Tag Archives: literature

Robert Hollander: Scholar-Translator

Posted on June 19, 2021 by JMN

Robert Hollander, Princeton Dante scholar and translator, died in April, 2021. The translation of “The Divine Comedy” which he produced in close collaboration with wife Jean Hollander (d. 2019), herself a poet, is said to be among the “smoothest” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged Dante, Italian-English, language, literature, poetry, style, translation | Leave a comment

Sparring With Blushes

Posted on May 27, 2021 by JMN

“My English is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.” (Edward Gibbon) In the Middle Ages, several women poets of Arab Spain (al-Andalus) were known for their erotic and satiric verses composed with … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged language, lexicon, literary criticism, literature, personal, semantics, translation | Leave a comment

In Which the Paladin of the Long Face Gives Wise Counsel to His Squire

Posted on May 19, 2021 by JMN

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged Cervantes, Don Quixote, language, literature, personal | Leave a comment

To China and Back

Posted on May 18, 2021 by JMN

In 1922, Lin Shu translated the first part of “Don Quixote” into classical Chinese. It was published as “The Story of the Enchanted Knight.” Lin Shu knew no Spanish, nor any other western language. A friend who had read two … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged Don Quixote, language, literature, Miguel de Cervantes, translation | Leave a comment

The Rock Pile

Posted on May 14, 2021 by JMN

Dwight Garner’s review of a new biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings* evokes a foible-wracked genius: It’s a pleasure to meet this cursing, hard-drinking, brilliant, self-destructive, car-wrecking, fun-loving, chain-smoking, alligator-hunting, moonshine-making, food-obsessed woman again on the page. The passage that hits … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged biography, language, literature, rhetoric, society, style, writing | Leave a comment

Native ‘Son’

Posted on April 16, 2021 by JMN

A chance juxtaposition of readings* has suggested to me the perennial nature of America’s brutish policing streak. In 1941, Richard Wright’s manuscript novel “The Man Who Lived Underground” is rejected by publishers who are made queasy over scenes of violence: … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged America, culture, language, literature, miscellaneous, rhetoric, Richard Wright, society, writing | Leave a comment

‘Cry of Pain’

Posted on April 15, 2021 by JMN

Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” ruefully ironizes over a lad clever enough to “slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay.” Novelists, though, get more mileage out of superannuated jocks — Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Malamud’s Roy … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged America, culture, language, literary criticism, literature, Paul Theroux, personal, reading, rhetoric, society, style, writing | Leave a comment

Story Power

Posted on March 17, 2021 by JMN

There is one form of power that has fascinated me ever since I was a girl… the power of storytelling. In this May, 2019 essay, novelist Elena Ferrante writes that the “Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) made a great impression … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged coronavirus, culture, language, literature, pandemic, society, translation | Leave a comment

The Humble Art

Posted on March 13, 2021 by JMN

I support the premise, aspirationally, that translation “involves being a writer,” to quote this article. The premise piggybacks on something I took on board long ago — that the first asset of a capable translator is to write well in … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged culture, language, literature, pandemic, poetry, style, translation, writing | Leave a comment

Au Revoir, Dr. Ferlinghetti

Posted on February 24, 2021 by JMN

“In some ways what I really did was mind the store,” he told The Guardian in 2006. “When I arrived in San Francisco in 1951 I was wearing a beret. If anything I was the last of the bohemians rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged culture, French, language, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, literature, painting, personal, poetry, writing | Leave a comment