Sachs, Nelly (Vol. 98) - Burghild O. Holzer (essay date 1985)
Burghild O. Holzer (essay date 1985)
SOURCE: "Concrete (Literal) versus Abstract (Figurative) Translations in Nelly Sachs's Poetry," in Translation Review, No. 18, 1985, pp. 26-9.
[In the following excerpt from her dissertation entitled "Nelly Sachs and Kabbala," Holzer discusses the problem of conveying in other languages the multiple meanings created in Sachs's highly symbolic poetry.]
During the process of translating [Nelly Sachs's] Teile Dich Nacht, I frequently came across individual words that seemed of key importance within a poem but resisted translation. Upon closer inspection of such an obstacle, I would often find that the word functioned both on a literal and a figurative level, and that the English language forced me to make a choice between the two. In German both possibilities would clearly echo within the context of the poem, but in English I would lose that echo. I would then try to comb the poem for clues that...
[The entire page is 2739 words long]
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