Translating Goethe’s Faust, Hölderlin & the Meaning of Poetry | David Constantine

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Kind: captions
Language: en
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[music]
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Solomon and Smith.
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>> Hello. You're about to listen to a
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conversation between myself, Jack, and
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David Constantine, a professor of
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German, translator of FAT, and other
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German poetry of high repute. He's an
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author of short stories. He's himself a
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poet. One of his short stories was
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adapted into a successful film. We will
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not discuss the film in the
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conversation. What we will discuss
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uh his translations
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myself primarily of FA and Jack
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>> of Hereline
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a difficult name to pronounce.
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>> Uh you'll discover many things about
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David Constantine. For instance, he's
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from the north of England and [snorts]
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um learned a lot in his schooling and
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was moved deeply by a certain poet. I
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won't tell you who yet.
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He was um he's one of these people whose
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entire um uh fate was set by the grammar
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school curriculum. Yeah. Ant's college,
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his Oxford college, Wadom.
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>> Wadomad, which I want to pronounce.
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>> Saved from Christ Church Cambridge to be
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sent to the superior learning institute
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of Wadom.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Christ Church Cambridge complete whole,
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>> complete no man's land.
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>> It is a zero repute. Everyone who has
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stepped foot in the halls of Christ
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Church Cambridge is a is a full a
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>> not a single window intact. That place
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is it has a strange stench to it.
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>> Really strange stench. The the floor is
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the floors are covered with eels.
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>> You're in a weird neck of the woods. You
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know when you've walked across
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you know
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>> Yeah. It it is a it is a contained slum
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of Cambridge. Yeah. A a hive of scum and
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villain to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi.
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>> And it was a reference to Christ Church.
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This is not that well known, but Moss
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Eley was a sort of representation of a
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Christ Church.
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>> Christ Church Cambridge. [laughter]
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>> Yeah. And and not inaccurate for those
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who've been. Not it's not like, oh, it's
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weird's really a bit too on the nose for
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those of us
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>> who've been around that area. It's very
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interesting that Star Wars passed the
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sensor given how how bluntly and really
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offensively it portrayed Christ Church
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Cambridge, albeit with extreme accuracy.
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>> Well, I think the uh the center of the
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day must have been an Oxford man. It's
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the only way to must probably a Warden
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College man.
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>> Christ Church, Cambridge
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Hov.
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>> No, I'm I I maybe it doesn't exist. I I
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just Googled it. I don't think Christ
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Church Cambridge exists. That's why he
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couldn't go. [laughter]
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It was the He fell through that obvious
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all state school [laughter] and grammar
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school children who want to apply to
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Cambridge, they make up this fake
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college so that none of them will get
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in.
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>> I I believe it fell fell through the
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earth in the uh the late '7s and has
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never been retrieved all knowledge of
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it. There is a a there is a church a
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Christ church in Cambridge
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>> and there is in Oxford a Christ church
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but of course we weren't referring to
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that one.
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>> No no we were talking about Christ
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Church Cambridge [laughter]
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absolute whole
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>> as depicted in the 1977 movie directed
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by George Lucas.
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>> Star Wars.
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>> Star Wars. Yeah.
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>> Star Wars. Yes.
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So, we usually start these chats with a
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poetic epigraph. Uh, to cheer myself up,
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I'm going to recite um not merely the
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greatest of all German poems, but the
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greatest artifact of all German culture,
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which is
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which I think is translatable for our
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non-Germanspeaking listeners with the
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cunning use of the word boomerang.
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Um, there was once a boomerang. It was a
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little bit too long. The boomerang flew
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out into the black, but it never came
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back. the public many hours long waited
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for the boomerang.
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We're probably going to uh structure
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this interview
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a bit a bit freely, a bit um
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yeah, there's probably going to be a
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little foul section, a little holene
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section, and a little Greek um epig
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section. But I always like um asking
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sort of biographical questions to start
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with. So um first of all what was your
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uh childhood like and how did you
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discover reading?
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>> My [clears throat] childhood was in some
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ways a typical childhood for somebody
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born in 1944.
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Um my father away during the war. Um
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my grandmother's husband had been killed
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on the western front. So and she was of
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our family.
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The striking thing when I look back on
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my childhood is just how you can't
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actually say optimistic but with the
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coming of the Education Act in 1944
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and then the National Health Service in
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47 and the Labor government in power.
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Despite absolutely everything which they
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got immediately behind them and that was
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on my way to school, the rubble heaps
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were still there to be seen. There were
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bomb sites in lots and lots of places
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that I played around. But the definite
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trajectory, unlike now, was that things
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with the Labor government were very
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determinedly
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to move forward and get better. And the
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19 education act, 1944 Education Act,
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was to get more children into school.
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That is to say, not stopping school at
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the age of 13 as my mother and father
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did, but that they should be there for
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longer with better opportunities coming
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from that. So there's definitely and and
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uh oddly if you like a strong optimism.
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>> Yeah. I suppose you can you can only go
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up from from the Second World War.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Thatcher did her best to shove it all
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back again. Um but that was overcome as
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well and on on the whole this trajectory
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has been
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um for the better all the way through
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more children in schools and
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universities than would have been
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possible a few decades before.
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>> Yeah. Do you so do you feel that with
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with yourself like your your access to
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or or your your path into a world of
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sort of literature and academia would
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have probably been impossible if you
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were born maybe uh you know as as
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recently as like 30 or 20 years before.
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>> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that
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would have been with the social class.
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My my mother's side of our family were
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from what was known as the classic slum
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down um in in waste and areas cross lane
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and so forth. And my father's was more
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in he was not Jewish but he was in a
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different area of Sulford where where
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quite wealthy people also lived and
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their coming together was a strange not
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strange I mean it's very fortuitous it's
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one of those things. So and they just a
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lot of um perhaps
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the the majority of parents then thought
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it's going to be better for our children
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than than it was for us and they put in
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a lot of work to see it um that that
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that happening. What's distressing at
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the minute is the uh for one reason or
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another actually proly international
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affairs that there's a it feels again
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like the opening into some terrible
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social collapse not particularly or
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peculiarly in the United Kingdom but I
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mean everything that's going on there in
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Israel and uh and in Ukraine elsewhere
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as well seems awful.
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Yeah, it's it's it's it's and it's even
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if you're not a a pessimistic um
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personality, some you get sort of swept
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up in the zeitgeist if you were born in
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the '9s, as me and Milo were.
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>> I think we're both quite optimistic
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souls uh as a default, but having been
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born when we were, there's a there is a
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sort of a gloom uh
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>> screwed into the ego a bit. Um,
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>> yeah,
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>> I was just going to say true or not, a
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growing up period felt like one of of
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optimism and and good times and
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everything is solved. The end of history
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was a phrase thrown around a lot at that
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time.
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>> So, u maybe the the contrast is also a
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bit upsetting.
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>> Yeah.
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>> Yeah. Um, and do you remember your your
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first like um profound aesthetic
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experiences when when reading books when
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uh getting in getting into literature
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reading? When when when were these and
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and what what were they?
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>> We [clears throat]
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um we were encouraged I mean my mother
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and father it's not that they'd not read
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a great deal. They they'd read what you
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might have got your hands on.
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Particularly my mother actually where
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they lived and in that social class.
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My father was always very anxious about
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his sulfur accent which my mother never
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was. And on the female side my grant as
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well it was absolutely broad. My dad had
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this awful sense which upset me really
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that he ought to be bettering himself
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and bettering himself meant speaking
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slightly not one and and yet the thing
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that they were chiefly concerned was was
00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:32.470
getting us into schools local schools
00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:34.470
absolutely local schools where a very
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great deal of reading was done um first
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of all in even in the primary school and
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then certainly in the grammar school we
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read a very great deal
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>> and I I managed to black almost my
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entire prim primary and secondary
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education without reading anything,
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>> but just being quite uh unfortunately
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very good at lying. [laughter]
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>> Um
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and and but your like in terms of books
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that you read for um pleasure and and
00:11:04.560 --> 00:11:06.470
sort of your your free time, do you
00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.269
remember any sort of early childhood
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.030
favorites?
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Um
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there were fewer books when I look now
00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:18.870
at our grandchildren
00:11:18.880 --> 00:11:21.030
>> kind of books and indeed our our
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children but certainly the grandchildren
00:11:22.959 --> 00:11:26.310
there was more very very good child
00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:28.470
so-called child literature around and
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:31.190
there's been much much huge and that's a
00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:33.750
very great thing the statistics you keep
00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:35.829
coming across now that fewer and fewer
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and fewer people children and young
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adults are actually reading is another
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collapse if it's actually going to go
00:11:43.839 --> 00:11:45.750
through with from you know being all the
00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:48.790
time on social media and not actually
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uh re reading anything.
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>> Um if I can [laughter]
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switch to
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the point when I definitely knew I
00:11:57.839 --> 00:12:00.470
wanted to write poetry. M
00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.310
>> it was coming my school trip was from
00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:06.150
Soulford on a bus and then on another
00:12:06.160 --> 00:12:08.550
bus out to the part of Manchester where
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I went to school. And to get there, I
00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:14.389
went through an area called um there was
00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:16.949
at the bookshop there as I came back
00:12:16.959 --> 00:12:20.550
through down to my end of town, Sheron
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Hughes, and I looked in there just
00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:28.230
poking around and bought Wilfred Owen
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>> and
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>> did you know who he was before that? I'd
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:32.310
heard of who he was and I kind of
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thought this and I I put it up that and
00:12:35.920 --> 00:12:38.870
went and caught my second boss and
00:12:38.880 --> 00:12:42.230
opened it then and read the first poop
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first poem that was there on the sheet
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and I couldn't see the page for tears.
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>> That's coming across the full force of
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it. I don't even remember which poem
00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:57.509
>> but suddenly I thought this is it's not
00:12:57.519 --> 00:13:01.030
what I want to do but this is what it is
00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:05.910
>> that immediate force and um I've read a
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very great number of poets all along the
00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:12.389
way really and not just poets but where
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I massively massively helped
00:13:17.680 --> 00:13:21.750
oh felt that I was in the right? You
00:13:21.760 --> 00:13:24.150
know, trying to do the the the thing
00:13:24.160 --> 00:13:27.670
that um mattered most. I never ever have
00:13:27.680 --> 00:13:29.110
thought that poetry mattered more than
00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:31.269
anything else. Absolutely not. And the
00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:33.590
other thing about my mother's side of
00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:34.870
the family particularly, in fact,
00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:38.310
probably both of them was certainly that
00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:44.629
um lose losing your husband uh in in
00:13:44.639 --> 00:13:47.509
towards the end of the First World War
00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:50.230
um on the psalm
00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:52.870
and they simply got a message first of
00:13:52.880 --> 00:13:55.430
all that he was missing
00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:57.910
>> and then one of his pals the Manchester
00:13:57.920 --> 00:14:00.150
regiments were called pals regiments
00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:03.430
because it it was entire work workplaces
00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:05.829
that joined up together from the mills
00:14:05.839 --> 00:14:07.350
and from the factories they all joined
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:09.670
up so everybody knew everybody else
00:14:09.680 --> 00:14:12.389
because they were mates from and it was
00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:15.110
um and there were Manchester regiments
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:17.350
and you've got all these pals as they
00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:19.990
were called together And one of these
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:23.350
pals came home on on leave and went to
00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:27.110
tell my grand that he'd seen um my
00:14:27.120 --> 00:14:29.910
grandfather, her her husband blown to
00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:33.509
bits in the um moving across these
00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:36.389
terrible open open spaces towards
00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:41.189
Giamong and this whole you know
00:14:41.199 --> 00:14:42.949
stumbling forward. That's one of those
00:14:42.959 --> 00:14:44.389
words that comes up again and again of
00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:46.790
men in the mud stumbling forward to
00:14:46.800 --> 00:14:49.590
where they were being told to go and
00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:51.750
then large numbers of them just not
00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:54.710
anywhere getting near the the goal. You
00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:57.269
probably know this, but in Tval in in
00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:01.030
France there's a a big white monument
00:15:01.040 --> 00:15:03.110
um and they keep adding names to it. My
00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:04.710
grandfather's name is already there.
00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:08.870
It's 32,000 plus and those are called to
00:15:08.880 --> 00:15:12.069
the missing the missing on the song.
00:15:12.079 --> 00:15:13.509
>> These are people who are never ever
00:15:13.519 --> 00:15:15.910
found and therefore never ever buried.
00:15:15.920 --> 00:15:19.110
And it's things like that I I thought
00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:20.790
um
00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:23.670
I I could talking to my grand talking to
00:15:23.680 --> 00:15:25.269
my mother a very great deal and to my
00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:26.629
dad as well actually but thinking
00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:28.310
particularly of the two women who were
00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.230
very great talkers. That's another thing
00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:32.150
about about the women of that
00:15:32.160 --> 00:15:33.590
generation. and they could talk and talk
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:35.910
and talk and and they would go out
00:15:35.920 --> 00:15:38.230
shopping and come back and and my
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:39.990
grandma would just stand out and say I
00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.310
said she said I said she said she'd go
00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:45.110
through the whole and conversation one
00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:47.430
side [laughter] the other like that so
00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.670
and she could she could act it out so
00:15:49.680 --> 00:15:51.829
they were great talkers but not
00:15:51.839 --> 00:15:54.310
>> particularly not her grant she wasn't a
00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:57.269
writer by any means but she told me
00:15:57.279 --> 00:15:59.030
particularly when she knew she was close
00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:01.509
to the end of her life she got ever more
00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:05.670
poignant and She brought out the few um
00:16:05.680 --> 00:16:08.150
memorials that people who were blown to
00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:09.829
bits and never found were given. You
00:16:09.839 --> 00:16:12.470
know, there was a a ser a serving cross.
