Colin Holcombe
COLIN JOHN HOLCOMBE
I am not an academic but a private scholar and writer. Until 1988 I worked in geology and mining, leaving as an executive in a major mining finance house. Thereafter I have supported myself in various ways: mining consultancy, technical editing, numismatics and website design / programming.
1. LITERARY WORK & PUBLISHING: 2004-2019: CHILE
SKILL SETS
· Writer: articles, poetry, books.
. Poetry translator: from ten languages.
. Proof-reading and technical editing.
. Ebook and website production.
. Private scholar: numismatics, ebusiness, literary & critical studies.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
I am the senior partner of Ocaso Press Ltda., a Chilean publishing company set up in 2004 to provide translations, guides, novels and poetry of recognized literary quality to schools, universities and discriminating readers across the English-speaking world. Some 30,000 ebooks are downloaded annually from the Ocaso website.
Currently offered are 28 collections of poetry, 3 novels, 4 guides, 10 translations and 49 articles on literary matters.
Translations:
Kalidasa' Meghaduta
Jayadeva's Gita Govinda
Racine's Phaedra
Racine's Athaliah
Sextus PropertiusOdes
Catullus Selections
Virgil's Georgics
Horace's Odes
Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus
Euripides' Medea
Diversions: poetry translations from 9 languages.
Guides:
Verse Writing: A Practical Guide
Types of Literary Criticism
Practical Publishing
A Background to Literary Theory
2. FREE-LANCE EDITOR & PROGRAMMER: 1988-2019: UK & CHILE
3. GEOLOGY & MINING: WORLD-WIDE
I trained in the earth sciences, and divided the first half of my career between mineral exploration in the wilder parts of the world and research/administration in the London HQ of a large mining company.
EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL
B.Sc. (Honors) in Geology: University of Exeter, UK
Teaching Certificate: St. Peter's, UK
Chartered Engineer
Past Fellow, Geological Society of London
Past Fellow, Institution of Mining and Metallurgy
EMPLOYMENT RECORD
1986-88 MINING ADMINISTRATOR, RTZ plc : London UK.
1983-86 TECHNICAL CONSULTANT, RTZ plc : London UK.
1977-80 PROJECT RESEARCH GROUP MANAGER, RTZ plc : London UK.
1976-77 WORLD STUDY GROUP GEOLOGIST, RTZ plc : London UK.
1971-76 SENIOR GEOLOGIST, RIOTINTO BETHLEHEM INDONESIA : Indonesia.
1969-70 SENIOR GEOLOGIST, AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT, N. L. : Australia.
1966-68 GEOLOGIST, RIOFINEX IRAN : Iran.
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Fluid flow and the genesis of sedimentary orebodies. Economic Geology. Vol. 79, 1984.
Intraplate wrench deformation in Iran, Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Geologische Rundschau Vol. 67, 37-48.
How rigid are the lithospheric plates? Fault and shear rotations in southeast Asia. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. 134, 325-42, 1977.
Earthquake foci distribution in the Sunda arc and the rotation of the back-arc area. Tectonophysics, Vol. 43, 169-80, 1977.
I am not an academic but a private scholar and writer. Until 1988 I worked in geology and mining, leaving as an executive in a major mining finance house. Thereafter I have supported myself in various ways: mining consultancy, technical editing, numismatics and website design / programming.
1. LITERARY WORK & PUBLISHING: 2004-2019: CHILE
SKILL SETS
· Writer: articles, poetry, books.
. Poetry translator: from ten languages.
. Proof-reading and technical editing.
. Ebook and website production.
. Private scholar: numismatics, ebusiness, literary & critical studies.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
I am the senior partner of Ocaso Press Ltda., a Chilean publishing company set up in 2004 to provide translations, guides, novels and poetry of recognized literary quality to schools, universities and discriminating readers across the English-speaking world. Some 30,000 ebooks are downloaded annually from the Ocaso website.
Currently offered are 28 collections of poetry, 3 novels, 4 guides, 10 translations and 49 articles on literary matters.
Translations:
Kalidasa' Meghaduta
Jayadeva's Gita Govinda
Racine's Phaedra
Racine's Athaliah
Sextus PropertiusOdes
Catullus Selections
Virgil's Georgics
Horace's Odes
Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus
Euripides' Medea
Diversions: poetry translations from 9 languages.
Guides:
Verse Writing: A Practical Guide
Types of Literary Criticism
Practical Publishing
A Background to Literary Theory
2. FREE-LANCE EDITOR & PROGRAMMER: 1988-2019: UK & CHILE
3. GEOLOGY & MINING: WORLD-WIDE
I trained in the earth sciences, and divided the first half of my career between mineral exploration in the wilder parts of the world and research/administration in the London HQ of a large mining company.
EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL
B.Sc. (Honors) in Geology: University of Exeter, UK
Teaching Certificate: St. Peter's, UK
Chartered Engineer
Past Fellow, Geological Society of London
Past Fellow, Institution of Mining and Metallurgy
EMPLOYMENT RECORD
1986-88 MINING ADMINISTRATOR, RTZ plc : London UK.
