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- Title
Translating Baudelaire.
- Authors
OWEN, JAN
- Abstract
In this article I discuss my approach to translating a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du Mal. I aimed for fidelity of tone, and to stay as close to the diction of Baudelaire's original poems as was consonant with musicality and ease of style, the desired outcome being a natural-sounding and convincing poem in English. I decided on traditional verse form, and on iambic pentameter rather than alexandrines. When omissions or additions to the text or divergences were unavoidable I kept in mind Baudelaire's characteristics of style, diction and tone, his ambivalence, use of synaesthesia, and his sensitivity to sounds, scents and the exotic. My selection of poems was representative of Baudelaire's range, I researched as needed, and I revised obsessively in an attempt to correct blurred, stilted and bumpy lines and phrases.
- Subjects
DICTION; BAUDELAIRE, Charles, 1821-1867; LES Fleurs du Mal (Poem); POETRY (Literary form)
- Publication
AALITRA Review, 2013, Issue 6, p34
- ISSN
1838-1294
- Publication type
Article