00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:15.430
It was a a letter of condolences from
00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:17.189
the king and so forth. And she kept
00:16:17.199 --> 00:16:19.430
these very close to her and then we
00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.629
produced them sometimes and show. And it
00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:26.230
was this is not I in any way conceit. I
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:29.030
just felt I am the one in our family who
00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:32.230
can write about this and that's not all
00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:35.590
kind of boast or it's just a sort of um
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:37.910
a great privilege. It's the same for my
00:16:37.920 --> 00:16:40.389
mom was great with words in in her own
00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:41.910
language. But the one I was going to
00:16:41.920 --> 00:16:45.269
write about what it was like being there
00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:47.749
and then in those circumstances with
00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:52.389
that history, I just felt and I've said
00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:55.749
this to countless people since who who
00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:57.590
were because every childhood is
00:16:57.600 --> 00:16:59.110
different and the circumstances are
00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:02.230
different. I've said to anybody or pe
00:17:02.240 --> 00:17:03.590
people I've come across who were
00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:06.150
thinking of what it might mean to be
00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:09.510
writing poetry and and I've said well go
00:17:09.520 --> 00:17:12.069
first to your own circumstances
00:17:12.079 --> 00:17:15.750
and see if you can say things there that
00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:17.510
you can say better than anyone else
00:17:17.520 --> 00:17:21.110
anyone else in your family that kind of
00:17:21.120 --> 00:17:23.669
>> because every family's different. It's
00:17:23.679 --> 00:17:26.150
um it's interesting to sort of contrast
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.029
your um attitude or feelings about the
00:17:29.039 --> 00:17:31.510
war with with that of um a sort of
00:17:31.520 --> 00:17:32.950
stereotype of the rest of your
00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:35.029
generation, people born in those late
00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:36.710
years. I think of, you know, I I
00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:38.630
immediately think of sort of the Beatles
00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:41.029
and uh, you know, this whole ' 60s
00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:43.830
movement who sort of felt like the war
00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:47.669
was this gloomy, oppressive presence
00:17:47.679 --> 00:17:49.430
from above and it and it was nice to
00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:53.510
just forget it and um do something sort
00:17:53.520 --> 00:17:56.549
of entirely historically removed from
00:17:56.559 --> 00:18:00.789
it. Yeah, we we we were
00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:02.390
when the Beatles came along, when the
00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:04.150
Stones were there and all that, that was
00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:05.990
just so important. I mean, that was
00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.470
just, as you said, really. It's it's
00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:10.789
like the whole thing taking off into
00:18:10.799 --> 00:18:15.110
something uh which not all joyous by any
00:18:15.120 --> 00:18:17.110
means neither in any of those but
00:18:17.120 --> 00:18:19.909
there's a force to it which was
00:18:19.919 --> 00:18:21.669
definitely
00:18:21.679 --> 00:18:25.590
urgent and positive and and that
00:18:25.600 --> 00:18:28.150
the that young people then without any
00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:30.230
we just seemed this is the voice of your
00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:32.230
your generation and that was terrific
00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:35.990
thing to to as it were come into
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:37.669
Um,
00:18:37.679 --> 00:18:40.710
>> when when when did you um uh start
00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:44.150
learning German and reading uh German
00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:45.350
language? Um
00:18:45.360 --> 00:18:47.590
>> I I went to I went to Manchester Grammar
00:18:47.600 --> 00:18:49.430
School, not Sulford Grammar School. I
00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:51.830
was The other thing to remember is that
00:18:51.840 --> 00:18:53.830
my mother and father had no idea
00:18:53.840 --> 00:18:56.470
whatsoever where the best school would
00:18:56.480 --> 00:18:59.750
be or what the school would be like. It
00:18:59.760 --> 00:19:02.310
was entirely in in the hands and the
00:19:02.320 --> 00:19:05.510
knowledge of the people who taught me at
00:19:05.520 --> 00:19:08.630
primary school and and then in the in
00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:12.870
schooling up to 15. Um
00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:15.909
and in eman grammar school I had the
00:19:15.919 --> 00:19:18.150
most extraordinary
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:21.669
uh well an education. It was a very
00:19:21.679 --> 00:19:23.510
narrow education in that once you
00:19:23.520 --> 00:19:26.230
decided or they decided for you that you
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.270
would be doing languages, you'd be doing
00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:31.430
English, you'd be doing French and
00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:34.789
German is is my thing. And then you
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:36.390
might be doing some other thing as it
00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:38.390
were tacked on to show that you were a
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:40.070
bit broader than that, but not very
00:19:40.080 --> 00:19:42.549
much. when I see what our kids have been
00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:45.669
doing obviously in in in state schools
00:19:45.679 --> 00:19:48.310
in in in in all their schooling it's
00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:50.789
been so much wider
00:19:50.799 --> 00:19:53.029
>> and that's partly because the the
00:19:53.039 --> 00:19:55.590
classes that our kids have been to and
00:19:55.600 --> 00:19:58.230
grown up through has been so
00:19:58.240 --> 00:20:00.470
multicultural that's another thing
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:03.430
compared with the effectively
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:06.630
white uh
00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:09.669
you co the people with you in the school
00:20:09.679 --> 00:20:11.430
and the teacher and and all the rest of
00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:14.390
it. So, it's all changed massively for
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.990
the good really in that sense of of
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.710
yeah, a very great variety. And it also
00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.230
became easier that to see that if you
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:27.270
just concentrated on three subjects,
00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:29.029
you were actually going to end up pretty
00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:30.710
narrowminded.
00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:34.149
So once I got to a university where
00:20:34.159 --> 00:20:35.830
you're with people doing all sorts of
00:20:35.840 --> 00:20:38.630
things, then it was a was a great
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:40.630
opportunity to just see that this is
00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:42.390
critically important to you and this is
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.230
critically important to her or to him
00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:46.630
and so forth. And that was a huge
00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:48.470
opening. But what I should say is I
00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:49.909
would only I only got to Manchester
00:20:49.919 --> 00:20:52.630
Grammar School which was thought to be a
00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:54.310
better school than Sulford School. My
00:20:54.320 --> 00:20:56.390
mother and father had no idea whatsoever
00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:58.230
about these things. It was entirely done
00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:01.669
by the teachers. And when I um was
00:21:01.679 --> 00:21:03.909
finishing in Manchester Grammar School,
00:21:03.919 --> 00:21:06.070
there was a guy there whom I adulated.
00:21:06.080 --> 00:21:08.870
He he looked like Marello Masolan. He's
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.830
a very very good-looking man. And he and
00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:14.230
his wife had been selling liberation on
00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:17.510
the left bank in in in in Paris. And I
00:21:17.520 --> 00:21:19.350
just thought, "Wow." You know, so when
00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:21.909
this none of us knew where we were
00:21:21.919 --> 00:21:24.789
going, he just came in and um he put me
00:21:24.799 --> 00:21:28.710
down for Christ in Cambridge. I thought
00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.750
I I didn't even know that Oxford was
00:21:31.760 --> 00:21:34.310
broken down into different colleges.
00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:37.270
>> I just went to Oxford. I didn't bother
00:21:37.280 --> 00:21:40.549
Cambridge. the idea that was news to me
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:43.830
as it was to my parents obviously.
00:21:43.840 --> 00:21:46.149
And then he came back a couple he was
00:21:46.159 --> 00:21:47.590
teaching us all the time and he came
00:21:47.600 --> 00:21:50.230
back into the classroom
00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:52.470
um again
00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.590
just and he kind of looked at me and he
00:21:55.600 --> 00:22:00.789
just said not Christ Church [laughter]
00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:04.310
not Christ Church Cambridge Wadom and
00:22:04.320 --> 00:22:06.789
Wadom was already a kind of grammar
00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:09.430
school college whereas most of them
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.830
weren't actually by no means were they
00:22:11.840 --> 00:22:13.909
>> so mostly private school They were
00:22:13.919 --> 00:22:16.630
mostly private schools. Yeah.
00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:20.390
>> It's taken an awful long time. It's now
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:23.350
somewhat more state school educated than
00:22:23.360 --> 00:22:26.390
properly educated. So it's long way
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:29.510
>> state schools from nice postcodes.
00:22:29.520 --> 00:22:29.909
>> Well,
00:22:29.919 --> 00:22:32.630
>> yeah. Yeah. Um
00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:35.830
um but um going back to to the German
00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:36.710
language.
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:38.390
>> Yeah, I did French and German both
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:41.830
French. And and so when did when did
00:22:41.840 --> 00:22:44.470
your um feelings about about the German
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:45.750
language, your experience with the
00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:47.669
German language
00:22:47.679 --> 00:22:49.669
change from simply an academic
00:22:49.679 --> 00:22:51.430
discipline to something that you
00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:53.750
genuinely loved and felt relevant to
00:22:53.760 --> 00:22:55.270
you?
00:22:55.280 --> 00:22:57.350
>> Well, we were
00:22:57.360 --> 00:22:59.190
again we were lucky. We there was there
00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.430
was school exchanges going on and we
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:04.789
went you know at the age of 13 I was 14
00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:08.070
15 when I first went to to the beat in
00:23:08.080 --> 00:23:10.630
in in in Germany and had a pen pal there
00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:13.110
and he came over to us. So so there was
00:23:13.120 --> 00:23:14.870
that exchange there was a French
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:16.390
exchange as well.
00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:16.789
>> Okay.
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:19.510
>> Um this is
00:23:19.520 --> 00:23:21.750
>> this [clears throat] is before um being
00:23:21.760 --> 00:23:23.830
in the EU and then Brexit. I mean that
00:23:23.840 --> 00:23:26.950
was just one of the things that you did.
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:29.350
it's got extremely more difficult to fix
00:23:29.360 --> 00:23:30.950
these things up now. They were just part
00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:33.750
of the as it were course and curriculum
00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:37.909
that you should get across. So um I
00:23:37.919 --> 00:23:43.110
loved equally both both languages
00:23:43.120 --> 00:23:48.070
um and I did well in academically in all
00:23:48.080 --> 00:23:50.630
three in French, German and English. I
00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:52.549
chose German in the end, I think,
00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:56.870
because um
00:23:56.880 --> 00:23:59.669
we we've been well educated in German as
00:23:59.679 --> 00:24:01.990
well and there were there were people in
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:04.870
the in on the German syllabus so to
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:07.270
speak and GA was obviously one of them
00:24:07.280 --> 00:24:11.110
very very early on. Um but other others
00:24:11.120 --> 00:24:14.230
as well like Cly particularly
00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:17.590
>> and I decided for that um
00:24:17.600 --> 00:24:20.070
um and I
00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:22.230
again at university were doing I was I
00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:25.110
was doing chiefly one that was what I
00:24:25.120 --> 00:24:26.789
chose for but I was always in contact
00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:29.669
with my wife Helen is not French but
00:24:29.679 --> 00:24:32.470
she's an absolute French addict as it
00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:36.870
were and we go there often um
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:38.710
>> she's Cornish
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:40.950
Um, close enough.
00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:43.269
>> Yeah, it sort of leads leads to one of
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:44.870
my questions which might have been
00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:47.110
subtly answered there which was uh when
00:24:47.120 --> 00:24:49.110
did you first meet Faustst? And of
00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:50.630
course it's a complex question because
00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:51.909
there are many Fausts.
00:24:51.919 --> 00:24:52.310
>> Yeah.
00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:54.630
>> By many authors and I wonder which was
00:24:54.640 --> 00:24:57.669
the first first FA you met and when if
00:24:57.679 --> 00:24:59.830
not Gerta did you then meet Gerta's
00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:04.390
version? It was Gutter's spouse that we
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:08.710
began to read and studied pretty well
00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:13.830
straight away in modern. Um
00:25:13.840 --> 00:25:15.990
I came to
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.870
the others if you like Marlo indirectly
00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:25.029
later um liked him it very much very
00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:28.870
much actually. Um
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:31.590
we did first part one that was I think
00:25:31.600 --> 00:25:33.350
as far as far as I remember that was the
00:25:33.360 --> 00:25:34.950
syllabus first of all and then you moved
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:37.669
on to if you you could choose special
00:25:37.679 --> 00:25:39.990
subjects once you got a certain level
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:43.669
and I did the whole thing then um and
00:25:43.679 --> 00:25:47.510
was just very well taught.
00:25:47.520 --> 00:25:49.190
>> Were you enraptured from the very
00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:50.870
beginning with this this character in
00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:53.350
this story?
00:25:53.360 --> 00:25:55.430
Well, I think I it's very difficult
00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.710
looking back, but um I
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:01.269
I think this happens to many people. I
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:04.549
disliked him as a character ever more
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:06.149
actually.
00:26:06.159 --> 00:26:10.149
>> Um and when I did my first translations,
00:26:10.159 --> 00:26:13.430
I I wrote a good deal about the
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:17.190
well the thorough selfishness and
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.830
um well, I mean, he's a criminal
00:26:19.840 --> 00:26:21.029
basically. He killed people
00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:23.110
particularly. He killed people who were
00:26:23.120 --> 00:26:26.549
getting in his way and like Phileiman
00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:28.789
and Boris I've just reread that bit
00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:30.789
where he just sends the thugs in to get
00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:33.990
them out of his way and it's that sort
00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:35.750
of thuggery
00:26:35.760 --> 00:26:39.510
and absolute indifference really to to
00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:42.230
anybody else's starts with clich
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:44.870
obviously um that you do these things
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:47.909
and it's like these are all experiences
00:26:47.919 --> 00:26:49.909
experiences experience experiences and
00:26:49.919 --> 00:26:51.669
the fact that your experience is
00:26:51.679 --> 00:26:55.029
somebody else's fatality
00:26:55.039 --> 00:26:57.830
um is deeply upsetting. And I think
00:26:57.840 --> 00:26:59.110
there's been the general I mean there
00:26:59.120 --> 00:27:00.870
used to be quite a feeling that fast was
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:03.669
a a force and that you know strong men
00:27:03.679 --> 00:27:05.750
would as it were think that's a good
00:27:05.760 --> 00:27:07.029
thing and it would you know there'd be a
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:09.350
bit of collateral damage but basically
00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:11.750
you'd be you'd be pushing on to
00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:16.149
something that um that was valuable for
00:27:16.159 --> 00:27:19.029
him if possibly socially valuable in in
00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:23.190
in some ways. Um
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:25.110
>> there's a kind of romantic reading of it
00:27:25.120 --> 00:27:27.190
I suppose where you you know you ignore
00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:30.870
his massively um unpleasant aspects and
00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:32.950
an abstracted version of him is a bit
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.470
like the you know the the the romantic
00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:39.669
figure of the artist sort of um in
00:27:39.679 --> 00:27:42.310
indifferent to worldly affairs and
00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:45.909
following an an abstract higher goal.
00:27:45.919 --> 00:27:47.510
>> Yeah.
00:27:47.520 --> 00:27:50.070
I've ne I've never
00:27:50.080 --> 00:27:51.990
I've never felt like that. And I think
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:54.389
actually, you know, obviously this this
00:27:54.399 --> 00:27:56.549
this is one of those works where you can
00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:58.149
think this or think that, but
00:27:58.159 --> 00:27:59.750
increasingly there's there's quite a
00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:02.310
strong feeling that this
00:28:02.320 --> 00:28:03.990
um
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.630
there's no question of of with with
00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:09.350
Marlo, it's salvation or or or
00:28:09.360 --> 00:28:11.909
damnation. And it's in its damnation in
00:28:11.919 --> 00:28:14.950
this case. There's really no fa there's
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:17.750
really no possibility not the remotest
00:28:17.760 --> 00:28:21.590
possibility of false being damned in
00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:23.990
good as false because that is good view
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:25.669
of the world. He's not he doesn't really
00:28:25.679 --> 00:28:28.549
believe in these things. And to actually
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:31.750
be a heaven and and be a hell and and
00:28:31.760 --> 00:28:34.710
the bad guys end up in hell is not was
00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:36.389
just
00:28:36.399 --> 00:28:40.549
it was not in him to think that it it's
00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:43.750
much more like what Keats calls the the
00:28:43.760 --> 00:28:46.870
chameleon poet and and G was very
00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:49.430
chameleon in that sense. He could
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:52.070
>> he could um
00:28:52.080 --> 00:28:54.549
it it's being able to see into the
00:28:54.559 --> 00:28:58.070
slowness of all human beings in that
00:28:58.080 --> 00:29:00.710
kind of way. So you can be that person
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:03.190
as it were. Um
00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:04.710
um
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:07.510
not not literally but you enter into
00:29:07.520 --> 00:29:10.710
them to such a a degree that you espouse
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:13.269
that way of life. contradictory though
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:16.870
it be to other ways of life that you've
00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:18.870
already espoused.