1983-86 TECHNICAL CONSULTANT, RTZ plc : London UK.
1977-80 PROJECT RESEARCH GROUP MANAGER, RTZ plc : London UK.
1976-77 WORLD STUDY GROUP GEOLOGIST, RTZ plc : London UK.
1971-76 SENIOR GEOLOGIST, RIOTINTO BETHLEHEM INDONESIA : Indonesia.
1969-70 SENIOR GEOLOGIST, AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT, N. L. : Australia.
1966-68 GEOLOGIST, RIOFINEX IRAN : Iran.
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Fluid flow and the genesis of sedimentary orebodies. Economic Geology. Vol. 79, 1984.
Intraplate wrench deformation in Iran, Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Geologische Rundschau Vol. 67, 37-48.
How rigid are the lithospheric plates? Fault and shear rotations in southeast Asia. Journ. Geol. Soc. Vol. 134, 325-42, 1977.
Earthquake foci distribution in the Sunda arc and the rotation of the back-arc area. Tectonophysics, Vol. 43, 169-80, 1977.
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Cleopatra and Antony’s passion was real, but it was political considerations that brought them together and forged their common destiny. Antony was impetuous by nature, and saw in the 36 BC Parthian adventure a way of becoming the undisputed leader of the Rome world, outdistancing the claims of Octavian, a consummate politician but poor soldier. The adventure failed. Antony could not take the Persian city of Phraaspa, lost his baggage train and was forced to retreat, his army being further reduced by Parthian hostilities, thirst, hunger and disease. Agrippa, Octavian’s talented admiral, who had outwitted Sextus Pompey, first seized Anthony’s Greek forts and then blockaded Anthony’s fleet and army at Actium. The end came a year later, in 30 BC, when the combined forces of Octavian converged on Alexandria. After several one-sided engagements, Anthony committed suicide to avoid further bloodshed, as did Cleopatra a few days later.
The rhyming couplets of the play are written in received British English. The diction is much more formal than American, and there are many phrasing and pronunciation differences: ‘shone’ is pronounced shŏn and not shōn, and so on.
Translations by Colin John Holcombe: Ocaso Press 2023
Notes
A short selection from two centuries of Russian verse, generally of poems well known in the west, but given a new treatment. A total of 41 poets from Prokopovich to Mayakovsky are represented by 118 translations.
There are two volumes, each provided as a free pdf document. One volume consists simply of translations. This second volume consists of extensive (352 pp) of notes, on Russian verse in general, and on the individual translations.
Specimen Translations:
Pushkin: I Loved You
I loved you, love you still, that adoration
perhaps commemorates your lingering sway.
I would not trouble with a dedication,
or have you saddened now in any way.
I loved so silently, so hopelessly,
that all turned envy, as such shyness can.
God grant that true and tender love may be
as fully given by some other man.
Alexy Tolstoy: Do You Remember, Mary?
Do you remember, Mary,
that house of former times,
the sleeping pool and airy
stands of ancient limes?
How silent the alleyways,
the garden's neglected air,
and in the long gallery the gaze
of high-hung portraits there?
Mary, do you remember
with skies at evening time
a softly glowing ember,
how distant bell would chime?
Behind the garden view
how clear the stream would flow,
how gold was corn, how blue
the cornflower steppes would grow?
The wood where we together
first on our own would go?
Mary, do you remember
the days flown long ago?
Pasternak: February
February. Get ink and weep,
then of that sobbing February write.
The tire-track-brindled slush will keep
the springtime burnished black on bright.
Hire a cab for six hryvias,
hear wheels and bells assault the ears;
go back to where the raining has
more noise in it than ink and tears.
The rooks strung out like blackened pears
will fall in thousands from the trees.
They splash in puddles where their cares
bring eye’s dry sadness to its knees.
The thawing parts beneath are black.
The screaming wind is torn to bits.
To random things more truth comes back
than sobbings which some poem fits.
Translations by Colin John Holcombe: Ocaso Press 2023
Translations
A short selection from two centuries of Russian verse, generally of poems well known in the west, but given a new treatment. A total of 41 poets from Prokopovich to Mayakovsky are represented by 118 translations.
There are two volumes, each provided as a free pdf document. The present volume consists simply of translations. A second consists of extensive (352 pp) of notes, on Russian verse in general, and on the individual translations.
Specimen Translations:
Pushkin: I Loved You
I loved you, love you still, that adoration
perhaps commemorates your lingering sway.
I would not trouble with a dedication,
or have you saddened now in any way.
I loved so silently, so hopelessly,
that all turned envy, as such shyness can.
God grant that true and tender love may be
as fully given by some other man.
Alexy Tolstoy: Do You Remember, Mary?
Do you remember, Mary,
that house of former times,
the sleeping pool and airy
stands of ancient limes?
How silent the alleyways,
the garden's neglected air,
and in the long gallery the gaze
of high-hung portraits there?
