The history of Romania is pretty unique in that it has Roman/Dacian influence as well as some Slavic influences. The earliest known piece of writing in Romanian is a letter written to a mayor in 1521. Early literature was mainly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and seems somewhat limited to translations of psalms and the bible. Later, in the 17th Century, European humanism made its way into Romania. At this time Miron Costin and Demetrius Cantemir wrote historical chronicles of Romania.
In the 18th century when Romania was under Ottoman rule, Romania was influenced by Greek culture. Poet Alecu Vacarescu wrote Greek-influenced love poems and his son Iancu was considered the greatest poet of his time. So far as I can tell, nothing from this period is widely available in English. Here is what I think might be a poem by Iancu Vacarescu in Romanian.
In the late 18th Century the Transylvanian School or Şcoala Ardeleană broke out as a cultural response to Romanian nationals in Transylvania being treated as “tolerated citizens” by the ruling class. This school called for a return to the Latin roots of Romania. They began using the latin-based alphabet which eventually supplanted the Cyrillic alphabet in Romania. In the mid-1800s Ion Heliade Radulescu founded the first Romanian- language journal. Also in the second half of that century Vasile Alescsandr was writing. Although he is considered one of the most important writers of that time, I couldn't find any translations. You will have to make do with some of his poems in Romanian. Much more accessible to us English-speakers is Mihai Eminescu. Eminescu is considered the most important and influential Romanian poet. Ever. Also from that period are Alexandru Macedonski and George Cosbuck.
Romania had its own Golden Age around 1918 when it was finally unified. Nationalism and politics influenced such writers as Liviu Rebreanu, Hortensia Papadat Bengescu, Camil Petrescu, George Calinescu and Mihail Adoveanu. Tudor Arghezi was popular at that time, and is considered the first poet to revolutionize poetry since Emanescu. Another poet who was writing at that time is George Bacovia. Also, Ion Barbu. (Note the commentary along with the Barbu translations on the act of translation. It seems to be a theme that Romanian translations are difficult because of the complexities in the way Romanian poets work their language. This is also discussed in this review of a book of Romanian poetry in translation.) Also from this era is Tristan Tzara who left for France and help found Dada. Some other names in Romanian avante garde are Ion Minulescu, Grigore Cugler, Geo Bogza, Barbu Fundoianu, Gellu Naum, Ilarie Voronca and Ion Vinea.
After WWII came communism with its inforced censorship. The Soviets used cultural expression to try and create a new national identity for Romania based on socialist realism. Art went in one of two directions, either glorifying the communist regime or trying to avoid censorship. Out of that second direction came poets Nichita Stanescu (he gets two links) and Morin Sorescu. There was a rift between genuine culture where outstanding works were perceived as moral truths and the culture imposed by the government which spread simplistic views and psuedotruths. Because different ranks in society accepted the official culture more readily than others there still exists some tension within Romanian society.
After the fall of communism in 1989, Romanian culture began to boom. Books that were once censored began to be printed again and many talented writers emerged. Because of economic difficulties often young writers found they couldn't get financial backing for publication unless they were already well known and popular. Nonetheless there are many talented contemporary poets in Romania, some of whom are Mircea Cărtărescu (who also gets two links) Traian Cosovei (who I believe Radu Andriescu references in Bloody Bad Shit, p75 in the anthology), Mariana Marin (also referenced in our anthology, this time by Simone Popescu who wrote a whole poem for her), Florin Iaru, Gheorghe Craciun, Magda Carneci, and Dimitru Ifrim. From our anthology poets, here is another prose poem by Radu Andriescu. Others by Ruxana Cesereanu, Simona Popescu and Saviana Stanescu.
If you want even more Romanian poetry, here's some, and since I've already posted several links to this site, go back for much more Romanian writing in translation, and some English translated into Romanian. And finally if you care, Romania's literature museum.
