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Re: Query about Passages from Nabokov (fwd)
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From: Nick Grundy <nick@bsad.org>
Megan Lee:
>
>What short passage (or poem) would you suggest for these students? The
length should be about a half to one page.
If you're looking for something that is itself translated, I've got a soft
spot for Nabokov's translation of Pushkin's "The Name":
The Name
What is my name to you? 'T will die:
a wave that has but rolled to reach
with a lone splash a distant beach;
or in the timbered night a cry ...
'T will leave a lifeless trace among
names on your tablets: the design
of an entangled gravestone line
in an unfathomable tongue.
What is it then? A long-dead past,
lost in the rush of madder dreams,
upon your soul it will not cast
Mnemosyne's pure tender beams.
But if some sorrow comes to you,
utter my name with sighs, and tell
the silence: "Memory is true -
there beats a heart wherein I dwell."
-- Alexander Pushkin
But that's probably just because he slotted "mnemosyne" in there... There
are almost certainly better passages or poems to use if you're looking for
something untranslated.
N.
Megan Lee:
>
>What short passage (or poem) would you suggest for these students? The
length should be about a half to one page.
If you're looking for something that is itself translated, I've got a soft
spot for Nabokov's translation of Pushkin's "The Name":
The Name
What is my name to you? 'T will die:
a wave that has but rolled to reach
with a lone splash a distant beach;
or in the timbered night a cry ...
'T will leave a lifeless trace among
names on your tablets: the design
of an entangled gravestone line
in an unfathomable tongue.
What is it then? A long-dead past,
lost in the rush of madder dreams,
upon your soul it will not cast
Mnemosyne's pure tender beams.
But if some sorrow comes to you,
utter my name with sighs, and tell
the silence: "Memory is true -
there beats a heart wherein I dwell."
-- Alexander Pushkin
But that's probably just because he slotted "mnemosyne" in there... There
are almost certainly better passages or poems to use if you're looking for
something untranslated.
N.