Mary, do you remember
with skies at evening time
a softly glowing ember,
how distant bell would chime?
Behind the garden view
how clear the stream would flow,
how gold was corn, how blue
the cornflower steppes would grow?
The wood where we together
first on our own would go?
Mary, do you remember
the days flown long ago?
Pasternak: February
February. Get ink and weep,
then of that sobbing February write.
The tire-track-brindled slush will keep
the springtime burnished black on bright.
Hire a cab for six hryvias,
hear wheels and bells assault the ears;
go back to where the raining has
more noise in it than ink and tears.
The rooks strung out like blackened pears
will fall in thousands from the trees.
They splash in puddles where their cares
bring eye’s dry sadness to its knees.
The thawing parts beneath are black.
The screaming wind is torn to bits.
To random things more truth comes back
than sobbings which some poem fits
Literary theory is not a unified, all-embracing theory but a complex assemblage of ideas reflecting a long history of enquiry.
I have tried to provide a clear and balanced account of matters that form the bedrock of critical theory, without evading proper assessment or obscuring the fundamental disagreements between authorities. Rather than blend viewpoints into a general perspective, I have generally thought it better to let the disagreements stand, though sometimes adding an explanation. The section on literature as money, for example, includes a critique of Marx from a mainstream, slightly-right-of-centre political perspective, while the 19th century social history of Britain is based on A.L. Morton's Marxist account. With a similar aim, a summary of Matt Ridley's optimistic neo-liberal outlook on the world is preceded by nine references to authors who have much darker view of mankind's future. Chapter 2 presents literary theory in action, and Chapter 3, by looking at relativism, introduces the more technical and philosophical aspects of the book.
A few topics are treated in some detail to help the researcher in specialist areas - logic, brain functioning, Islamic studies and political economy - but even these are only notes and summaries, i.e. pointers to extensive fields of study that will only come alive and seem persuasive if readers take the time to follow up the references and read further in books and web pages listed here.
The theory sections explain not only what poets are and have been trying to do, but why verse takes its often stylized forms. The opening chapters cover the theory and aesthetics of verse, genre considerations, sentence structure and rhetoric, stanza forms and word choice, sound patterning, metaphor and imagery, metre and rhyme. Then follow chapters on the sonnet, lyrics, rhyming couplets, ode, pastoral elegy, light verse, blank, narrative and dramatic verse, modernist and postmodernist styles, and performance poetry.
The book concludes with a step by step guide to verse construction, a chapter on translating Italian, French, German and Sanskrit poetry into English forms, and a final 50 page bibliography
Excerpt from the Translation: Book One: Invocation
What makes the cornfields prosperous? What star will tell
us turn the earth, Maecenas? How may vines be fastened
to the elm? What husbandry to breed the ox,
or care for herds? What knowledge have the thrifty bees?
With such I start my song. And you, O radiant lights
that through the heavens lead the passing year, and you,
both Liber and propitious Ceres, who have turned
Chaonian acorn lands to thick-sown fields of wheat
and mixed in drafts of Archeloüs new-made wine;
10. and Fauns, you rustic deities who serve for local
powers — so dance you Dryad girls and gods — your gifts
I celebrate. And Neptune giving birth to neighing
horse when your great trident struck the earth, and you,
the dweller of the woods, for whom three hundred head
of snowy cattle browse the Ceos thicket lands;
Tegean Pan that guards the flocks, though much you love
Maenales lands, come, leave your own Lycaeus groves
and favour us; Minerva of the olive gift,
and you, young man, who first revealed the curving plough,
20. Sylvanus, planter of the pliant cypress tree,
and you, obliging gods and goddesses who watch
our fields, to nourish native fruits we have not sown,
and make the heavens so plentifully water crops.
And you, great Caesar, who in time will join the gods,
in unknown company, but choosing, it may be,
to safeguard cities, care for lands, become the source
of wondrous harvest on the widespread earth, the seasons’
potentate that wears his mother’s myrtle crown,
who broods on boundless seas, the sovereign breath
30. that mariners to far-off Thūlē look to, Tēthys
furthers, winning you as son-in-law with waves,
or as a star that lengthens out the warmth of summer
months you blaze in Virgo, free of grasping claws
now fiery Scorpio has withdrawn her arms and left
a worthier portion to you of the heavens. Be as
you will, for Hades wants you not as king, that power
should overwhelm itself, although Ēlysium
bewitched the Greeks, for Prōserpina could not hear
her mother calling and return to earth. Assent
40. to what is here so rashly ventured on, regret
with me our ignorance of country ways, and grow
in your divinity accustomed to our prayers.
Specimen Translations
Carmen One 5
What slim, rich-scented youth, on roses lain,
now courts you, Pyrrha, in the grotto's shade?
Why fasten each blonde skein
of hair into that modest braid?
Unless for one who learns that gods may change,
and even faith must meet adversities
when sudden storm clouds range
across the dark, tempestuous seas.
