of new mistakes instead. Here is one review of the translations (mostly the second one) plus rebuttals, and a review of the reviews. I can see why some people say just learn the original language, it's the best thing to do but can be very hard for some people including myself.
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Mar 8, 2015 17:51
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"just learn the language" is a wayy more feasible proposition for beowulf than it is for, like, in search of lost time
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Mar 8, 2015 21:01
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End Of Worlds posted:"just learn the language" is a wayy more feasible proposition for beowulf than it is for, like, in search of lost time yes but then when you are done reading those texts you'll most likely find that having learned french is quite a bit more useful (for most people) than having learned old english Earwicker fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 21:13
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lol just read translations you nerds
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Mar 8, 2015 21:18
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ulvir posted:lol just read translations you nerds Because of this, youu are now not allowed to post in this thread.
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Mar 8, 2015 21:20
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CestMoi posted:Because of this, youu are now not allowed to post in this thread. 
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Mar 8, 2015 21:23
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ulvir posted:lol just read translations you nerds Well either you learnt Norwegian or you learnt English so you should know how valuable language-ed is
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Mar 8, 2015 22:10
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If you are going to learn a language just for ancient texts quit being a bitch and learn Chinese at least
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Mar 8, 2015 22:36
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Mel Mudkiper posted:If you are going to learn a language just for ancient texts quit being a bitch and learn Chinese at least Yeah, some of those can be funny at least. quote:These seduction cases are the hardest of all. There are five conditions that have to be met before you can succeed. First, you have to be as handsome as Pan An. Second, you need a tool as big as a donkey's. Third, you must be as rich as Deng Tong. Fourth, you must be as forbearing as a needle plying through cotton wool. Fifth, you've got to spend time. It can be done only if you meet these five requirements.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:50
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Mel Mudkiper posted:If you are going to learn a language just for ancient texts quit being a bitch and learn Chinese at least Chinese poetry seems to be awesome from what I've read about it with ideo-/pictographic characters which obviously have amazing potential. However French and German and Italian are more pertinent to me. Arabic also seem interesting because of the very strong literary tradition w/ interesting historical literary criticism.
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Mar 9, 2015 00:23
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i sometimes want to learn chinese so i can read mao and cao cao's poetry for some reason the notion of these brutal warlords writing beautiful poetry strikes a chord in me
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Mar 9, 2015 00:30
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V. Illych L. posted:i sometimes want to learn chinese so i can read mao and cao cao's poetry A few Ottoman sultans wrote poetry, some of it about totally inane state matters, and during one of their many colourful civil wars the warring sultan candidates were sending poetry to each other, basically Abdulhamid, you wretched hound Please return Izmir safe and sound
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Mar 9, 2015 00:38
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