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As always, the maestro hits a home run: JB has sketched out a great outline within which to think about all the work done in Romanian poetry for the past century. There are a few issues that come up with thinking about these writers, though, the main one being the issue of translation. I'm not intending to get into translation theory (I'm sure it's being discussed in the course), but instead mean to point out how few translators are working on Romanian poetry. You'll notice in New European Poets that Adam J. Sorkin has contributed the vast majority of English renderings (in addition to having selected most of the poets represent as regional editor for Romania & Moldova); the more you read of Romanian poetry translations from the past twenty years, the more you'll know his name. He's very good, but adding his massive output to translations from Brenda Walker, Sean Cotter, and one volume translated by Matthew Zapruder, you've pretty much rounded out the field from the past two decades. Why does this matter?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting because often who we read in English doesn't match who is read by Romanians. Marin Sorescu, for example, enjoys a relatively minor reputation by Romanian standards, despite the international renown of his work. Meanwhile, Nichita Danilov has only one volume translated, while he is television-worthy news here in-country. By means of analogy, this is similar to Romanian interpretations of American literature: here in Romania, Edgar Allen Poe is considered the most significant American poet, even over Whitman, and the Beat Generation is almost completely unknown.
Another point of interest is that since the fall of communism, the forces of literature shifted a great deal based on who was able to claim artistic "integrity" through the regime. For example, here in Transylvania, a small school of poets who didn't enjoy many favors from the party founded a new Faculty of Letters at the university in Brașov. The aforementioned Gheorghe Craciun, with Virgil Podoaba, Alexandru Mușina, Andrei Bodiu, Romulus Bucur, and Caius Dobrescu, came together in an attempt to recreate some of what they admired in the Black Mountain School poets. Romi Bucur (decked out in full denim, as usual) recently talked to me about the urge to depart from the forced lyricism of the communist period, moving into modernisms connected more to utterance and violence to language. This self-distinction, and conscious separation from the work of the past has launched the careers of the current literary leaders. Dobrescu, in particular, is someone who has been growing in importance, as reflected in a recent move this year to lecture at the premier University, University of Bucharest.
A final thought--I'll leave it to you to see how this plays out in the selections from the anthology, but today's working Romanian poets, in separating themselves from the past, have aligned themselves with certain aspects of (what they identify as characterstic) American poetry. You'll see this especially in the use of irony. Adam J. Sorkin's translation of Mariana Marin (my personal favorite of everything available, even if she's not currently working, being dead), absolutely drips with self-directed irony, very much in the manner of Anne Sexton. I've found this curious, particularly since the act of translation often flattens out irony in other European poets. It makes me anxious to see how these poets develop, since so much of what we know about current Romanian poets hinges on their output from the 80s; my suspicion is that we'll see more irony from the work of this decade, as the poets navigate the absurdity of now having to write in the vacuum left by communism and still not quite filled by democracy.
Jeremy, I thank you for your comments on behalf of the entire class, in particular Pia Garber, author of the original post. I think there's something kind of wack about Blogger; it seems like if I invite someone to be an author on the blog, then when they post it sometimes looks like I'm the one who posted. Anyway, again, thanks.
ReplyDeleteAh, my pleasure. Sorry for my confusion. Great post, Pia!
ReplyDeleteDespite my confusion regarding the lack of capital letters and punctuation in many of the Romanian poems, I found the subject matter in the Romanian section to be pretty intriguing. Why? Because I love reading about blood and insults and hate and euphemisms for the abuse of women. I suppose I did expect a little more bloody bat shit, and maybe a little more early-Celan influence, but I'll get over it.
ReplyDeleteThat said (and I don't want to start an argument about translation, ok?), the language in some of these poems is kind of clunky. Part of it has to do with the lack of punctuation and a strange use of the line. I just read "You'll Shrivel Up You'll Be an Exotic Fruit" aloud to myself because some of the insults are quite interesting, and I had a horrible time (usually I enjoy reading poetry aloud). Even though the last stanza of this poem is quite sonic, I still had trouble with those odd breaks.
But there were well-crafted poems in this section as well. "The Killer" achieves the tension it strives for in the first few lines, and "The Barren Woman" uses line breaks that help set up the pacing of the poem.
P.S. Way to go, Hawkins.
