I must say, I liked Armitage's translation when it came out and was shocked to find that my teachers, and the medievalist academic blogosphere, did not. So I may have over-corrected in my opinion - it's possible academic opinion has mellowed a bit.
I don't think an accurate verse translation of SGGK is possible. Chaucer one could do, but that would be very light work indeed, more 'modernisation' than translation proper. If you want a *poetic rendering* you have to sacrifice a lot of accuracy and a lot of the richness of allusion and repetition in the original.
Oh *I* remember the one I like. The Oxford World's Classics translation, which is in verse and alliterated but doesn't observe such a rigid form as Armitage's, to much better effect. I've never actually owned a copy, though...
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-11-25 07:38 pm (UTC)I don't think an accurate verse translation of SGGK is possible. Chaucer one could do, but that would be very light work indeed, more 'modernisation' than translation proper. If you want a *poetic rendering* you have to sacrifice a lot of accuracy and a lot of the richness of allusion and repetition in the original.
Oh *I* remember the one I like. The Oxford World's Classics translation, which is in verse and alliterated but doesn't observe such a rigid form as Armitage's, to much better effect. I've never actually owned a copy, though...