Yes, he will love you in those golden hours,
for ever beautiful in that rapt gaze.
But swift the light wind lours
on innocence in that soft haze.
Your looks deceive him and outdazzle day,
but more through grief the powerful sea god roves.
With votive hung, I pay
my penance in these storm-drenched clothes.
Carmen Three 2
Once bred to hardship, let the boy advance
until his wartime training take its course,
and check with cavalry and deadly lance
the Parthians' ferocious horse.
Wide skies and constant perils forge a life
that's fit for action. When from walls on high
a warring tyrant's daughter or a wife
look down at him, how much they'll sigh:
'Alas that any bridegroom, new to war,
provoke the lion, for its fierce reply
will make the battleground a waste of gore
for all at arms.' But yet to die
for one's own country is both sweet and just.
Retreat won't spare the coward, though he run
exposing back and knees, for in disgust
comes death to strike the fearful one.
Repugnant to his honour stands defeat:
he keeps unsullied his high conduct still,
nor does he waver, varying to meet
the populace's changing will.
Such death will earn a pathway to the stars
denied the multitude, and virtue brings
contempt for this moist earth that only mars
the paean on its upward wings.
A silence loyally kept is its reward,
and he who Ceres' secrets would reveal
will never find a roof of mine afford
him home, or loose the fettered keel.
The good are often counted one with thieves,
which late-come Justice even then confounds.
But if revenge fall short, she rarely leaves
the criminal whose steps she hounds.
Carmen Four 7
The snows are fled away, the fields new grassed,
and trees are filled with leaves' rebirth.
The streams, diminishing, flow quietly past,
and in its turn is changed the earth.
In blatant nakedness the Graces play,
and with the Nymphs are chorusing:
recall, as hour and year remove the day,
in time there passes everything.
Cold melts before the western winds, and spring
is soon on summer's traces, then
comes autumn with its ripe fruit scattering,
and lifeless winter's chill again.
Though moon on moon makes good the heavens' waste,
we go on deathward still, and must
with Tullus, and with Ancus lie, and haste
with good Aeneas into dust.
Who knows what time we have, if gods on high
will add tomorrow to our wealth?
Take all the hand can grasp, for why deny
your soul what heir will grasp himself?
When you are dead, Torquatus, and must meet
the courts that splendid Minos holds, no stir
of eloquence, or family, or good may cheat
that fate, or make you as you were.
Diana left the pure Hippolytus
where hell with darkness ever reigns.
Nor from best-beloved Pirithoüs
could Theseus loosen Lethe's chains.
This translation into modern English verse of Kalidasa's Meghaduta includes notes and bibliography, but not the Sanskrit text.
Opening excerpt:
A year from amorousness: it passes slowly.
So thought a Yaksha by his master sent,
for scanting duty, to the Rāmagiry:
to mope in penance groves as banishment
by rivers Sītā's bathing there made holy.
Āshādha's ending on the mountain found
him weakened, gold ring slipping from his wrist.
And mixed his pleasure as a cloud came down
so playfully to hug the summit mist,
as elephants in heat will butt the ground.
In tears withheld he took his fall from grace,
from wealth attending on the King of Kings.
The other-world that brimmed in cloudy air
was still discomfort when far longing brings
a breath to hold him to that neck's embrace.
This translation of Jayadev's Gita Govinda into modern English verse includes notes and commentary, but not the Sanskrit text.
Opening Excerpt
With clouds the sky is thickened, and the woodlands
darken with tamāla trees. Tonight
comes Rādhā leading home a doubting someone
near the Yamunā, by Nanda sent:
by every path, and every tree to bower,
to win her Mādhava in honeyed sport.
As speech's deity adorns this house,
by grace of Padmāvatī’s turning feet,
the radiance of poets, Jayadeva,
tells of Vāsudeva and his Shrī.
If, passionate for Krishna’s mind,
you’re keen to learn the arts of love,
then hear the coaxing eloquence
of Jayadeva’s tender verse.
In Temple custom, yes, I come to praise
our God on this revered of solemn days,
and celebrate with you what would be still
were laws as handed down from Sinai’s hill.
How times have changed! For when the dawn’s first red
by sacred trumpet had been heralded,
the Temple with its festooned porticoes
was thronged by worshipers. In endless rows
they progressed to the altar, there to yield
10. the first of fruits they’d gathered from the field,
with blessings of the universal god to ask
that priests were scarcely equal to the task.
But now that one audacious woman’s cast
her shade on blessed occasions of the past,
there are of fervent worshipers but few
who dare recall to us the ways we knew.
The rest are sunk in dire forgetfulness
and even to the shrine of Baal would press,
in shameful mysteries so far gone
20. as curse the name their fathers called upon.
Athaliah soon will leave small doubt
of aims in having even you dragged out,
and in her gloomy savagery reject
those last few vestiges of feigned respect.
Act One (Excerpt)
Scene 1 Hippolytus, Theramenes
HIPPOLYTUS
I leave, Theramenes: my course is set.