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:20.630
Keith talks about going into the room
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:22.630
and then there all these people and and
00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:24.789
he says it's not myself then he just as
00:29:24.799 --> 00:29:28.870
it were becomes
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.110
>> a becoming of the people around him who
00:29:31.120 --> 00:29:32.789
are particularly
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:37.750
um attractive or forceful or and you
00:29:37.760 --> 00:29:40.230
know I think that is a
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:44.789
if that's a necessary ability in in in
00:29:44.799 --> 00:29:47.830
poetry in the writing of poetry
00:29:47.840 --> 00:29:51.269
>> you can't possibly do it if you can't
00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:53.190
enter into
00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:57.190
entirely other ways of being. And even
00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.430
if those other ways of being are
00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:02.549
distasteful or murderous or or whatever,
00:30:02.559 --> 00:30:05.510
you would need to be able to imagine it.
00:30:05.520 --> 00:30:07.430
It's
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:11.190
>> so being so immediately uh opposed to FA
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:13.350
as a character. Do you remember your
00:30:13.360 --> 00:30:15.029
sort of earlier responses to the
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:17.430
ultimate ending of FA in which he has
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:20.070
sort of risen up to heaven in what may
00:30:20.080 --> 00:30:22.070
or may not be quite an ironic scene?
00:30:22.080 --> 00:30:23.590
Because you have the two endings. Part
00:30:23.600 --> 00:30:26.389
one ends mysteriously in a way. You have
00:30:26.399 --> 00:30:27.990
this kind of tragedy with Gretchen and
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:31.350
then Meisto and FA sort of steal away
00:30:31.360 --> 00:30:33.750
and it ends suddenly. And um given that
00:30:33.760 --> 00:30:35.350
a lot of people read only the first
00:30:35.360 --> 00:30:37.830
part, that is the ending. Many know of
00:30:37.840 --> 00:30:39.190
the ending as FA.
00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:41.110
>> Yeah. But then we've got part two with
00:30:41.120 --> 00:30:43.750
this more um magnificent ending which
00:30:43.760 --> 00:30:45.430
seems like a forgiveness at least
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:47.669
superficially. Did you initially reject
00:30:47.679 --> 00:30:49.430
that ending or or was it always more
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:50.630
complicated than that?
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:54.230
>> It's it's complicated but I don't I it's
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:56.630
it's very difficult to take seriously
00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:01.669
the um notion of
00:31:01.679 --> 00:31:04.230
being carried off to to be among the
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:07.110
angels and by the angels in into heaven.
00:31:07.120 --> 00:31:12.149
And it's also
00:31:12.159 --> 00:31:14.070
it doesn't mean we have to or we're
00:31:14.080 --> 00:31:16.230
necessarily going to
00:31:16.240 --> 00:31:17.190
>> within [clears throat]
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:18.789
calling God or call it whatever you
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:21.909
like. It's it's within the capacity to
00:31:21.919 --> 00:31:26.310
to um release from the guilt this this
00:31:26.320 --> 00:31:28.950
this person.
00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:31.110
I think Ga couldn't help it really. But
00:31:31.120 --> 00:31:34.389
the main strain throughout in many
00:31:34.399 --> 00:31:36.630
respects certainly throughout part two
00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:39.350
is largely ironic. There's a very very
00:31:39.360 --> 00:31:42.070
great deal of by irony I mean on the you
00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:43.990
know I can do this I could do that. None
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.750
of these things is quite fixed. I could
00:31:45.760 --> 00:31:49.190
be that I could be that
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:52.070
which is the manysidedness of a very
00:31:52.080 --> 00:31:55.669
very great poet. I mean his ability to
00:31:55.679 --> 00:31:57.830
enter into
00:31:57.840 --> 00:32:02.470
other existences without any sense of
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:03.909
I think that's quite important to be
00:32:03.919 --> 00:32:06.149
able to enter into existences which are
00:32:06.159 --> 00:32:09.350
actually abhorrent as well as beautiful
00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:12.310
as well as kind and all the rest of it.
00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:14.310
So there's an interesting situation as
00:32:14.320 --> 00:32:16.470
we've sort of been talking about FA part
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:18.389
one and part two as sort of separate
00:32:18.399 --> 00:32:20.950
plays but one project but at least in
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:23.269
the English speakaking world there is um
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:25.430
the first part is a lot more popular and
00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:27.190
often published independently of the
00:32:27.200 --> 00:32:28.630
second part
00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:31.509
>> um which is an interesting scenario for
00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:34.230
sort of a a canonic classic
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:37.509
>> and a a closeish comparison maybe Henry
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:41.029
IV of Shakespeare where part one is a
00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:43.110
lot more popular than part two, but I
00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:44.710
don't think those quite resemble just
00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:48.149
how different parts one and two of FA
00:32:48.159 --> 00:32:50.389
tend to be. And what do you think it is
00:32:50.399 --> 00:32:52.310
>> that makes part one that much more
00:32:52.320 --> 00:32:54.310
accessible? I mean, I find part two in a
00:32:54.320 --> 00:32:57.110
way alienating perhaps because of its
00:32:57.120 --> 00:32:59.590
irony and because it goes so far out, so
00:32:59.600 --> 00:33:02.149
far out on a limb, forgetting maybe the
00:33:02.159 --> 00:33:05.269
the simple tragedy and um the conceit
00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:06.870
that we open with. I mean, at the end,
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:09.029
we do get that wager mentioned again
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:11.110
after everyone's forgotten. He says the
00:33:11.120 --> 00:33:12.310
exact line,
00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:14.950
>> but um that does seem to be quite far
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:17.669
off from the shore.
00:33:17.679 --> 00:33:19.750
>> Well, it's wager not packed, isn't it?
00:33:19.760 --> 00:33:21.269
As well, there's all this quibbling
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:25.110
about on not quite letting himself
00:33:25.120 --> 00:33:29.350
in for these for these things. The great
00:33:29.360 --> 00:33:32.389
tragedy is is a folklorish
00:33:32.399 --> 00:33:34.789
thing that kept on happening. with this
00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:38.230
seduction of of a girl and then her in
00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:40.950
her case killing her child and being
00:33:40.960 --> 00:33:44.630
beheaded. Um
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:46.549
that's what happens. It's one of those
00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:48.310
things that's thought, you know, this is
00:33:48.320 --> 00:33:52.149
the way of it. But it's it's false
00:33:52.159 --> 00:33:54.950
fault. It's false doing. And obviously
00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:58.310
what if you even at that if you're at
00:33:58.320 --> 00:34:00.630
that point even thinking of where else
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:03.590
is this man going to go?
00:34:03.600 --> 00:34:06.789
It's it's this to me distasteful notion
00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:09.750
that I can't be weighed down by what
00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:13.030
I've done. I can't be held back by it
00:34:13.040 --> 00:34:16.389
because living is longer than that and I
00:34:16.399 --> 00:34:19.510
there are other things I want to to do
00:34:19.520 --> 00:34:24.950
and places I want to be and um
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:26.710
a lot of it I mean you know there's a
00:34:26.720 --> 00:34:30.069
long gap between one and two and it was
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:32.629
I think chiefly moved on to well
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:35.909
Schiller kept urging him to to continue
00:34:35.919 --> 00:34:39.750
it but also being in Italy
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:42.950
the journey to Italy was a huge sort of
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:45.349
alteration in his well not alteration by
00:34:45.359 --> 00:34:47.190
extension
00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:49.030
um sort of widening of his
00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:50.790
understandings because he'd been a you
00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:52.389
know basically been a sort of civil
00:34:52.399 --> 00:34:56.950
servant for the um envy and he he didn't
00:34:56.960 --> 00:34:59.030
even tell his boss who just suddenly
00:34:59.040 --> 00:35:02.310
pushed off to Italy and told him when
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.190
when when he was there um once he was
00:35:05.200 --> 00:35:07.109
there
00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:09.750
um and it's it's he's very very suscept
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:12.390
acceptable in a very good way to
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:17.670
environment of where he is, what the um
00:35:17.680 --> 00:35:20.550
way of life is there, how people are
00:35:20.560 --> 00:35:21.750
there. And they're manifestally
00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:24.630
different in lots of ways, all human,
00:35:24.640 --> 00:35:26.470
but they're very different from what
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:29.270
he'd been increasingly experiencing as
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:32.230
as rather enclosing atmosphere of Vimar
00:35:32.240 --> 00:35:34.310
Vimarin.
00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:36.470
And why do you think the the second part
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:38.710
has has failed to catch on quite as much
00:35:38.720 --> 00:35:40.870
in the English-speaking world? It is the
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:43.190
wider and more ambitious work. So, in a
00:35:43.200 --> 00:35:44.630
way, you might expect it to have the
00:35:44.640 --> 00:35:47.990
greater reputation. It's just in in some
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:51.190
way I mean I it took me longer to
00:35:51.200 --> 00:35:55.510
translate but um
00:35:55.520 --> 00:35:57.349
I can perfectly well see why you
00:35:57.359 --> 00:36:00.870
wouldn't want to to to carry on reading
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:05.270
it because it is so man uh
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:08.710
manysided and is this there is an the
00:36:08.720 --> 00:36:11.589
irony means on the whole you know I'm
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:13.430
saying this and kind of not quite
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:15.030
believing it or holding up to
00:36:15.040 --> 00:36:16.870
possibility ities and and the whole
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:21.750
thing keeps keeps on doing that. Um and
00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:25.430
the ending is is in many ways visible
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:29.750
just taking the um
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:33.510
the soul of false up to heaven. You can
00:36:33.520 --> 00:36:35.990
imagine that being done as as pure
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:37.430
farce. And that's one of the things
00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:39.270
which
00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:41.990
distressed other people readers in his
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:46.069
own time of of him being actually
00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:50.310
something of a um
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:51.829
he didn't really mean it. I mean that's
00:36:51.839 --> 00:36:52.870
what
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:57.349
>> or he reserve the option not to mean it
00:36:57.359 --> 00:37:00.230
to himself quite mean it quite believe
00:37:00.240 --> 00:37:02.950
in it. Whereas the first the ending I
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:04.470
mean a lot of the drama in the first
00:37:04.480 --> 00:37:07.190
part is quite intimate and and in a way
00:37:07.200 --> 00:37:09.430
that could be related to this sort of
00:37:09.440 --> 00:37:12.069
romance with Gretchen then him deciding
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:13.990
perhaps not and being on the edge of
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:15.910
this quite a realistic decision
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:18.230
psychologically speaking. Then you begin
00:37:18.240 --> 00:37:21.030
part two with a mind wipe and suddenly
00:37:21.040 --> 00:37:22.790
everything is a lot more outrageous and
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:26.310
a lot more alienated. And I suppose even
00:37:26.320 --> 00:37:29.109
literally Gerta writing from his home in
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:31.670
in Germany somewhere and then from
00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:33.270
somewhere else. He's in a classical
00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:35.589
world. He's outside of himself.
00:37:35.599 --> 00:37:37.510
>> And perhaps it's just a simple question
00:37:37.520 --> 00:37:40.310
of people prefer to be closer to these
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:42.310
characters than further away. And in the
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:44.150
first part, you can understand FA as
00:37:44.160 --> 00:37:46.470
maybe a redeemable figure. Ultimately,
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:49.030
he fails the challenge, but the tension
00:37:49.040 --> 00:37:52.230
is will he fail the challenge? Whereas
00:37:52.240 --> 00:37:54.310
in part two, I'm not sure there is
00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:56.630
really any chance of him coming back
00:37:56.640 --> 00:37:58.230
because he's so far removed from
00:37:58.240 --> 00:37:59.990
anything we're familiar with.
00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:03.190
>> Yeah, I think that's right.
00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:05.910
>> So, so early No, go on. No. So I mean
00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:08.950
it's often pointed out I can't exactly
00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:10.870
remember where and in which scenes but
00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:13.990
FA is actually absent for a long long
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:17.270
periods in or he's asleep or the the
00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:20.310
actual pantomime so to speak is going on
00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:25.349
without him whereas the whole of first
00:38:25.359 --> 00:38:27.750
part is is
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:29.349
or he's the key to the whole thing and
00:38:29.359 --> 00:38:31.910
the and he and
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:35.190
the great shim that's what it is about
00:38:35.200 --> 00:38:37.190
whereas later in the in the other thing
00:38:37.200 --> 00:38:38.950
then there's so much going on that he's
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:42.069
as I say he's he's just the observer of
00:38:42.079 --> 00:38:46.870
or he's actually absent from and
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:48.710
it's strange
00:38:48.720 --> 00:38:50.790
>> yeah and I an interesting point when I
00:38:50.800 --> 00:38:53.670
was uh reading the first part was after
00:38:53.680 --> 00:38:56.310
sort of being granted this this great
00:38:56.320 --> 00:38:59.190
opportunity with meto essentially do
00:38:59.200 --> 00:39:01.750
anything become anything um and with
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:03.750
some some meddling with the the sort of
00:39:03.760 --> 00:39:06.310
love potion or the attraction potion. It
00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:08.150
seems that the very first thing FA
00:39:08.160 --> 00:39:10.550
really desires is to be with a very
00:39:10.560 --> 00:39:13.349
ordinary girl which in a way is just the
00:39:13.359 --> 00:39:14.870
something he could have achieved without
00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:16.069
meto
00:39:16.079 --> 00:39:18.470
>> the most ordinary desire in the world.
00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:20.630
And it's in fact the presence of Mesto
00:39:20.640 --> 00:39:22.470
that in a way limits him and says he
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:24.870
can't stay like this because she fears
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:27.190
him and he's taken off to all of these
00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:30.150
wondrous events on mountaintops and and
00:39:30.160 --> 00:39:31.750
there seems to be some great irony there
00:39:31.760 --> 00:39:33.349
that when given, you know, he's he's
00:39:33.359 --> 00:39:35.270
this depressed sort of scholar who
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:37.430
believes he's read enough books, there's
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.510
nothing else in his life and all it
00:39:39.520 --> 00:39:41.589
really takes is just seeing a a young
00:39:41.599 --> 00:39:44.069
girl falling in love to become
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:46.710
completely enraptured with the universe.
00:39:46.720 --> 00:39:48.790
And I wonder if if really there is the
00:39:48.800 --> 00:39:51.510
irony there suggesting that FA while
00:39:51.520 --> 00:39:53.589
thinking he'd done everything hadn't
00:39:53.599 --> 00:39:57.030
even tried the most simple aspect of
00:39:57.040 --> 00:39:58.950
human existence and encounters it
00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:03.829
completely the wrong way around
00:40:03.839 --> 00:40:06.870
>> some more than once I think Gera talks
00:40:06.880 --> 00:40:09.430
about incommensurables
00:40:09.440 --> 00:40:11.670
>> in his in his work that is to say
00:40:11.680 --> 00:40:13.190
there's this and this this and they
00:40:13.200 --> 00:40:17.190
don't actually fit and it seems to be
00:40:17.200 --> 00:40:20.390
a way of being in the world actually to
00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:24.470
accept or even create incommensurable
00:40:24.480 --> 00:40:26.310
situations.
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:29.109
Um so it is not wholly this and it is
00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:30.470
not wholly that. There's a bit of this
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:32.790
and a bit of that and and that there's
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:35.670
obviously very great tension in that and
00:40:35.680 --> 00:40:40.230
in some ways a degree of um well puzzle
00:40:40.240 --> 00:40:41.829
no not puzzle puzzle is not the right
00:40:41.839 --> 00:40:44.069
word but you just ac you you can accept
00:40:44.079 --> 00:40:46.710
that the world is full or life is full
00:40:46.720 --> 00:40:48.710
of incommensables and that's actually
00:40:48.720 --> 00:40:50.550
not a
00:40:50.560 --> 00:40:52.630
>> not a bad way of looking at it because
00:40:52.640 --> 00:40:54.630
not everything fits in fact most things
00:40:54.640 --> 00:40:57.190
don't fit.