I'll weigh in with Kristin here, only to say that my first readings of the Romanians were similarly unsettling in terms of both content and style/form. As Radu Andriescu says, "you can create discomfort," and many of these poets seem to do it well. At the same time, I think it interesting to note that while many of these poems share a penchant for the generally discomforting content of say, an E.A Poe, or a Tudor Arghezi, they do not share these poets' practice of rhyme and meter. An example of Bloom's "Tessera" perhaps? Or is this a good time to argue for the curious powers generated by the juxtaposition of "soothing" forms with relatively "spooky" themes?
ReplyDeleteP.S.
Hawkins, I am glad you are in the company of other denim-clad poets. You must come home as soon as you are ready.
I can only imagine the difficulties translators run into. I agree, Kristin, that some of the language is clunky. 11 May 1998, for example, seems to be a poem that wants to sound very nonchalant, but it ends up sounding more like translation than anything else. Like this "(...we agreed to call them 'tangents'--though it's true I'd often goof up the mickey-mouse shots which meant I wasn't really a good player)". This is picky, but it gets at bigger questions I have about translation (which I know next to nothing about): why "though", and not "although"? While I may use "though" a lot, it's usually self-consciously. My bigger point is to wonder why it's so hard to translate into English effectively. I've been wondering this throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's come up particularly in Romania because these Romanian poems have been my favorite so far. As Hawkins pointed out (Hi Hawkins! Thanks!), irony seems to be becoming an increasingly important tool. I appreciate that, as well as Irony's oafish cousin Sarcasm and its emo little sister Sardonic Ennui. The poems seem a lot less enamoured of the poetic revelation, like the ones we get in Bulgaria, for example. Again, I wonder how much of this is the section editor and how much is the country.
Y'all probably already know this, and Jeremy already gave us a link to one of their books (by Mariana Marin), but Ugly Duckling Press (http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/) has an Eastern European Poets series. The little I've seen of their translations are pretty lively.
Damn that translation issue and its thwarting of every point I'd like to make. Part of me wants to be bullheaded about it (Stupid PigDog American) and say, Hey, I've got these in English, and I want to think about what they're doing in the language I have them in.
ReplyDeleteLike this: what's up with the use of idiom/colloquial expression in the Romanian poems (as they're translated)? I'd like to see how "kicked in the kisser" shakes out in its original language, because I tend to think of "kisser" as an outdated Americanese, and that of the Honeymooners vernacular.
And what of the use of letters spreading out a word, as in "Madi's Laugh" with "wwwwwooooaaaap!" and in "The Infanta Augustina" with "THE GRAAAND PRIZE"? Is this Romanian poetry attempting to appropriate the sounds of onomatopoeia and auctioneer-like call-speech? How interested are the Romanians (not necessarily their translators) in pulling an Eliot and trying to approximate regular, everyday, ordinary human (not, say, poetic) speech?
And while we're on that...what about the use of caps in Romanian poetry? Could this, too, (drat it all!) be an issue of translation? It comes up across multiple poets and translators, so I'm suspicious of saying it IS a translation thing, but I'm suspicious of saying that of anything.
Am I the only one reading too much into the sound play of "Whores" with "Hoarfrost" in "Bloody Bat Shit" or "gaffes" with "giraffes" in "You'll Shrivel Up You'll Be an Exotic Fruit"? Without knowing whether the translators are favoring the spirit of the language or the letter of it, I feel scared to comment on anything here.
I think the argument I'm trying to make is that I am thoroughly unexcellent, even when I post a comment.
I too was stopped by the "kicked in the kisser" reference in the Andriescu poem for the reasons Melissa was, but after further reading I was of the opinion that the phrase might have been the only way to translate the nearly tongue-in-cheek masculinity coloring the poem. It sets the tone right away, and seems much more necessary than using, for example, something like "kicked in the mouth." I think that sense of tongue-in-cheek masculinity can be traced throughout the poem; its structure, with the crass email at the end, lends itself to such a reading.
ReplyDeleteWhether I'm right or wrong in terms of this poem, I think one thing to remember to focus on when reading poetry in translation is what the poem's form might be trying to communicate. Register and structure shifts, line breaks and punctuation all seem to begin to carry more weight in a situation where the original language of the poem, with all its careful word and phrase choices, relatively disappears.