No more in pleasant Troezen will I let
myself be agitated by unease.
I start to blush at idleness that sees
my father's six month's leaving us has led
to unknown destinies for that dear head,
which places yet unknown to me may hide.
THERAMENES
Then, Prince, where look for him? I've scoured each side
the oceans bounding Corinth for some word
10. of Theseus, what was rumoured, who had heard.
My search to calm your natural fears has led
to shores where Acheron fades into the dead.
I've called at Elis and from Taenarus
surveyed the waters swallowing Icarus.
What makes you think that through some happy place
the steps of our dear hero left their trace?
Perhaps the king, your father, is not prone
to have the secrets of his absence known
and while we tremble for his life he stays
20. in blessed tranquillity, in hiding plays
with some new love who cannot yet suspect . . .
The translations in this book include the more important odes, namely On the Death of Prince Meshchersky (1779), To Rulers and Judges (1780) Felitsa (1782), God (1785), the opening excerpt from the Waterfall (1794), written on the death of Prince Potemkin, and the Bullfinch (1800), which served as a short elegy on the death of his friend, Marshall Suvorov. Also included are the attractively informal Invitation to Dinner (1795), and Life at Zvanka (1807).
Line lengths and rhyme schemes have been retained, but the soft feminine rhymes, common in Russian verse, have been replaced by English masculine rhymes. The translation is also more conventional than the original rather craggy Russian.
The 2022 edition has a few corrections and verse improvements.
Sample: Opening of ‘To Rulers and Judges’:
The most high God has risen: He
will judge how earthly gods have fared.
How long, saith He, can evil be
unpunished and the guilty spared?
5. Your duty speaks: uphold the laws,
refuse the bidding of the strong:
defenceless ones should be your cause,
no widow or the orphan wrong.
Protect the innocent from harm,
10. unhappy ones where hardship reigns.
Protect the weak from might’s strong arm,
and free the poor from heavy chains.
Cleopatra and Antony’s passion was real, but it was political considerations that brought them together and forged their common destiny. Antony was impetuous by nature, and saw in the 36 BC Parthian adventure a way of becoming the undisputed leader of the Rome world, outdistancing the claims of Octavian, a consummate politician but poor soldier. The adventure failed. Antony could not take the Persian city of Phraaspa, lost his baggage train and was forced to retreat, his army being further reduced by Parthian hostilities, thirst, hunger and disease. Agrippa, Octavian’s talented admiral, who had outwitted Sextus Pompey, first seized Anthony’s Greek forts and then blockaded Anthony’s fleet and army at Actium. The end came a year later, in 30 BC, when the combined forces of Octavian converged on Alexandria. After several one-sided engagements, Anthony committed suicide to avoid further bloodshed, as did Cleopatra a few days later.
The rhyming couplets of the play are written in received British English. The diction is much more formal than American, and there are many phrasing and pronunciation differences: ‘shone’ is pronounced shŏn and not shōn, and so on.
Translations by Colin John Holcombe: Ocaso Press 2023
Notes
A short selection from two centuries of Russian verse, generally of poems well known in the west, but given a new treatment. A total of 41 poets from Prokopovich to Mayakovsky are represented by 118 translations.
There are two volumes, each provided as a free pdf document. One volume consists simply of translations. This second volume consists of extensive (352 pp) of notes, on Russian verse in general, and on the individual translations.
Specimen Translations:
Pushkin: I Loved You
I loved you, love you still, that adoration
perhaps commemorates your lingering sway.
I would not trouble with a dedication,
or have you saddened now in any way.
I loved so silently, so hopelessly,
that all turned envy, as such shyness can.
God grant that true and tender love may be
as fully given by some other man.
Alexy Tolstoy: Do You Remember, Mary?
Do you remember, Mary,
that house of former times,
the sleeping pool and airy
stands of ancient limes?
How silent the alleyways,
the garden's neglected air,
and in the long gallery the gaze
of high-hung portraits there?
Mary, do you remember
with skies at evening time
a softly glowing ember,
how distant bell would chime?
Behind the garden view
how clear the stream would flow,
how gold was corn, how blue
the cornflower steppes would grow?
The wood where we together
first on our own would go?
Mary, do you remember
the days flown long ago?
Pasternak: February
February. Get ink and weep,
then of that sobbing February write.
The tire-track-brindled slush will keep
the springtime burnished black on bright.
Hire a cab for six hryvias,
hear wheels and bells assault the ears;
go back to where the raining has
more noise in it than ink and tears.
The rooks strung out like blackened pears
will fall in thousands from the trees.
They splash in puddles where their cares
bring eye’s dry sadness to its knees.
The thawing parts beneath are black.
The screaming wind is torn to bits.
To random things more truth comes back
than sobbings which some poem fits.
Translations by Colin John Holcombe: Ocaso Press 2023
Translations
A short selection from two centuries of Russian verse, generally of poems well known in the west, but given a new treatment. A total of 41 poets from Prokopovich to Mayakovsky are represented by 118 translations.