00:40:57.200 --> 00:40:59.750
Yeah, it's and I think it was Harold
00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:02.870
Bloom who compared Gerta with William
00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:05.589
Blake and rated Ger a little higher on
00:41:05.599 --> 00:41:07.990
the same ladder. And it's Blake who
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:09.829
talks about the contraries. Yeah.
00:41:09.839 --> 00:41:11.670
>> In a marriage of of heaven and hell
00:41:11.680 --> 00:41:13.910
about the contraries generating energy.
00:41:13.920 --> 00:41:15.670
And I suppose and you get this in Blake
00:41:15.680 --> 00:41:17.349
a lot perhaps due to just the way he
00:41:17.359 --> 00:41:20.390
would write his prophetic works not
00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:22.150
necessarily referring back. There's a
00:41:22.160 --> 00:41:23.670
lot of repetition, a lot of sort of
00:41:23.680 --> 00:41:26.150
codes. But um it's interesting to have
00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:28.150
that idea of contraries and then to
00:41:28.160 --> 00:41:30.630
apply it formally. So it's actually the
00:41:30.640 --> 00:41:33.829
work itself not only in its content but
00:41:33.839 --> 00:41:35.190
the actual structure it has
00:41:35.200 --> 00:41:36.710
contradictions. It's written in the
00:41:36.720 --> 00:41:39.190
wrong order. It's pushed together. And I
00:41:39.200 --> 00:41:41.030
think that's that's a curious detail and
00:41:41.040 --> 00:41:42.950
I wonder what your thoughts are on
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:45.430
Gerta's editorial position. He could
00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:47.670
have gone back I suppose and caught out
00:41:47.680 --> 00:41:50.550
the contradictions and flattened them.
00:41:50.560 --> 00:41:52.870
Um but he didn't and they remain in the
00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:55.030
text. I wonder was this a sort of um
00:41:55.040 --> 00:41:57.910
refusal to edit the younger Ger's work
00:41:57.920 --> 00:41:59.829
or was it integral to him? He's like it
00:41:59.839 --> 00:42:02.069
doesn't matter if we've reordered it. It
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:04.069
doesn't matter if we have this sort of a
00:42:04.079 --> 00:42:06.950
remnant of the earth spirit who it seems
00:42:06.960 --> 00:42:08.309
originally
00:42:08.319 --> 00:42:11.670
>> gave foul to me but now doesn't why why
00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:13.430
do you think he was reluctant or refused
00:42:13.440 --> 00:42:15.750
to um make those changes to make the
00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:19.454
work more unitary when looking back?
00:42:19.464 --> 00:42:20.870
>> [clears throat]
00:42:20.880 --> 00:42:22.950
>> Well, I don't think in the end, well,
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:26.550
not even in the end, he was interested
00:42:26.560 --> 00:42:28.550
in in in
00:42:28.560 --> 00:42:30.550
having everything
00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:32.790
made into a unity. I think his view of
00:42:32.800 --> 00:42:35.190
the world was there
00:42:35.200 --> 00:42:38.150
there is precisely incompatible was
00:42:38.160 --> 00:42:40.630
called I mean the surely that is that is
00:42:40.640 --> 00:42:43.430
surely a world a view of the world which
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:47.030
is completely tenable. We we live in all
00:42:47.040 --> 00:42:49.190
and it's In many ways, it's more
00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:51.670
obviously worsening
00:42:51.680 --> 00:42:55.990
now. Um, that is to say to what what
00:42:56.000 --> 00:42:59.190
even what human beings are anymore, what
00:42:59.200 --> 00:43:01.270
a human being is, if it's not as a
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:02.870
robot.
00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:05.589
And once we're facing up to that and we
00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:07.750
facing up, it just seems to mean to be
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:10.470
now increasingly a fact. If you go to
00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:11.990
Google and you look something up, it's
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:15.510
an AI thing that has has some, you know,
00:43:15.520 --> 00:43:19.030
prepared this little bit of of knowledge
00:43:19.040 --> 00:43:21.349
for you. And I suppose the younger
00:43:21.359 --> 00:43:23.990
generation faces that or think nothing
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:26.309
much of that anymore. But I actually
00:43:26.319 --> 00:43:28.150
find it rather disconcerting because
00:43:28.160 --> 00:43:30.470
it's a
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:34.150
so I think it that is I read something I
00:43:34.160 --> 00:43:35.430
was reading something the other day just
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:37.349
about how long has the human race got
00:43:37.359 --> 00:43:42.550
left and it's in in um you know in
00:43:42.560 --> 00:43:45.589
larger understandings of time the answer
00:43:45.599 --> 00:43:48.390
is not very long
00:43:48.400 --> 00:43:50.710
>> it's because of the
00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:53.109
um well one of one of the things was
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:56.950
that homo O sapion the so-called
00:43:56.960 --> 00:44:01.430
is the survivor of all of of several in
00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:03.430
fact many different versions of being
00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:05.349
human
00:44:05.359 --> 00:44:10.069
>> human beings and they all die out or all
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:13.109
killed off by homo sapiens as soon as
00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:17.030
you've got one species left like that
00:44:17.040 --> 00:44:19.670
then it's a very great this is why we
00:44:19.680 --> 00:44:23.589
perpetually need things to keep us going
00:44:23.599 --> 00:44:26.710
because you become absolutely open to
00:44:26.720 --> 00:44:29.190
all kinds of viruses and everything
00:44:29.200 --> 00:44:31.349
else. If you've got a a mixed
00:44:31.359 --> 00:44:33.030
population,
00:44:33.040 --> 00:44:35.349
the viruses in it can circulate and
00:44:35.359 --> 00:44:38.550
they're less telling to the one that's
00:44:38.560 --> 00:44:41.190
the only one there. And we are now the
00:44:41.200 --> 00:44:44.309
only one of that species left, which is
00:44:44.319 --> 00:44:48.790
a a solitary position. And obviously
00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:51.510
it's not going to happen tomorrow but
00:44:51.520 --> 00:44:54.069
that is and then relatively speaking in
00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:55.750
terms of time it would have been a very
00:44:55.760 --> 00:44:58.150
brief interlude in which this very
00:44:58.160 --> 00:45:01.670
strange creature existed.
00:45:01.680 --> 00:45:03.910
>> And I suppose sophisticated human
00:45:03.920 --> 00:45:06.950
consciousness uh is something which
00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:10.230
transcends any mere biological
00:45:10.240 --> 00:45:11.910
classification
00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:16.710
of homo sapiens. Um I was interested
00:45:16.720 --> 00:45:21.270
when when Milo brought up um Blake in um
00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:23.030
one of the interesting overlaps between
00:45:23.040 --> 00:45:25.430
Gers and Blake I thought was the the
00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:28.790
capacity to come up with these pathy
00:45:28.800 --> 00:45:30.390
epigatical
00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:32.950
uh rhyming couplets. It's one of the
00:45:32.960 --> 00:45:36.069
things that um makes Gerta distinct from
00:45:36.079 --> 00:45:39.349
Shakespeare say um the the capacity to
00:45:39.359 --> 00:45:43.349
come up with these um once heard forever
00:45:43.359 --> 00:45:46.630
remembered um little rhyming couplets
00:45:46.640 --> 00:45:49.670
that can be um taken out of fou can
00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:52.790
survive alone. I mean uh on the top of
00:45:52.800 --> 00:46:03.030
my head
00:46:03.040 --> 00:46:07.270
we have like immediately um um
00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:09.510
compressing so much into a small
00:46:09.520 --> 00:46:11.270
statement and you find find this in
00:46:11.280 --> 00:46:13.190
Blake a lot. I'm curious in your
00:46:13.200 --> 00:46:18.309
translation of um FA did you um uh did
00:46:18.319 --> 00:46:20.950
you try to retain those little rhyming
00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:23.270
couplets as as rhymed?
00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:23.510
>> Yeah.
00:46:23.520 --> 00:46:26.069
>> Yeah. I mean I
00:46:26.079 --> 00:46:28.790
I I rhymed when he rhymed and rhythm
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:31.349
meters. I I I followed him as closely as
00:46:31.359 --> 00:46:36.309
I could. and um rhyming. As soon as you
00:46:36.319 --> 00:46:39.430
allow yourself rhymes that are half
00:46:39.440 --> 00:46:41.270
rhymes and you you're going to use a ee
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:43.829
I o but as long as ites in
00:46:43.839 --> 00:46:45.829
>> in that sense then that
00:46:45.839 --> 00:46:48.550
>> because rhyming is is difficult if
00:46:48.560 --> 00:46:50.150
you're going to stick exactly I know
00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:51.910
this from Hilderlin even more if you
00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:54.230
stick exactly to these very full rhymes
00:46:54.240 --> 00:46:57.109
then you've got very very little
00:46:57.119 --> 00:46:59.589
>> to play with and if you do that then
00:46:59.599 --> 00:47:02.390
you're actually reducing him as he
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:07.430
appears in in in your native tongue. So,
00:47:07.440 --> 00:47:08.069
>> um
00:47:08.079 --> 00:47:10.150
>> yeah, I've I've been in my translations
00:47:10.160 --> 00:47:12.150
of um Aishendorf at the moment, I've
00:47:12.160 --> 00:47:13.990
I've been in which I've also been
00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:16.470
rhyming in exactly the same place as he
00:47:16.480 --> 00:47:18.150
rhymes and taking exactly the same rhyme
00:47:18.160 --> 00:47:20.630
scheme that he rhymes. I've um been
00:47:20.640 --> 00:47:24.630
enjoying some of the the chaotic uh sort
00:47:24.640 --> 00:47:26.550
of unexpected
00:47:26.560 --> 00:47:30.150
um things that um get thrown up just by
00:47:30.160 --> 00:47:32.790
needing to rhyme. I mean you you end up
00:47:32.800 --> 00:47:34.630
um you have to sacrifice certain other
00:47:34.640 --> 00:47:37.510
aspects of the poem for example diction
00:47:37.520 --> 00:47:40.710
and and um and meter sometimes and vocab
00:47:40.720 --> 00:47:43.430
choices in order to retain rhyme. But I
00:47:43.440 --> 00:47:47.430
I've been really enjoying um some of the
00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.630
the strange unexpected
00:47:50.640 --> 00:47:53.670
um beautiful bursts of rare vocabulary
00:47:53.680 --> 00:47:57.510
that um I've that I've um had to sort of
00:47:57.520 --> 00:48:01.430
employ in order to um in order to retain
00:48:01.440 --> 00:48:04.309
the rhyme. Did you in your translation
00:48:04.319 --> 00:48:06.390
in any of your translations of Hurlene
00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:10.710
of of Gerta of Pesh have a a a sort of
00:48:10.720 --> 00:48:14.550
music uh to meaning ratio when you're
00:48:14.560 --> 00:48:16.390
translating? Do you if you discover
00:48:16.400 --> 00:48:20.470
something um beautiful which maybe
00:48:20.480 --> 00:48:22.870
diverges from the original meaning
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:24.710
strictly? Are you do you feel inclined
00:48:24.720 --> 00:48:26.790
to follow it or to restrict yourself? On
00:48:26.800 --> 00:48:30.549
the whole on the whole um
00:48:30.559 --> 00:48:32.790
what I'm doing now I I mean I've did a
00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:34.870
lot of Herelin and but it was Herodlin
00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:37.670
from Susette Gontard right right through
00:48:37.680 --> 00:48:40.790
to the end and what I'm doing now as it
00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:42.630
were late in the day going right to the
00:48:42.640 --> 00:48:44.390
beginning to the very early ones and all
00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:47.670
these school ones and then in tubing and
00:48:47.680 --> 00:48:50.549
um and they're harder to do in lots of
00:48:50.559 --> 00:48:52.790
ways because once he's moved over to
00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:56.309
classical meters and they're not rhyming
00:48:56.319 --> 00:48:57.990
Then
00:48:58.000 --> 00:49:00.950
funnily enough it is actually
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:04.309
because German meter is heavier per
00:49:04.319 --> 00:49:07.190
force than is than is English. you
00:49:07.200 --> 00:49:08.870
really know a stressed syllable in
00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:10.230
German or
00:49:10.240 --> 00:49:12.470
>> you can there's more there's more room
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:16.230
elbow room doing eskeipiads and and all
00:49:16.240 --> 00:49:20.390
the or particularly but um when these
00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:24.870
really are um his endless the troies of
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:26.710
early hund
00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:29.109
that's very very heavy indeed and you
00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:31.349
can't actually easily get out of it and
00:49:31.359 --> 00:49:35.109
if if you did really try to rhyme on the
00:49:35.119 --> 00:49:36.950
rhymes always pure poorly and I've
00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:39.510
stopped trying to do that for for years
00:49:39.520 --> 00:49:42.790
in anything that I've been translating
00:49:42.800 --> 00:49:46.790
because it's it's it's very hampering
00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:51.190
uh it reduces your possibilities clearly
00:49:51.200 --> 00:49:55.030
but also in my own in my own um
00:49:55.040 --> 00:49:59.030
poems I very readily and often rhyme
00:49:59.040 --> 00:50:00.150
half rhyme
00:50:00.160 --> 00:50:02.630
>> and it just simply means that there's
00:50:02.640 --> 00:50:04.470
something that is going on here which is
00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:08.470
a regularity and that that is good. It's
00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:11.349
a good thing to have
00:50:11.359 --> 00:50:14.549
>> structures, but the leniency you allow
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:18.790
yourself is to um well, it's a license.
00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:20.710
It's a small one, but I mean half rhyme
00:50:20.720 --> 00:50:23.190
is obviously common place.
00:50:23.200 --> 00:50:24.950
>> I suppose it's it's different poet to
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:29.109
poet um that which con which constraints
00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:31.030
are constraints and and which
00:50:31.040 --> 00:50:33.109
constraints are actually liberating.
00:50:33.119 --> 00:50:37.670
>> Yeah. And um some some poets as soon as
00:50:37.680 --> 00:50:39.349
um as soon [clears throat] as they have
00:50:39.359 --> 00:50:42.390
to write in an iamic pantameter rhymed
00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:45.109
couplet suddenly feel released to say
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:48.069
anything they want. other poets find
00:50:48.079 --> 00:50:50.790
this um impossible to live within and
00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:52.790
they and they find their voice in a
00:50:52.800 --> 00:50:56.790
complete um breakdown of form
00:50:56.800 --> 00:50:58.150
>> and one of the things that interests me
00:50:58.160 --> 00:50:59.670
about hidden especially because I'm
00:50:59.680 --> 00:51:03.750
reading um so much uh um Aishendorf at
00:51:03.760 --> 00:51:08.549
the moment is um just how um how
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:11.349
difficult it is how strange like the the
00:51:11.359 --> 00:51:13.829
grammar the syntax when I first read
00:51:13.839 --> 00:51:16.870
Hulene uh about two years ago, I just
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:18.470
assumed my German wasn't good enough to
00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:21.109
follow his, you know, colossal sentences
00:51:21.119 --> 00:51:23.030
and their absurd grammar. And and after
00:51:23.040 --> 00:51:24.630
reading your English translations, I
00:51:24.640 --> 00:51:26.630
realized it isn't a foreign language
00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:30.630
issue. Helderene simply, uh just wrote a
00:51:30.640 --> 00:51:32.870
lot which is quite difficult to follow
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:34.950
semantically. Are there still things in
00:51:34.960 --> 00:51:36.630
her which you still don't quite
00:51:36.640 --> 00:51:37.910
understand?
