Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier
Dan Pagis’s poem “Written on a Sealed Railway Car” is a fragmentary text that reimagines the first biblical family in the context of the Holocaust. In this spare poem—it consists of no more than six lines, seven if you include the title—mother Eve, accompanied by Abel, leaves a message for her son...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Taylor and Francis
2016
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| _version_ | 1826265130932895744 |
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| author | Jacobs, A |
| author_facet | Jacobs, A |
| author_sort | Jacobs, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Dan Pagis’s poem “Written on a Sealed Railway Car” is a fragmentary text that reimagines the first biblical family in the context of the Holocaust. In this spare poem—it consists of no more than six lines, seven if you include the title—mother Eve, accompanied by Abel, leaves a message for her son Cain, letting him know that she is—Alive? Dead? Heading somewhere? Like so many messages from this past, the poem leaves this part of their story unrecorded. And yet, the poem’s unfinished quality makes it an ideal text for considerations of the poetics of fragmentation and displacement that characterizes so much of Holocaust literature, and its poetry in particular. It is also a text that has been translated into many languages. One notable example is a memorial at Belzec, the site of a Nazi death camp, where the poem appears in its original Hebrew alongside (uncredited) Polish and English translations. It goes without saying that each translation presents its own challenges, but the silences, fissures and breaks that shape Pagis’s poem and its language require particular attention, not only because what lies between the lines is also essential to how we read a poem, but also because of the legacy of the Holocaust and the question of how, and with what language, a poet—and translator—invokes that history. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:18:51Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:2d1d45c5-f1c6-4b93-93e7-fe8f8f28d4b6 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:18:51Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Taylor and Francis |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:2d1d45c5-f1c6-4b93-93e7-fe8f8f28d4b62022-03-26T12:40:49ZTranslating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-BeierJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:2d1d45c5-f1c6-4b93-93e7-fe8f8f28d4b6Symplectic Elements at OxfordTaylor and Francis2016Jacobs, ADan Pagis’s poem “Written on a Sealed Railway Car” is a fragmentary text that reimagines the first biblical family in the context of the Holocaust. In this spare poem—it consists of no more than six lines, seven if you include the title—mother Eve, accompanied by Abel, leaves a message for her son Cain, letting him know that she is—Alive? Dead? Heading somewhere? Like so many messages from this past, the poem leaves this part of their story unrecorded. And yet, the poem’s unfinished quality makes it an ideal text for considerations of the poetics of fragmentation and displacement that characterizes so much of Holocaust literature, and its poetry in particular. It is also a text that has been translated into many languages. One notable example is a memorial at Belzec, the site of a Nazi death camp, where the poem appears in its original Hebrew alongside (uncredited) Polish and English translations. It goes without saying that each translation presents its own challenges, but the silences, fissures and breaks that shape Pagis’s poem and its language require particular attention, not only because what lies between the lines is also essential to how we read a poem, but also because of the legacy of the Holocaust and the question of how, and with what language, a poet—and translator—invokes that history. |
| spellingShingle | Jacobs, A Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title | Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title_full | Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title_fullStr | Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title_full_unstemmed | Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title_short | Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style and the Reader by Jean Boase-Beier |
| title_sort | translating the poetry of the holocaust translation style and the reader by jean boase beier |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jacobsa translatingthepoetryoftheholocausttranslationstyleandthereaderbyjeanboasebeier |