There are two volumes, each provided as a free pdf document. The present volume consists simply of translations. A second consists of extensive (352 pp) of notes, on Russian verse in general, and on the individual translations.
Specimen Translations:
Pushkin: I Loved You
I loved you, love you still, that adoration
perhaps commemorates your lingering sway.
I would not trouble with a dedication,
or have you saddened now in any way.
I loved so silently, so hopelessly,
that all turned envy, as such shyness can.
God grant that true and tender love may be
as fully given by some other man.
Alexy Tolstoy: Do You Remember, Mary?
Do you remember, Mary,
that house of former times,
the sleeping pool and airy
stands of ancient limes?
How silent the alleyways,
the garden's neglected air,
and in the long gallery the gaze
of high-hung portraits there?
Mary, do you remember
with skies at evening time
a softly glowing ember,
how distant bell would chime?
Behind the garden view
how clear the stream would flow,
how gold was corn, how blue
the cornflower steppes would grow?
The wood where we together
first on our own would go?
Mary, do you remember
the days flown long ago?
Pasternak: February
February. Get ink and weep,
then of that sobbing February write.
The tire-track-brindled slush will keep
the springtime burnished black on bright.
Hire a cab for six hryvias,
hear wheels and bells assault the ears;
go back to where the raining has
more noise in it than ink and tears.
The rooks strung out like blackened pears
will fall in thousands from the trees.
They splash in puddles where their cares
bring eye’s dry sadness to its knees.
The thawing parts beneath are black.
The screaming wind is torn to bits.
To random things more truth comes back
than sobbings which some poem fits
Literary theory is not a unified, all-embracing theory but a complex assemblage of ideas reflecting a long history of enquiry.
I have tried to provide a clear and balanced account of matters that form the bedrock of critical theory, without evading proper assessment or obscuring the fundamental disagreements between authorities. Rather than blend viewpoints into a general perspective, I have generally thought it better to let the disagreements stand, though sometimes adding an explanation. The section on literature as money, for example, includes a critique of Marx from a mainstream, slightly-right-of-centre political perspective, while the 19th century social history of Britain is based on A.L. Morton's Marxist account. With a similar aim, a summary of Matt Ridley's optimistic neo-liberal outlook on the world is preceded by nine references to authors who have much darker view of mankind's future. Chapter 2 presents literary theory in action, and Chapter 3, by looking at relativism, introduces the more technical and philosophical aspects of the book.
A few topics are treated in some detail to help the researcher in specialist areas - logic, brain functioning, Islamic studies and political economy - but even these are only notes and summaries, i.e. pointers to extensive fields of study that will only come alive and seem persuasive if readers take the time to follow up the references and read further in books and web pages listed here.
The theory sections explain not only what poets are and have been trying to do, but why verse takes its often stylized forms. The opening chapters cover the theory and aesthetics of verse, genre considerations, sentence structure and rhetoric, stanza forms and word choice, sound patterning, metaphor and imagery, metre and rhyme. Then follow chapters on the sonnet, lyrics, rhyming couplets, ode, pastoral elegy, light verse, blank, narrative and dramatic verse, modernist and postmodernist styles, and performance poetry.
The book concludes with a step by step guide to verse construction, a chapter on translating Italian, French, German and Sanskrit poetry into English forms, and a final 50 page bibliography
Excerpt from the Translation: Book One: Invocation
What makes the cornfields prosperous? What star will tell
us turn the earth, Maecenas? How may vines be fastened
to the elm? What husbandry to breed the ox,
or care for herds? What knowledge have the thrifty bees?
With such I start my song. And you, O radiant lights
that through the heavens lead the passing year, and you,
both Liber and propitious Ceres, who have turned
Chaonian acorn lands to thick-sown fields of wheat
and mixed in drafts of Archeloüs new-made wine;
10. and Fauns, you rustic deities who serve for local
powers — so dance you Dryad girls and gods — your gifts
I celebrate. And Neptune giving birth to neighing
horse when your great trident struck the earth, and you,
the dweller of the woods, for whom three hundred head
of snowy cattle browse the Ceos thicket lands;
Tegean Pan that guards the flocks, though much you love
Maenales lands, come, leave your own Lycaeus groves
and favour us; Minerva of the olive gift,
and you, young man, who first revealed the curving plough,
20. Sylvanus, planter of the pliant cypress tree,
and you, obliging gods and goddesses who watch
our fields, to nourish native fruits we have not sown,
and make the heavens so plentifully water crops.
And you, great Caesar, who in time will join the gods,
in unknown company, but choosing, it may be,
to safeguard cities, care for lands, become the source
of wondrous harvest on the widespread earth, the seasons’
potentate that wears his mother’s myrtle crown,
who broods on boundless seas, the sovereign breath
30. that mariners to far-off Thūlē look to, Tēthys
furthers, winning you as son-in-law with waves,
or as a star that lengthens out the warmth of summer
months you blaze in Virgo, free of grasping claws
now fiery Scorpio has withdrawn her arms and left
a worthier portion to you of the heavens. Be as
you will, for Hades wants you not as king, that power
should overwhelm itself, although Ēlysium
bewitched the Greeks, for Prōserpina could not hear
her mother calling and return to earth. Assent
40. to what is here so rashly ventured on, regret
with me our ignorance of country ways, and grow
in your divinity accustomed to our prayers.