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:39.750
>> Oh yeah, sure. But I think there's a
00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:42.710
there's a a not understanding which is
00:51:42.720 --> 00:51:44.630
actually quite productive.
00:51:44.640 --> 00:51:48.549
>> Definitely. Yeah. And I was thinking
00:51:48.559 --> 00:51:51.030
then precisely if you know what you do
00:51:51.040 --> 00:51:54.390
I'm sure but but what Hilderelin put
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:58.150
himself through to be able to write like
00:51:58.160 --> 00:52:02.390
Pinda is this manic absolutely syllable
00:52:02.400 --> 00:52:04.790
by syllable exactness
00:52:04.800 --> 00:52:07.670
of of the os that he was doing in that
00:52:07.680 --> 00:52:09.589
fashion. Now he's no fool. He wasn't
00:52:09.599 --> 00:52:11.270
just doing that because he couldn't
00:52:11.280 --> 00:52:13.270
think of anything better to do. He was
00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:17.430
doing that to um by bringing himself
00:52:17.440 --> 00:52:20.069
literally as close as possible to what
00:52:20.079 --> 00:52:22.716
the thing was on the page.
00:52:22.726 --> 00:52:23.270
[clears throat]
00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:24.950
>> And those things are extraordinary
00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:27.910
because for most of the not most but for
00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:29.829
large stretches of their reading they're
00:52:29.839 --> 00:52:32.309
completely unintelligible
00:52:32.319 --> 00:52:36.470
>> without the pender being there. But
00:52:36.480 --> 00:52:39.910
every now and then doing exactly that he
00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:42.710
arrives at something which is readable,
00:52:42.720 --> 00:52:45.510
intelligible as German but nearly off
00:52:45.520 --> 00:52:48.309
the scale of strangeness.
00:52:48.319 --> 00:52:51.109
>> It's that that he wants
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:53.430
>> this estranging of the of his own
00:52:53.440 --> 00:52:55.990
language, his beloved language into
00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:58.790
something which will be able to say even
00:52:58.800 --> 00:53:01.990
more. And then it's not clear what he
00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:03.829
wanted to do with those. He never tried
00:53:03.839 --> 00:53:05.510
to publish them. And it seems to me to
00:53:05.520 --> 00:53:08.069
be one of those exercises
00:53:08.079 --> 00:53:10.150
that very great poets are prepared to
00:53:10.160 --> 00:53:13.750
put themselves through to see what can
00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:16.390
be done in their own tongue
00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:18.150
>> because
00:53:18.160 --> 00:53:21.510
and he is a terrific extender of the
00:53:21.520 --> 00:53:24.470
possibilities in his own German tongue
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:26.549
actually
00:53:26.559 --> 00:53:28.710
>> um and when Gutter and Schiller made fun
00:53:28.720 --> 00:53:32.309
of him in in um when they were reading
00:53:32.319 --> 00:53:37.030
his uh um his translations from from
00:53:37.040 --> 00:53:38.870
Sophocles
00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:41.750
um that is actually with all possible
00:53:41.760 --> 00:53:43.589
respect just because they hadn't
00:53:43.599 --> 00:53:44.870
understood it.
00:53:44.880 --> 00:53:47.109
>> They did not know what was going on on
00:53:47.119 --> 00:53:49.990
the page. They these great writers could
00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:53.430
not themselves open them up to what was
00:53:53.440 --> 00:53:56.309
continually doing opening himself up to
00:53:56.319 --> 00:53:57.990
what is strange.
00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.150
>> Yeah. There were pits and I and I've
00:54:00.160 --> 00:54:03.030
I've not read her suffocles so I I don't
00:54:03.040 --> 00:54:06.710
know how precisely you were how precise
00:54:06.720 --> 00:54:09.349
your translations were but um that it
00:54:09.359 --> 00:54:11.990
almost sounded like Gertrude Stein or
00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:14.069
something. It was just completely out
00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:17.510
there. I I have one sentence um here
00:54:17.520 --> 00:54:20.230
from Antiggony which I read so many
00:54:20.240 --> 00:54:23.109
times from the very start and just
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:24.549
couldn't couldn't follow [clears throat]
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:26.790
the grammar but in kind of a way that's
00:54:26.800 --> 00:54:28.549
interesting in in a way that was like
00:54:28.559 --> 00:54:33.349
Gertrred Stein. It's um not one sad work
00:54:33.359 --> 00:54:37.670
nor any error and no disgrace and no
00:54:37.680 --> 00:54:41.829
dishonor anywhere is there that I in
00:54:41.839 --> 00:54:45.507
your and my unhappiness have not seen
00:54:45.517 --> 00:54:47.109
[laughter]
00:54:47.119 --> 00:54:49.829
>> that I I I've put next to it a sentence
00:54:49.839 --> 00:54:51.510
from one of the first from the very
00:54:51.520 --> 00:54:53.750
first Sherlock Holmes story when Holmes
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:58.950
has a a letter and he um uh he he says
00:54:58.960 --> 00:55:00.870
the man who wrote this note is clearly
00:55:00.880 --> 00:55:02.790
German. Do you note the peculiar
00:55:02.800 --> 00:55:04.950
construction of the sentence? This
00:55:04.960 --> 00:55:07.750
account of you we have from all quarters
00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:10.150
received. A Frenchman or Russian could
00:55:10.160 --> 00:55:12.309
not have written that. It is the German
00:55:12.319 --> 00:55:15.990
who is so uncourteous to his verbs. Um,
00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:18.150
reading your holder, I I similarly felt
00:55:18.160 --> 00:55:20.549
that frequently that one could tell the
00:55:20.559 --> 00:55:22.549
poems were from another language that
00:55:22.559 --> 00:55:25.030
you weren't attempting necessarily to be
00:55:25.040 --> 00:55:28.549
idiomatic in English in your sentence
00:55:28.559 --> 00:55:30.069
constructions. Was this something
00:55:30.079 --> 00:55:32.950
conscious? Were you trying to make your
00:55:32.960 --> 00:55:35.109
readers aware at times that these poems
00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:37.589
were being translated? Well, the only
00:55:37.599 --> 00:55:41.109
leniency I really gave myself was to um
00:55:41.119 --> 00:55:42.950
it's different doing the rhyming ones,
00:55:42.960 --> 00:55:45.109
but once he'd stop rhyming and then
00:55:45.119 --> 00:55:46.870
again when he begins it right at the end
00:55:46.880 --> 00:55:48.710
of his life, then I was quite strict
00:55:48.720 --> 00:55:50.390
about rhyming even if they were half
00:55:50.400 --> 00:55:53.990
rhymes. But um when I was translating
00:55:54.000 --> 00:55:56.789
the
00:55:56.799 --> 00:56:00.069
well Horton vine and those in in you
00:56:00.079 --> 00:56:03.109
know in actually regular meter then they
00:56:03.119 --> 00:56:05.589
were relatively easy but the it's the
00:56:05.599 --> 00:56:07.670
Pinda ones that not the real Pinda ones
00:56:07.680 --> 00:56:10.150
but the the ODS in the end the ones
00:56:10.160 --> 00:56:12.710
which he is chiefly
00:56:12.720 --> 00:56:14.230
>> um
00:56:14.240 --> 00:56:15.910
renowned for actually that's a real
00:56:15.920 --> 00:56:18.309
breakthrough into something which is
00:56:18.319 --> 00:56:21.510
which is which is um
00:56:21.520 --> 00:56:23.510
well helpfully foreign. I think that's
00:56:23.520 --> 00:56:26.069
what he was always trying to do is to is
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:29.750
to make the language sound yes it this
00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:32.390
is German but it's it's foreign and the
00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:35.349
foreignness is a good thing. So I made
00:56:35.359 --> 00:56:37.349
sure that everything was in it that he
00:56:37.359 --> 00:56:39.349
was saying. I didn't break the lines
00:56:39.359 --> 00:56:41.589
where he did necessarily,
00:56:41.599 --> 00:56:46.870
>> but what I knew I had to do is um
00:56:46.880 --> 00:56:49.349
is keep every ounce, if that's the
00:56:49.359 --> 00:56:52.870
correct word, of tension in it because
00:56:52.880 --> 00:56:55.349
when you you when you in fact it's the
00:56:55.359 --> 00:56:59.190
same in the in the allergies, you'll run
00:56:59.200 --> 00:57:01.109
on like that and like that and like that
00:57:01.119 --> 00:57:04.150
and that like that and you and it it's
00:57:04.160 --> 00:57:08.230
because something is is pending and was
00:57:08.240 --> 00:57:10.630
is coming in. It's part of the way
00:57:10.640 --> 00:57:13.270
German language makes its structures.
00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:15.270
You can actually do that relatively easy
00:57:15.280 --> 00:57:17.670
because something is coming at at the
00:57:17.680 --> 00:57:20.470
end which is more unusual in
00:57:20.480 --> 00:57:22.069
>> in English.
00:57:22.079 --> 00:57:25.430
>> But I think that um
00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:27.430
that is actually a very great thing if
00:57:27.440 --> 00:57:30.470
if line by line by line you are
00:57:30.480 --> 00:57:32.950
proceeding in a way which is increasing
00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:34.789
tension.
00:57:34.799 --> 00:57:37.190
tension in you waiting not waiting to
00:57:37.200 --> 00:57:39.190
see what's coming but actually knowing
00:57:39.200 --> 00:57:41.750
there is something and that in the
00:57:41.760 --> 00:57:45.109
German syntax can more easily be kept
00:57:45.119 --> 00:57:47.190
towards the end and it can normally
00:57:47.200 --> 00:57:50.309
speaking in English so that I knew I was
00:57:50.319 --> 00:57:54.390
fem language to some extent but I
00:57:54.400 --> 00:57:57.190
thought it was more so in my translation
00:57:57.200 --> 00:58:02.789
of the of the plays um even more strange
00:58:02.799 --> 00:58:04.870
>> translations of translations
00:58:04.880 --> 00:58:05.349
Yeah.
00:58:05.359 --> 00:58:07.990
>> Somewhat eccentric. Yeah. [laughter]
00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:08.710
Yeah.
00:58:08.720 --> 00:58:12.870
>> Interesting to me to be English is one
00:58:12.880 --> 00:58:14.549
of the things we're definitely blessed
00:58:14.559 --> 00:58:17.750
with is an English tongue which for
00:58:17.760 --> 00:58:20.789
centuries in fact more than centuries
00:58:20.799 --> 00:58:23.510
actually goes right back to mix to
00:58:23.520 --> 00:58:24.870
French
00:58:24.880 --> 00:58:30.470
>> normal French and and um Anglo-Saxon.
00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:31.670
So that's why you've got, as you know,
00:58:31.680 --> 00:58:35.190
in the dictionary often you've got a
00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:37.349
Latinate word and an Anglo-Saxon word
00:58:37.359 --> 00:58:39.430
and they
00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:41.109
they're thought of as synonyms and
00:58:41.119 --> 00:58:42.630
they're absolutely they are synonyms.
00:58:42.640 --> 00:58:44.230
They mean not the same, but they're not
00:58:44.240 --> 00:58:45.910
the same because
00:58:45.920 --> 00:58:47.670
>> because the tongue they've come out of
00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:52.390
has got a slightly different um
00:58:52.400 --> 00:58:56.309
it's got sound to it, but also it's
00:58:56.319 --> 00:58:57.990
sometimes it's to do with plus. If it's
00:58:58.000 --> 00:58:59.670
more Latinate, then it's more
00:58:59.680 --> 00:59:01.670
>> Yeah. Latin is fancy. Yeah. It was
00:59:01.680 --> 00:59:03.270
interesting when I was learning Italian
00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:06.230
that I whenever like you you notice lots
00:59:06.240 --> 00:59:08.549
of words, but from the in from the fancy
00:59:08.559 --> 00:59:11.270
vocabulary part of my English brain,
00:59:11.280 --> 00:59:13.030
>> Yeah. Yeah, I find it's interesting with
00:59:13.040 --> 00:59:15.270
neologism while comparing it to German
00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:17.349
that um
00:59:17.359 --> 00:59:20.150
British like a word like television
00:59:20.160 --> 00:59:24.470
takes a Greek and and a Latin root puts
00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:26.069
them together where where our German
00:59:26.079 --> 00:59:28.710
cousins just it's just in their own
00:59:28.720 --> 00:59:30.710
tongue fine
00:59:30.720 --> 00:59:32.150
>> distant sight.
00:59:32.160 --> 00:59:34.710
>> Yeah, English is very capable of that.
00:59:34.720 --> 00:59:36.630
It's a great take her in of things and
00:59:36.640 --> 00:59:38.069
and more and more and more because there
00:59:38.079 --> 00:59:40.630
are more and more languages now
00:59:40.640 --> 00:59:43.190
>> taking place in in the United Kingdom.
00:59:43.200 --> 00:59:43.990
So
00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:46.069
>> I wonder if you're just just to break in
00:59:46.079 --> 00:59:48.870
on that point just if the procedure for
00:59:48.880 --> 00:59:50.710
the translation of FA was a little
00:59:50.720 --> 00:59:52.789
different because I did notice reading
00:59:52.799 --> 00:59:55.109
it there are some sort of a idiomatic
00:59:55.119 --> 00:59:57.750
English phrases make their way in words
00:59:57.760 --> 00:59:59.270
like hurly burly.
00:59:59.280 --> 01:00:03.190
>> Yeah. Uh I think MC briefly is mentioned
01:00:03.200 --> 01:00:05.910
um which seems not to foreignize the
01:00:05.920 --> 01:00:07.510
text but to sort of make it more
01:00:07.520 --> 01:00:10.309
familiar. Uh and I wonder what the the
01:00:10.319 --> 01:00:11.750
approach there was.
01:00:11.760 --> 01:00:13.750
>> I I don't think I was thinking of
01:00:13.760 --> 01:00:16.069
foreignizing
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:18.069
fast at all really. I was trying to get
01:00:18.079 --> 01:00:21.109
it into a language which would be
01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:23.829
readable with pleasure versus just then
01:00:23.839 --> 01:00:25.430
constantly coming up against things
01:00:25.440 --> 01:00:27.349
which just don't sound like one thing or
01:00:27.359 --> 01:00:28.710
another.
01:00:28.720 --> 01:00:31.750
Um whereas with with Helderim
01:00:31.760 --> 01:00:34.549
particularly with the hymns and
01:00:34.559 --> 01:00:36.230
certainly with all the fragments at the
01:00:36.240 --> 01:00:40.470
end I know I knew that I'm in a zone of
01:00:40.480 --> 01:00:43.670
strangeness there and last thing I would
01:00:43.680 --> 01:00:48.230
want to be doing is making it sound um
01:00:48.240 --> 01:00:50.710
more accessible or or more as though
01:00:50.720 --> 01:00:53.430
this was the ordinary because it
01:00:53.440 --> 01:00:55.910
manifestly isn't the ordinary. He was
01:00:55.920 --> 01:00:58.789
not in any way ordinary. He wasn't from
01:00:58.799 --> 01:01:02.150
the start.
