Translating Poetry

Chapter 24 provides a history of thought on poetry translation ranging from the Roman poets translating Greek, to the experiments of Louis and Celia Zukovsky. They explore how poetic forms, for example the haiku and the sonnet, have been introduced to literary systems beyond their origins through translation, and how the poetry of the classical world has been reanimated through modernism’s shifts in practices and views of translation. They discuss the ‘translation’ of texts in a literary context by poets and versioners who may or may not read the source languages concerned. Throughout, the emphasis is on exemplification and on the connection between theoretical perspectives and paratextual reflection.