Tag Archive: 0translation

I’ve blogged before about translating, and then setting, the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. As yesterday was International Translation Day, I thought this week I’d write about another piece of mine, At Cana. This was actually what first brought me to Rilke, when, in 2019, I was looking for a text to set for a […]

This book (a first edition, privately printed on the Royal estate at Windsor) describes itself as ‘The gift of the Queen, to her beloved daughters, Charlotte Aug: Matilda.  Augusta Sophia.  Elizabeth.  Mary.  And Sophia.  And with Her Majesty’s permission dedicated to their Royal Highnesses by the Translator Ellis Cornelia Knight’ (p. [3]).  Cornelia Knight (1757–1837)—novelist, poet, […]

Years ago, in my final year as a undergraduate, I took a course on the medieval German epic. I was attracted by the idea of reading old German texts–Tristan and Isolde, Wolfram von Eschenbach‘s Parzival, the Nibelungenlied–although I soon wondered whether the choice was such a good idea when I realised quite how long they […]

This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott, the great Scottish writer. A few years ago, I managed to visit his house, Abbotsford, when I was up in Edinburgh for the book fair. Sadly, the fair didn’t take place last year, but hopefully it will be back later in 2021. […]

This is a copy of the first edition in English of Bettina von Arnim’s first book, Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (1835), translated in part by the author herself and privately printed in Berlin.  ‘The printing had almost come to end [sic], when by a variance between the printer and the translator, it was interrupted; […]

I had a very nice response to last week’s post, on Anna Akhmatova. This week, I thought I’d write about another poet I have translated: Gottfried Benn. I originally came across his first published poem sequence, Morgue (1912), when I was at university and had always been disappointed at other English translations which, to me […]