01:01:02.160 --> 01:01:04.069
>> Yeah, that's it. It well, it creates an
01:01:04.079 --> 01:01:07.589
interesting kind of line. Um, if sort of
01:01:07.599 --> 01:01:11.190
the more ordinary speech in in Gerter is
01:01:11.200 --> 01:01:12.870
therefore rendered as something familiar
01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:15.190
to an audience, whereas the strangeness
01:01:15.200 --> 01:01:18.390
of hurdler hurdler can just be um
01:01:18.400 --> 01:01:21.270
expressed by making it more German in
01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:22.309
English.
01:01:22.319 --> 01:01:23.510
>> So, you're sort of working on a
01:01:23.520 --> 01:01:26.150
different axis there. Ger becomes
01:01:26.160 --> 01:01:28.230
accessible just by making him uh giving
01:01:28.240 --> 01:01:30.470
him some of our friendly words whereas
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:31.349
what you
01:01:31.359 --> 01:01:33.430
>> Yeah. remains very German. Yeah.
01:01:33.440 --> 01:01:35.589
>> And just being German is enough to sort
01:01:35.599 --> 01:01:37.510
of give it an additional step of
01:01:37.520 --> 01:01:38.549
distance.
01:01:38.559 --> 01:01:40.549
>> Yeah.
01:01:40.559 --> 01:01:43.270
>> Yeah. in our in our Robert Alter
01:01:43.280 --> 01:01:45.349
interview translated the Hebrew Bible.
01:01:45.359 --> 01:01:47.990
He said at times there were um times
01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:51.589
when he he preferenced unusual wording
01:01:51.599 --> 01:01:55.030
onetoone idiomatic translations for
01:01:55.040 --> 01:01:57.910
example just uh to to make the text
01:01:57.920 --> 01:02:00.630
sound foreign because it's thousands of
01:02:00.640 --> 01:02:04.470
years old. It's this um uh you know it's
01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:06.789
written in written in the Middle East
01:02:06.799 --> 01:02:08.870
some of it in the Iron Age. It shouldn't
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:12.390
sound like idiomatic modern English.
01:02:12.400 --> 01:02:15.829
>> It shouldn't sound like the the ESV. Um
01:02:15.839 --> 01:02:18.549
you're you're now or like recently have
01:02:18.559 --> 01:02:22.549
been translating similarly old uh poems,
01:02:22.559 --> 01:02:27.270
these um uh epigs uh from the Greek
01:02:27.280 --> 01:02:28.630
anthology.
01:02:28.640 --> 01:02:30.470
>> Could you talk a bit about how you came
01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:32.390
to this project and how you came to
01:02:32.400 --> 01:02:36.069
Greek uh at all actually? Well, I I was
01:02:36.079 --> 01:02:38.390
very very lucky in being in Wadom
01:02:38.400 --> 01:02:41.109
actually when I started Holderlin.
01:02:41.119 --> 01:02:44.630
I knew that I wanted in some way or
01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:48.069
other to be able to read Pinda. That was
01:02:48.079 --> 01:02:50.870
never going to be fluent exchange. O
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:54.549
obviously not. Um
01:02:54.559 --> 01:02:59.990
but I went to the the um prost in modern
01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:02.069
college when I was there was Samoris Ber
01:03:02.079 --> 01:03:05.430
who was is a was a classicist
01:03:05.440 --> 01:03:08.069
>> um and
01:03:08.079 --> 01:03:09.670
I don't know there were these shar
01:03:09.680 --> 01:03:11.910
parties which I was not terribly good at
01:03:11.920 --> 01:03:14.470
but he was exceedingly kind of benign or
01:03:14.480 --> 01:03:16.309
he was not you know he was never an
01:03:16.319 --> 01:03:19.190
off-putting person and he he had a funny
01:03:19.200 --> 01:03:21.190
way what are you doing what are you
01:03:21.200 --> 01:03:24.069
doing nowadays is what are you doing? I
01:03:24.079 --> 01:03:27.029
tell him I'm doing Helderin and uh and I
01:03:27.039 --> 01:03:29.589
wanted to um understand more about
01:03:29.599 --> 01:03:31.670
Pindar and he said come and see me. Come
01:03:31.680 --> 01:03:34.789
and see me. So I went round to his
01:03:34.799 --> 01:03:37.430
dwelling there and he got the complete
01:03:37.440 --> 01:03:39.994
Holder edition in German there
01:03:40.004 --> 01:03:43.349
[clears throat] for a start. Um
01:03:43.359 --> 01:03:46.150
and then um he talked about Pinda with
01:03:46.160 --> 01:03:47.829
me and and understood perfectly well
01:03:47.839 --> 01:03:50.069
what what Hilderlin had been had been
01:03:50.079 --> 01:03:51.349
doing. M
01:03:51.359 --> 01:03:55.109
>> um and he
01:03:55.119 --> 01:03:57.670
he had a
01:03:57.680 --> 01:04:00.789
Barra was gay and for a while in the he
01:04:00.799 --> 01:04:03.510
was in the gay scene in in Germany in
01:04:03.520 --> 01:04:05.829
the 1930s.
01:04:05.839 --> 01:04:07.829
Um and one of the things he just kind of
01:04:07.839 --> 01:04:09.270
flung in when we were having our
01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:12.549
conversation was hanged my friends, hang
01:04:12.559 --> 01:04:15.910
them with piano wires.
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:17.990
And that was the they the they start
01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:20.069
from their plan and all plot and all the
01:04:20.079 --> 01:04:23.910
rest. He was very um you know he was
01:04:23.920 --> 01:04:25.910
kind of German file and then there was
01:04:25.920 --> 01:04:28.150
this that which had come through but he
01:04:28.160 --> 01:04:30.549
was there he was with his with his
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:33.990
hooding and he he he told me a good deal
01:04:34.000 --> 01:04:37.349
about about um Pinda that was very very
01:04:37.359 --> 01:04:38.870
helpful
01:04:38.880 --> 01:04:42.309
and I started at that point I can't
01:04:42.319 --> 01:04:43.990
really say learning because I didn't go
01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:46.870
to classes I did it myself but I I
01:04:46.880 --> 01:04:49.829
copied out most of the in fact probably
01:04:49.839 --> 01:04:52.470
all of of the Iliad with the Greek. I
01:04:52.480 --> 01:04:54.309
wrote the Greek out
01:04:54.319 --> 01:04:56.870
>> and then but the bit underneath that I
01:04:56.880 --> 01:04:59.029
wrote an English version keeping as
01:04:59.039 --> 01:05:01.750
close as I could in the holding way to
01:05:01.760 --> 01:05:04.069
to where the various bits and pieces
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:06.549
were were fitting.
01:05:06.559 --> 01:05:08.230
>> So I've been doing that for quite a long
01:05:08.240 --> 01:05:10.390
time without ever
01:05:10.400 --> 01:05:12.789
wanting to call myself I wouldn't call
01:05:12.799 --> 01:05:16.069
myself a classicist in that way.
01:05:16.079 --> 01:05:18.470
the the
01:05:18.480 --> 01:05:21.510
crucial thing happening was my reading
01:05:21.520 --> 01:05:25.270
um
01:05:25.280 --> 01:05:27.829
when he was abroad when he was in exile
01:05:27.839 --> 01:05:31.190
he kept these notes the whole time about
01:05:31.200 --> 01:05:34.309
where he was as you know he he had to
01:05:34.319 --> 01:05:36.710
get out in 1933 he was in hospital his
01:05:36.720 --> 01:05:38.230
wife came and said if we don't get out
01:05:38.240 --> 01:05:40.630
now you're dead and that was true they
01:05:40.640 --> 01:05:43.430
just got across the border in time after
01:05:43.440 --> 01:05:46.789
>> before otherwise he wouldn't existed
01:05:46.799 --> 01:05:49.430
longer than that, 33.
01:05:49.440 --> 01:05:54.549
>> Um anyway, um Rest was uh in exile then
01:05:54.559 --> 01:05:58.950
from 33 right through till 47.
01:05:58.960 --> 01:06:01.670
uh first of all in Spendborg and then
01:06:01.680 --> 01:06:03.670
moving up the closer the German armies
01:06:03.680 --> 01:06:06.309
got or once war was declared then he
01:06:06.319 --> 01:06:08.789
moved further and further away um and
01:06:08.799 --> 01:06:12.870
was for a while in Finland before he
01:06:12.880 --> 01:06:16.309
made it out through Russia where he no
01:06:16.319 --> 01:06:18.870
wish the Soviet Union no wish to stay
01:06:18.880 --> 01:06:20.549
because they were already killing lots
01:06:20.559 --> 01:06:23.829
of friends of his Berlin was so he got
01:06:23.839 --> 01:06:27.990
out through Vladivosto to to um to
01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:31.029
America on the west on the west coast
01:06:31.039 --> 01:06:34.630
>> and in Finland upon his birthday his son
01:06:34.640 --> 01:06:38.630
gave him a very very abbreviated copy of
01:06:38.640 --> 01:06:45.109
the um of the of the elig
01:06:45.119 --> 01:06:47.029
>> of what I've been translating there the
01:06:47.039 --> 01:06:49.430
Greek anthology right
01:06:49.440 --> 01:06:51.589
>> very very thin
01:06:51.599 --> 01:06:54.150
>> and I opened it um and started reading
01:06:54.160 --> 01:06:56.789
it and it was one of those moments with
01:06:56.799 --> 01:06:58.150
because he was a great one for changing
01:06:58.160 --> 01:06:59.910
his style according to what was going
01:06:59.920 --> 01:07:03.270
on. And he saw there exactly what he
01:07:03.280 --> 01:07:05.990
wanted more and more wanted just to say
01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:08.870
the sownness of things
01:07:08.880 --> 01:07:14.549
>> without any plumby or um you know
01:07:14.559 --> 01:07:17.510
further ornate or ornation in any way
01:07:17.520 --> 01:07:20.710
whatsoever but just the thing itself
01:07:20.720 --> 01:07:22.549
solid objects because an awful lot of
01:07:22.559 --> 01:07:25.510
the of those in the Greek anthology are
01:07:25.520 --> 01:07:27.190
about they're about tools they're about
01:07:27.200 --> 01:07:30.950
weapons they're about activities ities
01:07:30.960 --> 01:07:32.549
of one sort or another. They're about
01:07:32.559 --> 01:07:35.750
very precise places and it's that
01:07:35.760 --> 01:07:37.589
precision
01:07:37.599 --> 01:07:41.670
um and um
01:07:41.680 --> 01:07:44.309
well be able being able to say a very
01:07:44.319 --> 01:07:49.589
great deal in a very small parcel.
01:07:49.599 --> 01:07:51.349
>> It was kind of materially present.
01:07:51.359 --> 01:07:52.870
That's what he really liked about it.
01:07:52.880 --> 01:07:55.589
This is this is this is the materially
01:07:55.599 --> 01:07:58.309
present for thing in that form on no
01:07:58.319 --> 01:08:00.309
other form.
01:08:00.319 --> 01:08:04.549
And then I bought the Greek anthology.
01:08:04.559 --> 01:08:09.589
There's only one um copy extent and
01:08:09.599 --> 01:08:13.829
that's in Dam Dha. Anyway, there's a
01:08:13.839 --> 01:08:14.710
>> Hidleberg
01:08:14.720 --> 01:08:17.590
>> Hidleberg. there's just one left of the
01:08:17.600 --> 01:08:19.269
copy of I mean they were always doing
01:08:19.279 --> 01:08:20.789
others but the one that's called the
01:08:20.799 --> 01:08:23.269
Greek anthology is there and has been
01:08:23.279 --> 01:08:26.950
then you know distributed in many many
01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:29.189
ways lurb and so forth and I just
01:08:29.199 --> 01:08:31.590
started reading
01:08:31.600 --> 01:08:33.749
going not even reading in the right
01:08:33.759 --> 01:08:35.269
order but he's flicking through and
01:08:35.279 --> 01:08:36.789
seeing
01:08:36.799 --> 01:08:40.229
and hitting again and again and again on
01:08:40.239 --> 01:08:44.630
things which we succinctly said and very
01:08:44.640 --> 01:08:45.749
beautifully
01:08:45.759 --> 01:08:47.430
said
01:08:47.440 --> 01:08:51.749
um when I started translating lows not
01:08:51.759 --> 01:08:54.070
but in rather in the way that Bes did
01:08:54.080 --> 01:08:56.390
that is to say in some of them I made I
01:08:56.400 --> 01:09:00.550
made them to into Greek meters but the
01:09:00.560 --> 01:09:03.590
greater part of them were rhyming ab or
01:09:03.600 --> 01:09:06.229
abba or whatever like that and it was
01:09:06.239 --> 01:09:10.070
just this kind of solidity of the thing.
01:09:10.080 --> 01:09:11.990
>> Would you be able to read some of them
01:09:12.000 --> 01:09:14.789
to us? Quite a lot are anonymous which
01:09:14.799 --> 01:09:17.030
is like and once once I'd realized how
01:09:17.040 --> 01:09:19.030
many were anonymous I did ones of my own
01:09:19.040 --> 01:09:23.829
and called them anonymous.
01:09:23.839 --> 01:09:26.550
This is anonymous and not me.
01:09:26.560 --> 01:09:29.030
anonymous.
01:09:29.040 --> 01:09:32.550
Two joined that day, under one roof that
01:09:32.560 --> 01:09:35.749
night, lying in the wedlock darkness,
01:09:35.759 --> 01:09:38.950
had begun to see how much their lips and
01:09:38.960 --> 01:09:42.550
hands could bring to light. How slow and
01:09:42.560 --> 01:09:45.590
lovely long their learning curve would
01:09:45.600 --> 01:09:46.870
be.
01:09:46.880 --> 01:09:49.418
>> Like the end of Daffus and Chloe.
01:09:49.428 --> 01:09:55.030
[laughter]
01:09:55.040 --> 01:09:58.709
Simony days. This bow retired from
01:09:58.719 --> 01:10:02.470
pitiles war and now slung here under the
01:10:02.480 --> 01:10:06.149
roof of Athena's temple. Its arrows were
01:10:06.159 --> 01:10:08.870
dispatched through the dense thicket of
01:10:08.880 --> 01:10:12.950
the fight and entered men and lodged and
01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:16.070
bled them white.
01:10:16.080 --> 01:10:17.750
>> Bled them white.
01:10:17.760 --> 01:10:19.990
>> Yeah.
01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:21.669
Oh, that's the one I like because it's
01:10:21.679 --> 01:10:24.550
about writing letters really.
01:10:24.560 --> 01:10:28.229
Paladus of Al of Alexandria.
01:10:28.239 --> 01:10:31.750
Nature loving the rules that bind true
01:10:31.760 --> 01:10:35.270
friends invented means to help in the
01:10:35.280 --> 01:10:39.510
state of absence. Pen, paper, ink are
01:10:39.520 --> 01:10:41.110
handwriting.
01:10:41.120 --> 01:10:45.110
Love sends signals by these pining in
01:10:45.120 --> 01:10:51.669
the distance.
01:10:51.679 --> 01:10:53.270
Yeah,
01:10:53.280 --> 01:10:54.870
I'm fond of these.
01:10:54.880 --> 01:10:56.390
>> Yeah.