Specimen Translations
Carmen One 5
What slim, rich-scented youth, on roses lain,
now courts you, Pyrrha, in the grotto's shade?
Why fasten each blonde skein
of hair into that modest braid?
Unless for one who learns that gods may change,
and even faith must meet adversities
when sudden storm clouds range
across the dark, tempestuous seas.
Yes, he will love you in those golden hours,
for ever beautiful in that rapt gaze.
But swift the light wind lours
on innocence in that soft haze.
Your looks deceive him and outdazzle day,
but more through grief the powerful sea god roves.
With votive hung, I pay
my penance in these storm-drenched clothes.
Carmen Three 2
Once bred to hardship, let the boy advance
until his wartime training take its course,
and check with cavalry and deadly lance
the Parthians' ferocious horse.
Wide skies and constant perils forge a life
that's fit for action. When from walls on high
a warring tyrant's daughter or a wife
look down at him, how much they'll sigh:
'Alas that any bridegroom, new to war,
provoke the lion, for its fierce reply
will make the battleground a waste of gore
for all at arms.' But yet to die
for one's own country is both sweet and just.
Retreat won't spare the coward, though he run
exposing back and knees, for in disgust
comes death to strike the fearful one.
Repugnant to his honour stands defeat:
he keeps unsullied his high conduct still,
nor does he waver, varying to meet
the populace's changing will.
Such death will earn a pathway to the stars
denied the multitude, and virtue brings
contempt for this moist earth that only mars
the paean on its upward wings.
A silence loyally kept is its reward,
and he who Ceres' secrets would reveal
will never find a roof of mine afford
him home, or loose the fettered keel.
The good are often counted one with thieves,
which late-come Justice even then confounds.
But if revenge fall short, she rarely leaves
the criminal whose steps she hounds.
Carmen Four 7
The snows are fled away, the fields new grassed,
and trees are filled with leaves' rebirth.
The streams, diminishing, flow quietly past,
and in its turn is changed the earth.
In blatant nakedness the Graces play,
and with the Nymphs are chorusing:
recall, as hour and year remove the day,
in time there passes everything.
Cold melts before the western winds, and spring
is soon on summer's traces, then
comes autumn with its ripe fruit scattering,
and lifeless winter's chill again.
Though moon on moon makes good the heavens' waste,
we go on deathward still, and must
with Tullus, and with Ancus lie, and haste
with good Aeneas into dust.
Who knows what time we have, if gods on high
will add tomorrow to our wealth?
Take all the hand can grasp, for why deny
your soul what heir will grasp himself?
When you are dead, Torquatus, and must meet
the courts that splendid Minos holds, no stir
of eloquence, or family, or good may cheat
that fate, or make you as you were.
Diana left the pure Hippolytus
where hell with darkness ever reigns.
Nor from best-beloved Pirithoüs
could Theseus loosen Lethe's chains.
This translation into modern English verse of Kalidasa's Meghaduta includes notes and bibliography, but not the Sanskrit text.
Opening excerpt:
A year from amorousness: it passes slowly.
So thought a Yaksha by his master sent,
for scanting duty, to the Rāmagiry:
to mope in penance groves as banishment
by rivers Sītā's bathing there made holy.
Āshādha's ending on the mountain found
him weakened, gold ring slipping from his wrist.
And mixed his pleasure as a cloud came down
so playfully to hug the summit mist,
as elephants in heat will butt the ground.
In tears withheld he took his fall from grace,
from wealth attending on the King of Kings.
The other-world that brimmed in cloudy air
was still discomfort when far longing brings
a breath to hold him to that neck's embrace.
This translation of Jayadev's Gita Govinda into modern English verse includes notes and commentary, but not the Sanskrit text.
Opening Excerpt
With clouds the sky is thickened, and the woodlands
darken with tamāla trees. Tonight
comes Rādhā leading home a doubting someone
near the Yamunā, by Nanda sent:
by every path, and every tree to bower,
to win her Mādhava in honeyed sport.
As speech's deity adorns this house,
by grace of Padmāvatī’s turning feet,
the radiance of poets, Jayadeva,
tells of Vāsudeva and his Shrī.
If, passionate for Krishna’s mind,
you’re keen to learn the arts of love,
then hear the coaxing eloquence
of Jayadeva’s tender verse.
In Temple custom, yes, I come to praise
our God on this revered of solemn days,
and celebrate with you what would be still
were laws as handed down from Sinai’s hill.
How times have changed! For when the dawn’s first red
by sacred trumpet had been heralded,
the Temple with its festooned porticoes
was thronged by worshipers. In endless rows
they progressed to the altar, there to yield
10. the first of fruits they’d gathered from the field,
with blessings of the universal god to ask
that priests were scarcely equal to the task.
