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Sep. 7th, 2011 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poor_medeaSo, for my PhD, there's a book I really should read, but it's in German, and I don't speak German.
I've given up on ever knowing what's in it, but in ANOTHER book, someone has quoted just a paragraph, that I suspect is important.
I've done babelfish and google translate, and gotten the gist of it, but I was wondering if anyone could give me a less ridiculous translation of this paragraph:
Wenn O’Shaughnessy die kaum merliche stoffliche Abhängigkeit seines Werkes von dem der altfranzösischen Dichterin durch verschiedene Zitate aus Marie’s Lais hervorzuheben scheint, wenn er ausserdem diesen Zitaten noch Stellen aus zwei weiteren mittelalterlichen Literaturdenkmälern anreiht, so haben ihn dazu offenbar die damalige ganz romantische Zeitströmung im englischen Schrifttum mit ihrer ausgesprochenen Bevorzugung alles Mittealterlichen, wie auch seine eigene allgemeine Neigung zu französischer Sprache und Literatur und sein Verkehr im Kreise der in ihren Kunstbestrebungen mit Vorliebe der fernen Vergangenheit huldigenden Präraffaeliten veranlasst. Doch schwebte O’Shaughnessy bei der Schaffung seiner Lays als eigentliches Ziel nicht etwa gewollt archaisierende Dichtung vor, sondern vielmehr—so darf man wohl mit Recht vermuten—ein gross angelegtes Meisterwerk individuellster Art, zu dem ihm die unfangreichen Laidichtungen der Marie de France lediglich wilkommene stoffliche Anregung geben konnten.
I would be SO, SO grateful.
I've given up on ever knowing what's in it, but in ANOTHER book, someone has quoted just a paragraph, that I suspect is important.
I've done babelfish and google translate, and gotten the gist of it, but I was wondering if anyone could give me a less ridiculous translation of this paragraph:
Wenn O’Shaughnessy die kaum merliche stoffliche Abhängigkeit seines Werkes von dem der altfranzösischen Dichterin durch verschiedene Zitate aus Marie’s Lais hervorzuheben scheint, wenn er ausserdem diesen Zitaten noch Stellen aus zwei weiteren mittelalterlichen Literaturdenkmälern anreiht, so haben ihn dazu offenbar die damalige ganz romantische Zeitströmung im englischen Schrifttum mit ihrer ausgesprochenen Bevorzugung alles Mittealterlichen, wie auch seine eigene allgemeine Neigung zu französischer Sprache und Literatur und sein Verkehr im Kreise der in ihren Kunstbestrebungen mit Vorliebe der fernen Vergangenheit huldigenden Präraffaeliten veranlasst. Doch schwebte O’Shaughnessy bei der Schaffung seiner Lays als eigentliches Ziel nicht etwa gewollt archaisierende Dichtung vor, sondern vielmehr—so darf man wohl mit Recht vermuten—ein gross angelegtes Meisterwerk individuellster Art, zu dem ihm die unfangreichen Laidichtungen der Marie de France lediglich wilkommene stoffliche Anregung geben konnten.
I would be SO, SO grateful.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 06:32 pm (UTC)If O'Shaugnessy seems to emphasize his works almost non-noticeable textual dependence on the old French poet(ess) by working in various quotations/quotes by Marie's Lais; if, in addition to these references, he also adds parts of two medival literary mile stones (1), it seems clear that what prompted him to do this was the romantic movement in English literature, with its marked preference for anything medival, as well as his (O'S) own affinity towards French language, literature and his dealings with the pre-raffaelites, whose interests had always been focused on the past.
Still, O'Shaugnessy's goal in creating Lays was not intentionally archaic poetry, but - one may reasonably argue - a grand, individualitistic opus, inspired in parts by the voluminous layman/amateur poetry of Marie de France.
(1) mile stone is an approximation here - a "Literaturdenkmal" is a compound of literary and monument or landmark, i.e. something defining as far as literature is concerned so I think literary mile stone is quite good.
Yep, lovely German literary sciences - fill three pages with just two sentences. It's what I hate most about it - I don't even want to know what kind of gibberish the online translators gave you LOL
Hope that helped :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 12:27 pm (UTC)You are the absolute best!
The online translations were really ridiculous-- google translate included the phrase "Space Chair". I couldn't even work out what part it thought it was translating to get that, LOL!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 12:07 am (UTC)If you need anymore help don´t bother to contact :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 12:32 am (UTC)Yeah, I had to pass a fucking test in this language.
Okay, this is actually really cool. O'Shaugnessy was hanging with the Pre-Raphaelites?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 12:31 pm (UTC)Technically, O'Shaughnessy was a Pre-Raphaelite, although I'm going to be arguing that he has a wider range of influences, which makes him more interesting, or something. But mostly he just hung out with D.G. Rossetti and Swinburne and presumably told a lot of dirty jokes, which is how I think the PRs passed most of their time.