01:10:56.400 --> 01:10:59.270
>> What I tried to do was um not just I
01:10:59.280 --> 01:11:00.709
mean I did them in order. No, I didn't.
01:11:00.719 --> 01:11:03.030
I flitted two and fro and the book
01:11:03.040 --> 01:11:05.270
itself then was a sort of I made a kind
01:11:05.280 --> 01:11:08.229
of kaleidoscope out of it where
01:11:08.239 --> 01:11:10.870
>> um one they didn't they didn't come in
01:11:10.880 --> 01:11:13.189
sequence but one set next to another set
01:11:13.199 --> 01:11:15.590
next to another. Well,
01:11:15.600 --> 01:11:17.510
>> and then it if you shake, you can't do
01:11:17.520 --> 01:11:18.790
it with a book, but if you shook the
01:11:18.800 --> 01:11:20.790
kaleidoscope, there would then be
01:11:20.800 --> 01:11:23.910
another sort of grouping of of these
01:11:23.920 --> 01:11:27.830
small and and bruinness
01:11:27.840 --> 01:11:30.310
of it. And he he wrote a great deal of
01:11:30.320 --> 01:11:33.990
in that particularly incidentally um you
01:11:34.000 --> 01:11:36.709
probably know the book he published at
01:11:36.719 --> 01:11:39.030
the end of his finally was allowed to
01:11:39.040 --> 01:11:42.390
publish in the GDR at the end of the war
01:11:42.400 --> 01:11:45.110
was this feeble which is a
01:11:45.120 --> 01:11:46.149
>> don't know.
01:11:46.159 --> 01:11:47.590
>> Yeah,
01:11:47.600 --> 01:11:49.430
>> I managed to buy a copy of that in
01:11:49.440 --> 01:11:51.189
Berlin for something really quite
01:11:51.199 --> 01:11:52.709
little.
01:11:52.719 --> 01:11:54.709
>> I'm actually quite unfamiliar with Brack
01:11:54.719 --> 01:11:56.229
outside of song lyrics.
01:11:56.239 --> 01:11:56.950
>> Yeah,
01:11:56.960 --> 01:12:00.390
>> I I love the love the operas, the vile
01:12:00.400 --> 01:12:02.149
operas. Um
01:12:02.159 --> 01:12:03.910
>> and probably know quite a lot of him by
01:12:03.920 --> 01:12:06.550
heart just by by extension.
01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:09.189
>> Feeble is a is a learning book.
01:12:09.199 --> 01:12:13.270
>> Okay. And it shows so feeble is these
01:12:13.280 --> 01:12:14.790
are the things you need to know in a
01:12:14.800 --> 01:12:16.070
war.
01:12:16.080 --> 01:12:16.709
>> Okay.
01:12:16.719 --> 01:12:20.070
>> And and he breast was also a great
01:12:20.080 --> 01:12:22.550
cutter out and hoarder of things from
01:12:22.560 --> 01:12:25.350
newspapers and magazines in all language
01:12:25.360 --> 01:12:27.750
he could languages. He photographs
01:12:27.760 --> 01:12:29.110
pictures that he could get.
01:12:29.120 --> 01:12:30.550
>> Didn't he didn't he like write little
01:12:30.560 --> 01:12:32.950
poems next to news articles? I think
01:12:32.960 --> 01:12:34.870
when when I visited the B house in
01:12:34.880 --> 01:12:36.630
Berlin, they had some of them there.
01:12:36.640 --> 01:12:38.550
>> That's right. And the format of this
01:12:38.560 --> 01:12:41.590
book is it's all black and white is a
01:12:41.600 --> 01:12:43.270
black and white picture and then
01:12:43.280 --> 01:12:44.790
underneath it a
01:12:44.800 --> 01:12:47.750
>> fourliner.
01:12:47.760 --> 01:12:50.229
>> So you then get this interplay of
01:12:50.239 --> 01:12:55.430
picture plus text and I think I gave an
01:12:55.440 --> 01:12:59.110
example of that in my forward here.
01:12:59.120 --> 01:13:01.350
Yeah, there's this one. So this is this
01:13:01.360 --> 01:13:03.590
is me translating
01:13:03.600 --> 01:13:05.350
and
01:13:05.360 --> 01:13:07.910
um it's it's the quattrain and above the
01:13:07.920 --> 01:13:11.189
quattrain are four photographs of
01:13:11.199 --> 01:13:13.910
afflicted children Greek, Russian,
01:13:13.920 --> 01:13:17.030
Sicilian and French and the text the
01:13:17.040 --> 01:13:19.669
four lines are as it were spoken by
01:13:19.679 --> 01:13:22.310
them. So these children in a bad state,
01:13:22.320 --> 01:13:25.270
you can see the bandages on them
01:13:25.280 --> 01:13:29.030
and how they've been hurt.
01:13:29.040 --> 01:13:33.350
You in your tanks and bombers, warriors
01:13:33.360 --> 01:13:35.510
sweating in Alers,
01:13:35.520 --> 01:13:39.350
freezing in Lapland's ice, coming from a
01:13:39.360 --> 01:13:42.709
hundred battles as conquerors.
01:13:42.719 --> 01:13:45.830
We are the ones you conquered. Oh,
01:13:45.840 --> 01:13:49.350
rejoice.
01:13:49.360 --> 01:13:51.669
Um,
01:13:51.679 --> 01:13:54.550
I've done quite a lot of
01:13:54.560 --> 01:13:57.830
similar things since this is quatrain
01:13:57.840 --> 01:14:00.229
for a primer of our times in the back of
01:14:00.239 --> 01:14:01.350
it.
01:14:01.360 --> 01:14:04.630
>> It says, "Supply your own pictures."
01:14:04.640 --> 01:14:07.110
So, you could easily do that.
01:14:07.120 --> 01:14:07.990
>> Mhm.
01:14:08.000 --> 01:14:11.669
>> There's one here, laws of war.
01:14:11.679 --> 01:14:15.189
We too had laws of war. Don't poison
01:14:15.199 --> 01:14:18.709
wells. Don't fell the olive trees. They
01:14:18.719 --> 01:14:21.750
take so long to grow. Don't bomb the
01:14:21.760 --> 01:14:25.030
schools. Don't bomb the hospitals,
01:14:25.040 --> 01:14:28.550
stranger. Seeking our monument. Look
01:14:28.560 --> 01:14:34.950
around you.
01:14:34.960 --> 01:14:37.669
>> This is the Gulf War. That one was where
01:14:37.679 --> 01:14:40.229
we are now in Palestine. This is one
01:14:40.239 --> 01:14:42.870
from the Gulf War. Really?
01:14:42.880 --> 01:14:44.630
Epitap.
01:14:44.640 --> 01:14:48.149
We pile here in the usual ratio of us to
01:14:48.159 --> 01:14:52.390
you. So numerous in death, none has a
01:14:52.400 --> 01:14:56.310
stone and script to lie beneath. This
01:14:56.320 --> 01:15:01.270
sick, this bulldozed trench must do. And
01:15:01.280 --> 01:15:04.790
then immediately be under that is fact.
01:15:04.800 --> 01:15:07.510
The fact is, friend, we matter more than
01:15:07.520 --> 01:15:11.350
you. One husband, lover, son, father of
01:15:11.360 --> 01:15:14.390
ours outweighs at least a hundred such
01:15:14.400 --> 01:15:17.189
of yours. It's a fact of life, my
01:15:17.199 --> 01:15:21.590
friend, and of death, too.
01:15:21.600 --> 01:15:23.830
>> It It seems very interesting that your
01:15:23.840 --> 01:15:26.070
early years were very much the sort of
01:15:26.080 --> 01:15:27.910
seed that flowered into your whole
01:15:27.920 --> 01:15:29.990
career. I just thought immediately back
01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:33.510
to um the war poets with whom you had
01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:35.510
your first sort of ecstatic experience
01:15:35.520 --> 01:15:38.550
and and that seems to have fed through
01:15:38.560 --> 01:15:40.310
through through into your your recent
01:15:40.320 --> 01:15:42.870
work and indeed at least in a popular
01:15:42.880 --> 01:15:45.110
way was a sort of turning point in how
01:15:45.120 --> 01:15:48.310
war is represented in poetry. No longer
01:15:48.320 --> 01:15:50.229
the kind of I don't know when the last
01:15:50.239 --> 01:15:52.790
celebratory poem about war was written
01:15:52.800 --> 01:15:55.830
but uh not after that one. And so this
01:15:55.840 --> 01:15:57.350
is the new tradition which you can then
01:15:57.360 --> 01:16:00.229
line up with that uh kind of a ancient
01:16:00.239 --> 01:16:03.350
Greek view of the bow that makes pale
01:16:03.360 --> 01:16:05.430
the dead man but but sort of meant in a
01:16:05.440 --> 01:16:07.750
positive way. It's a good bow did its
01:16:07.760 --> 01:16:10.070
job. And if you read
01:16:10.080 --> 01:16:12.390
>> you read the Iliad which is savagely
01:16:12.400 --> 01:16:13.030
violent.
01:16:13.040 --> 01:16:13.350
>> Yeah.
01:16:13.360 --> 01:16:14.950
>> And I think there is there's room in
01:16:14.960 --> 01:16:17.110
there to think maybe some of this is
01:16:17.120 --> 01:16:20.229
gratuitous but also a lot of it is just
01:16:20.239 --> 01:16:22.709
well look at this. This is a this is
01:16:22.719 --> 01:16:25.590
exciting. This is described graphically.
01:16:25.600 --> 01:16:25.910
>> Yeah.
01:16:25.920 --> 01:16:27.830
>> And it's it's what Pope gets out of the
01:16:27.840 --> 01:16:30.310
Iliad, I feel, in his
01:16:30.320 --> 01:16:32.470
very loose translation, but that that
01:16:32.480 --> 01:16:33.910
kind of um
01:16:33.920 --> 01:16:36.390
>> vivid imagery, but now it's turned
01:16:36.400 --> 01:16:38.229
against itself. Now we read it and we
01:16:38.239 --> 01:16:39.830
can't help but feel a
01:16:39.840 --> 01:16:42.950
>> a subtext that maybe wasn't intended to
01:16:42.960 --> 01:16:43.990
be there.
01:16:44.000 --> 01:16:46.149
>> Sim Simone Vile kind of convincingly
01:16:46.159 --> 01:16:49.430
reads the Iliad as as an anti-war poem.
01:16:49.440 --> 01:16:52.229
But I but yeah, the I suppose it's hard
01:16:52.239 --> 01:16:55.030
for us because probably just due to the
01:16:55.040 --> 01:16:58.550
growing up in the the ginormous echo of
01:16:58.560 --> 01:17:00.070
the Second World War behind you the
01:17:00.080 --> 01:17:02.149
entire time, it's it's hard to
01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:05.350
understand why someone could love gore
01:17:05.360 --> 01:17:07.590
and uh
01:17:07.600 --> 01:17:10.229
bloodshed as as a you know means of
01:17:10.239 --> 01:17:13.750
expression. Um
01:17:13.760 --> 01:17:15.750
>> in in those the things that the Greek
01:17:15.760 --> 01:17:20.070
anthology what B admired about that is
01:17:20.080 --> 01:17:22.870
just the sonness of things and when they
01:17:22.880 --> 01:17:25.270
dis you know quite a lot that are just
01:17:25.280 --> 01:17:28.630
about weapons and weapons being hung up
01:17:28.640 --> 01:17:31.189
um in a in a
01:17:31.199 --> 01:17:35.910
in a place where they um well in
01:17:35.920 --> 01:17:38.149
being been hung up for as something
01:17:38.159 --> 01:17:40.870
offered to the gods. Um,
01:17:40.880 --> 01:17:42.630
>> and then there were women died in
01:17:42.640 --> 01:17:45.590
childbirth endlessly in in those. And
01:17:45.600 --> 01:17:48.390
there were these little monuments to
01:17:48.400 --> 01:17:52.390
them. And there were the big one is sons
01:17:52.400 --> 01:17:55.350
going onto the seas endlessly to and fro
01:17:55.360 --> 01:17:58.149
across the Aian on business that you
01:17:58.159 --> 01:17:59.990
know to bring home food and stuff and
01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:03.750
never never turning up. And then
01:18:03.760 --> 01:18:07.030
Yeah. and then a whole kind of um area
01:18:07.040 --> 01:18:10.950
on the hilltops on the headlands that
01:18:10.960 --> 01:18:13.750
were just empty tombs
01:18:13.760 --> 01:18:16.550
>> because the the sons hadn't come back.
01:18:16.560 --> 01:18:19.030
And from that there's this adjunct which
01:18:19.040 --> 01:18:22.470
is that if a sailor washes up in on your
01:18:22.480 --> 01:18:25.830
shore, it's your religious duty to bury
01:18:25.840 --> 01:18:27.430
him.
01:18:27.440 --> 01:18:30.149
So they could think that their son if he
01:18:30.159 --> 01:18:32.229
has drowned and has turned up anywhere
01:18:32.239 --> 01:18:34.950
within the Greek zone he will be
01:18:34.960 --> 01:18:38.009
properly buried.
01:18:38.019 --> 01:18:40.229
[clears throat]
01:18:40.239 --> 01:18:44.630
>> Sorry. It's it's interesting how um your
01:18:44.640 --> 01:18:49.830
like your means of responding to the um
01:18:49.840 --> 01:18:52.310
causes of pessimism,
01:18:52.320 --> 01:18:58.790
chaos, um war, um social distress is um
01:18:58.800 --> 01:19:02.790
to look into the past, into the deep
01:19:02.800 --> 01:19:07.110
past, into a a time and place somewhat
01:19:07.120 --> 01:19:11.110
abstracted from you. uh linguistically,
01:19:11.120 --> 01:19:14.950
socially, culturally to find an adequate
01:19:14.960 --> 01:19:19.669
means of speaking about these things. Um
01:19:19.679 --> 01:19:21.590
it's not not really a question. I just I
01:19:21.600 --> 01:19:24.550
find it interesting that the the the way
01:19:24.560 --> 01:19:29.669
to talk about um the difficult things
01:19:29.679 --> 01:19:33.990
around you is to look at to look far far
01:19:34.000 --> 01:19:36.550
back to a very remote
01:19:36.560 --> 01:19:38.630
time and place and group of writers and
01:19:38.640 --> 01:19:41.430
poems.
