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Planet News (The Independent Literary Review), Issue No. 45, 1999 |
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Stphane
Mallarm is often approached either with reverance due a god or with the
disdain of ignorance. Happily, Daisy Aldan brings a lifetime of study, her
own opus of poetry and critical work, and a true, intimate bilingualism to a
masterful translation of the major verse poems of Stphane Mallarm, TO
PURIFY THE WORDS OF THE TRIBE, a book with facing French texts that contains
her unsurpassed translation of A Throw of the Dice and illuminating
expositions of each poem. |
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Aldan has
sometimes described herself as a former school teacher. The demystification
of these often unread, misread, and misunderstood poems testify to her
democratic approach as a true pedagogue and to the difficulties of Mallarms
very dense and crafted poems which are explicated with ease and generosity.
The poetry of Mallarm is certainly not for a coven of priestly erudities;
written during a nineteenth century of smokestacks and alienation brings the
history of Western thought and symbolism into the NOW of the poet, into his
life and vision. Thanks to Daisy Aldan, Mallarms work can now be fully
experienced in our language, which is no mean feat. |
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To carry
forth his vision Mallarm had to struggle with the material sordidness of his
age: |
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Let the
dreary smokestacks ceaselessly pour smoke, and let a roving prison of soot
Blot out in the horror of its dismal trains the sun dying in sulfur on the
horizon |
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—The
Sky is dead.—Towards you I hasten! Bestow, O matter, Oblivion of the
cruel Ideal and of Sin Upon this martyr who comes to share the litter Where
the contented herd of humans lies asleep |
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But he
cannot succumb to the temptation to join the crowd, to escape his responsiblity
as a poet: |
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Where
flee in this futile and perverse revolt? I am haunted! The Azure! The Azure!
The Azure! |
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Aldan, to
her credit, serves Mallarm by using her own poetic craft sparingly. In no
way does she recreate the poems. Nor does Aldan aim to complicate matters by
working out rhyme schemes that, in the end, would be extraneous and fail to
do justice to the text. Mallarm is, perhaps the most concise and replete of
poets and to be faithful to his content in an aesthetically satisfying way
needs no rhyme or foot counting, a la franais. Aldan knows, well, when to
stop. |
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The Tomb
of Edgar Poe is an example of a perfectly clear translation without the
distractions of second hand versification. Aldan has the capacity to keep
very close to the original and the skill to move from one language to the
other with the ease and rhythmic nuance that her talent as a poet makes
possible: |
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Just as
eternity transforms him at last unto Himself The Poet rouses with a naked
sword, His age terrified at not having discerned That death was triumphant in
that strange voice |
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They,
like a Hydra; vile spasm on hearing the angel Once give a purer meaning to
the words of the tribe Loudly proclaimed the sorcery drunk In the dishonored
flow of some foul brew... |
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The famously difficult Le Vierge, le Vivace et le Bel
Aujourdhui also illustrates this capacity: |
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Will
virginal, vibrant and beautiful today shatter with a blow of its rapturous
wing this solid lost lake where beneath the frost haunts the transparent
glacier of unrealized flights! |
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When
Aldan paraphrases stanzas of this poem in the section devoted to exposition,
she eschews brilliant interpretation and the art of criticism. Her aim is
simple: to make the poems comprehensible to the reading public. And she
succeeds. |
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The book
concludes with the innovative A Throw of the Dice. Andre Gide called this
the most untranslatable poem in any language, but Daisy Aldans
translation, published in the fifties, was highly acclaimed and brought her
fame in the French community. She was called a Mallarmiste par excellence. |
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The
Throw of the Dice, a poem originally written on music paper, has varying
typeface and the lines of the poem read from one page to the next, across the
inner spine. Each type section (caps, italics, tiny print etc.) can be read
as a separate poem but when everything is read as a whole, it is the main
poem. Each page is, also, an ideogram, with visual appeal...sky, sea, bird,
etc. In this poem Mallarm attempted an evolution of consciousness and the
freeing of Mankind, which was his mission. Daisy Aldan assures that we
experience this. |
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Reprinted
with permission. |
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