But now that one audacious woman’s cast
her shade on blessed occasions of the past,
there are of fervent worshipers but few
who dare recall to us the ways we knew.
The rest are sunk in dire forgetfulness
and even to the shrine of Baal would press,
in shameful mysteries so far gone
20. as curse the name their fathers called upon.
Athaliah soon will leave small doubt
of aims in having even you dragged out,
and in her gloomy savagery reject
those last few vestiges of feigned respect.
Act One (Excerpt)
Scene 1 Hippolytus, Theramenes
HIPPOLYTUS
I leave, Theramenes: my course is set.
No more in pleasant Troezen will I let
myself be agitated by unease.
I start to blush at idleness that sees
my father's six month's leaving us has led
to unknown destinies for that dear head,
which places yet unknown to me may hide.
THERAMENES
Then, Prince, where look for him? I've scoured each side
the oceans bounding Corinth for some word
10. of Theseus, what was rumoured, who had heard.
My search to calm your natural fears has led
to shores where Acheron fades into the dead.
I've called at Elis and from Taenarus
surveyed the waters swallowing Icarus.
What makes you think that through some happy place
the steps of our dear hero left their trace?
Perhaps the king, your father, is not prone
to have the secrets of his absence known
and while we tremble for his life he stays
20. in blessed tranquillity, in hiding plays
with some new love who cannot yet suspect . . .
The translations in this book include the more important odes, namely On the Death of Prince Meshchersky (1779), To Rulers and Judges (1780) Felitsa (1782), God (1785), the opening excerpt from the Waterfall (1794), written on the death of Prince Potemkin, and the Bullfinch (1800), which served as a short elegy on the death of his friend, Marshall Suvorov. Also included are the attractively informal Invitation to Dinner (1795), and Life at Zvanka (1807).
Line lengths and rhyme schemes have been retained, but the soft feminine rhymes, common in Russian verse, have been replaced by English masculine rhymes. The translation is also more conventional than the original rather craggy Russian.
The 2022 edition has a few corrections and verse improvements.
Sample: Opening of ‘To Rulers and Judges’:
The most high God has risen: He
will judge how earthly gods have fared.
How long, saith He, can evil be
unpunished and the guilty spared?
5. Your duty speaks: uphold the laws,
refuse the bidding of the strong:
defenceless ones should be your cause,
no widow or the orphan wrong.
Protect the innocent from harm,
10. unhappy ones where hardship reigns.
Protect the weak from might’s strong arm,
and free the poor from heavy chains.
The free pdf ebook translates fifty of Bunin's most representative pieces. Each is given with facing Russian text, and the ebook includes an extensive Appendix providing literal and prosody renderings, links to critical articles and audio recordings, and important references.
Colin Holcombe’s translation of Pushkin’s The Gypsies includes the usual scholarly apparatus ― introduction, formal translation and facing Russian text, glossary, prosody and word-for-word rendering, references and selected resources ― but aims to provide a pleasing text in acceptable English verse. Pushkin’s rhyme schemes are faithfully reproduced, but with masculine rhymes substituting for feminine. The translation opens with:
The gypsies in their noisy way
that far through Bessarabia roam
are camped across the river, stay
in threadbare tents that make their home.
5. But they are free. The heavens keep
their welcome for this peaceful race.
Between the wagon wheels they sleep:
the folded rugs give each his place.
A fire burns. Around the blaze
10. are people on their dinner bent.
In open fields the horses graze;
a tame bear’s loose behind the tent.
The steppelands come alive with sound
when on the morrow all are found —
15. while children cry, and women sing —
to exit from their camping ground
to beats the marching anvils bring.
For now there’s only silence where
the night for nomads takes its course.
20. The bark of dog or neigh of horse
comes thinly through the steppeland air.
Literary theory is not a unified, all-embracing theory but a complex assemblage of ideas reflecting a long history of enquiry.
I have tried to provide a clear and balanced account of matters that form the bedrock of critical theory, without evading proper assessment or obscuring the fundamental disagreements between authorities. Rather than blend viewpoints into a general perspective, I have generally thought it better to let the disagreements stand, though sometimes adding an explanation. The section on literature as money, for example, includes a critique of Marx from a mainstream, slightly-right-of-centre political perspective, while the 19th century social history of Britain is based on A.L. Morton's Marxist account. With a similar aim, a summary of Matt Ridley's optimistic neo-liberal outlook on the world is preceded by nine references to authors who have much darker view of mankind's future. Chapter 2 presents literary theory in action, and Chapter 3, by looking at relativism, introduces the more technical and philosophical aspects of the book.
A few topics are treated in some detail to help the researcher in specialist areas - logic, brain functioning, Islamic studies and political economy - but even these are only notes and summaries, i.e. pointers to extensive fields of study that will only come alive and seem persuasive if readers take the time to follow up the references and read further in books and web pages listed here