01:19:41.440 --> 01:19:43.830
>> If you don't mind, I'll just
01:19:43.840 --> 01:19:45.990
>> you're quite right about that. There's
01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:48.709
this chorus from Sophocles Antiggony
01:19:48.719 --> 01:19:51.189
which this is Hudlin's version my
01:19:51.199 --> 01:19:52.870
translation of it which I've done more
01:19:52.880 --> 01:19:56.709
than once. Um
01:19:56.719 --> 01:20:01.030
and it the Hudlin begins
01:20:01.040 --> 01:20:02.870
and uno
01:20:02.880 --> 01:20:05.990
means either monster or it means
01:20:06.000 --> 01:20:09.910
something upsettingly not
01:20:09.920 --> 01:20:13.510
meaning not easy to handle. M
01:20:13.520 --> 01:20:17.910
>> I translated that with monstrous
01:20:17.920 --> 01:20:21.030
>> monstrous you seea is feel and then he
01:20:21.040 --> 01:20:23.990
goes on oddly to write about man what
01:20:24.000 --> 01:20:26.310
man can do and what man should do and
01:20:26.320 --> 01:20:28.390
hasn't done so forth but
01:20:28.400 --> 01:20:30.149
>> so I was deliberately shifting this
01:20:30.159 --> 01:20:33.270
further into precisely what you've said
01:20:33.280 --> 01:20:37.030
which actually seems to me where we are
01:20:37.040 --> 01:20:40.630
now in certain zones of this earth
01:20:40.640 --> 01:20:44.310
monstrous a hot, but nothing so
01:20:44.320 --> 01:20:48.630
monstrous as man. For he unkind to his
01:20:48.640 --> 01:20:51.510
own kind, inducting them young into
01:20:51.520 --> 01:20:55.030
dealing and war, dying, bequeathing them
01:20:55.040 --> 01:20:58.149
the developing curse of his enterprise
01:20:58.159 --> 01:21:00.790
on the earth, on the seas, and into the
01:21:00.800 --> 01:21:04.950
air. He visits himself at best in folly,
01:21:04.960 --> 01:21:08.470
but often with malice a forethought.
01:21:08.480 --> 01:21:11.430
man, the wrong turning, who ordered the
01:21:11.440 --> 01:21:13.990
fire of the sun, into the streets, the
01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:16.630
parks, and the schools of a town, and
01:21:16.640 --> 01:21:19.910
there in broad daylight cast people as
01:21:19.920 --> 01:21:23.430
lasting shadows, for him on whose brow
01:21:23.440 --> 01:21:27.110
is inscribed, beware, there is nothing I
01:21:27.120 --> 01:21:30.070
will not do. Why now should the
01:21:30.080 --> 01:21:32.790
warm-blooded dolphin, the smiling, the
01:21:32.800 --> 01:21:35.669
playful, the dancer, the maker of music,
01:21:35.679 --> 01:21:39.510
who fied the singer Orion to safety, why
01:21:39.520 --> 01:21:43.030
now should this friend intercede?
01:21:43.040 --> 01:21:46.310
Oh man, the killer who multiplies, who
01:21:46.320 --> 01:21:48.950
schemes in his sleep after ways of
01:21:48.960 --> 01:21:51.830
living forever, who smothered the law in
01:21:51.840 --> 01:21:54.790
his heart. In these days of the melting
01:21:54.800 --> 01:21:57.669
poles of earthquake and flood and the
01:21:57.679 --> 01:22:00.950
cavalry charge of the tides, he knows it
01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:05.110
now the ver the law by virtue of having
01:22:05.120 --> 01:22:08.709
transgressed and will stand on the shore
01:22:08.719 --> 01:22:11.430
as the leen waves for his comfort
01:22:11.440 --> 01:22:14.310
deliver him carrying
01:22:14.320 --> 01:22:17.430
starfish and whales. Oh, swiftly
01:22:17.440 --> 01:22:19.990
climbing and fouling the lovely curve of
01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:23.030
the sky. The infinite swarm of death
01:22:23.040 --> 01:22:25.830
will fall on his fields, and he will
01:22:25.840 --> 01:22:28.629
have nothing to answer. The child who
01:22:28.639 --> 01:22:31.510
asks, "Who are they?" Passing on the
01:22:31.520 --> 01:22:35.189
last of the light. They are pesphanany
01:22:35.199 --> 01:22:38.629
in rags, leading her blinded mother by
01:22:38.639 --> 01:22:41.990
the hand, seeking an entrance to
01:22:42.000 --> 01:22:46.470
preferable Hades.
01:22:46.480 --> 01:22:48.629
And that's I wouldn't have written that
01:22:48.639 --> 01:22:51.110
but for Helderin and Helen would have
01:22:51.120 --> 01:22:55.750
written it but philosophically it's
01:22:55.760 --> 01:22:59.669
>> Helder feels this continuity with with
01:22:59.679 --> 01:23:01.750
ancient Greece. It comes up constantly
01:23:01.760 --> 01:23:04.470
throughout his work how he feels more at
01:23:04.480 --> 01:23:08.870
home in in um this you know remote
01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:11.030
mostly imagined culture.
01:23:11.040 --> 01:23:14.950
>> Yes indeed. um uh than he does in in his
01:23:14.960 --> 01:23:18.149
in his own Germany. Sometimes he he can
01:23:18.159 --> 01:23:19.910
love a kind of Germany, but again a
01:23:19.920 --> 01:23:22.310
Germany of the imagination,
01:23:22.320 --> 01:23:22.629
one that
01:23:22.639 --> 01:23:24.709
>> fulfill
01:23:24.719 --> 01:23:25.990
I mean
01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:28.470
>> he he's he's born in 1770. He's a
01:23:28.480 --> 01:23:30.550
revolutionary. his Wersworth and Hegel
01:23:30.560 --> 01:23:33.270
and um you know a lot of that that that
01:23:33.280 --> 01:23:36.310
that generation and in the tubing shift
01:23:36.320 --> 01:23:38.070
where he was there was there's a great
01:23:38.080 --> 01:23:39.990
sort of ferment
01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:42.229
um and people kept coming to to stop it
01:23:42.239 --> 01:23:44.229
to put these kids down but they knew
01:23:44.239 --> 01:23:46.790
precisely what sort of world they wanted
01:23:46.800 --> 01:23:49.270
to live in it was like wsworth bliss was
01:23:49.280 --> 01:23:51.510
it then that dawn to be alive
01:23:51.520 --> 01:23:53.990
>> this feeling of something is and then it
01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:55.910
was
01:23:55.920 --> 01:23:56.629
>> rush
01:23:56.639 --> 01:23:57.910
>> did you do you feel a sense of
01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:00.629
continuity between uh that that
01:24:00.639 --> 01:24:03.830
generation and your own. It seems that a
01:24:03.840 --> 01:24:08.550
similar um sort of dizzying optimism
01:24:08.560 --> 01:24:13.270
uh of of the 60s uh falling under sort
01:24:13.280 --> 01:24:17.270
of a hammer of sort of disillusionment.
01:24:17.280 --> 01:24:19.910
I don't feel disillusioned and the
01:24:19.920 --> 01:24:23.510
friends the the friends that
01:24:23.520 --> 01:24:25.110
the friends we got we've got very good
01:24:25.120 --> 01:24:27.990
friends we've lost a lot on route
01:24:28.000 --> 01:24:29.510
um I don't think lost their friendship
01:24:29.520 --> 01:24:31.910
but because they're dead um but we've
01:24:31.920 --> 01:24:34.550
got a family with grandchildren and now
01:24:34.560 --> 01:24:37.270
a great grandchild and if you look at
01:24:37.280 --> 01:24:39.669
them then
01:24:39.679 --> 01:24:42.070
I kind of you know it is there in them
01:24:42.080 --> 01:24:44.950
this sort of bulliance about about life
01:24:44.960 --> 01:24:46.390
of what because there are an awful lot
01:24:46.400 --> 01:24:49.189
of things they can do now that we that
01:24:49.199 --> 01:24:51.830
we could do an awful lot of measures in
01:24:51.840 --> 01:24:53.830
place. I know it doesn't work all the
01:24:53.840 --> 01:24:55.750
time but the safeguarding of children
01:24:55.760 --> 01:24:57.990
looking after a generation trying to
01:24:58.000 --> 01:25:01.189
bring them on into um
01:25:01.199 --> 01:25:03.270
you know into not just being good
01:25:03.280 --> 01:25:05.750
citizens but being
01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:08.470
people who will enjoy themselves in in
01:25:08.480 --> 01:25:11.110
their own country. I don't
01:25:11.120 --> 01:25:13.669
there's a there's a you know there's a
01:25:13.679 --> 01:25:16.149
part of me that does feel upset by it
01:25:16.159 --> 01:25:18.310
all of the sit
01:25:18.320 --> 01:25:21.510
um but absolutely not hopeless I mean
01:25:21.520 --> 01:25:22.709
I've never
01:25:22.719 --> 01:25:25.750
>> No nor is Holy nor is Wsworth nor is
01:25:25.760 --> 01:25:28.149
Hager you know that generation they just
01:25:28.159 --> 01:25:29.910
they just follows a fairly similar
01:25:29.920 --> 01:25:31.030
trajectory
01:25:31.040 --> 01:25:33.990
>> that when they were in their uh teens
01:25:34.000 --> 01:25:38.070
and 20s um there's this
01:25:38.080 --> 01:25:41.189
intense sense of optimism that um has to
01:25:41.199 --> 01:25:43.430
come to terms with disappointment,
01:25:43.440 --> 01:25:45.590
all sorts of disappointments as it um
01:25:45.600 --> 01:25:51.270
progresses into um adult life. Um when
01:25:51.280 --> 01:25:55.430
would you did you first um sort of
01:25:55.440 --> 01:25:58.070
where one of the reasons you feel is one
01:25:58.080 --> 01:26:00.550
of the reasons you feel so connected to
01:26:00.560 --> 01:26:03.189
Helen? Do you think partly to do with
01:26:03.199 --> 01:26:09.270
the time and place you read it?
01:26:09.280 --> 01:26:12.070
I did the Oxford had this special
01:26:12.080 --> 01:26:13.830
subject well that is to say particular
01:26:13.840 --> 01:26:16.550
authors you that you could study more
01:26:16.560 --> 01:26:20.470
than the rest of your curriculum and I'd
01:26:20.480 --> 01:26:23.030
heard of him and read bits and I said I
01:26:23.040 --> 01:26:25.510
would like to do that as my special
01:26:25.520 --> 01:26:26.070
>> okay
01:26:26.080 --> 01:26:31.270
>> subject and um and I did it and then I
01:26:31.280 --> 01:26:34.149
decided I wanted to
01:26:34.159 --> 01:26:39.830
write about him for my um PhD default
01:26:39.840 --> 01:26:42.470
thesis and um and I got particular there
01:26:42.480 --> 01:26:46.070
was this lovely guy um professor style
01:26:46.080 --> 01:26:49.270
there were three Jewish immigrs
01:26:49.280 --> 01:26:53.750
in Oxford and Stal was was one of them
01:26:53.760 --> 01:26:56.629
um and he was a great great lover of
01:26:56.639 --> 01:27:00.310
Hilderlin and actually when he was dying
01:27:00.320 --> 01:27:04.070
I went and read Hilderlin to him in in
01:27:04.080 --> 01:27:06.229
hospital again. So there were these
01:27:06.239 --> 01:27:08.629
terrific connections with the previous
01:27:08.639 --> 01:27:12.229
generation who really had it uh very
01:27:12.239 --> 01:27:14.550
very difficult and had overcome things
01:27:14.560 --> 01:27:17.350
that um
01:27:17.360 --> 01:27:19.990
must have been just terrible to try even
01:27:20.000 --> 01:27:22.070
to get over.
01:27:22.080 --> 01:27:25.030
>> Um that's not been the case in our
01:27:25.040 --> 01:27:29.830
family church so far. Um and I don't
01:27:29.840 --> 01:27:32.709
think it will be. I think
01:27:32.719 --> 01:27:36.470
there's an awful lot in place which is
01:27:36.480 --> 01:27:40.070
um I'm not all that far off with with
01:27:40.080 --> 01:27:43.350
with with with Gaza and and Ukraine
01:27:43.360 --> 01:27:46.709
clearly but the European Union and our
01:27:46.719 --> 01:27:48.310
stupidity
01:27:48.320 --> 01:27:50.229
in in getting out of it being pulled out
01:27:50.239 --> 01:27:53.030
of it. Um there is
01:27:53.040 --> 01:27:55.430
things are in place which I hope and
01:27:55.440 --> 01:27:59.350
trust really will um I mean the thought
01:27:59.360 --> 01:28:01.669
of of just sort of abandoning your kids
01:28:01.679 --> 01:28:03.830
into saying well
01:28:03.840 --> 01:28:06.229
cheerio it's not it's been lovely for us
01:28:06.239 --> 01:28:07.830
but not it's not going to be so well for
01:28:07.840 --> 01:28:09.669
you. I don't think I don't think like
01:28:09.679 --> 01:28:11.990
that.
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:15.990
It's this what they call pincip hoffnong
01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:18.550
um
01:28:18.560 --> 01:28:21.350
um which is absolutely necessary isn't
01:28:21.360 --> 01:28:24.390
it we had very good we used to edit my
01:28:24.400 --> 01:28:26.790
just been a um this modern poetry and
01:28:26.800 --> 01:28:29.350
translation magazine which was founded
01:28:29.360 --> 01:28:33.590
by Ted Hughes in in 1966
01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:37.669
um when everything seemed to be coming
01:28:37.679 --> 01:28:39.750
apart in quite a good way because all of
01:28:39.760 --> 01:28:43.350
the the those zones occupied by Russia
01:28:43.360 --> 01:28:45.669
and Soviet Union, there were um
01:28:45.679 --> 01:28:48.709
obviously there were um upsurges against
01:28:48.719 --> 01:28:50.070
them and it seemed as though the whole
01:28:50.080 --> 01:28:51.830
structure was breaking the wall came
01:28:51.840 --> 01:28:53.830
down and the rest of it and it would be
01:28:53.840 --> 01:28:56.629
a better Europe that we'd be that we'd
01:28:56.639 --> 01:29:00.470
be be in and um
01:29:00.480 --> 01:29:03.110
in fact I was I was in Tubingham when
01:29:03.120 --> 01:29:04.870
there was an awful lot of student
01:29:04.880 --> 01:29:08.870
protests in and long I mean it's a kind
01:29:08.880 --> 01:29:10.790
of daily march somewhere. or other and
01:29:10.800 --> 01:29:13.430
then hooded or Dutch C was shot and all
01:29:13.440 --> 01:29:16.229
the rest of it and it's so fervent sort
01:29:16.239 --> 01:29:18.790
of times with a feeling that the 60s
01:29:18.800 --> 01:29:22.229
were like um
01:29:22.239 --> 01:29:25.110
things becoming better slowly for blacks
01:29:25.120 --> 01:29:28.070
in in in America and you know and even
01:29:28.080 --> 01:29:30.229
South Africa looking increasingly kind
01:29:30.239 --> 01:29:33.270
of um not a place that was going to last
01:29:33.280 --> 01:29:35.110
much longer. I mean it has I know but
01:29:35.120 --> 01:29:41.030
but if you mean there's this sort of
01:29:41.040 --> 01:29:41.510
>> hope
01:29:41.520 --> 01:29:44.149
>> yeah and and I think it's interesting
01:29:44.159 --> 01:29:46.550
going back to FA for a moment some
01:29:46.560 --> 01:29:48.550
people say it sort of resent represents
01:29:48.560 --> 01:29:51.189
a kind the gutter site the time of his
01:29:51.199 --> 01:29:53.669
existence he lived through a similar
01:29:53.679 --> 01:29:55.270
time to these other characters but saw
01:29:55.280 --> 01:29:58.709
the rise and the fall and uniquely fa is
01:29:58.719 --> 01:30:01.510
composed across all these periods
01:30:01.520 --> 01:30:02.950
um which makes it a sort of the
01:30:02.960 --> 01:30:04.790
longevity of it itself is interesting
01:30:04.800 --> 01:30:06.310
even if the order is
01:30:06.320 --> 01:30:09.110
>> is all scrambled but do you think we can
01:30:09.120 --> 01:30:11.830
we can get out of FA any kind of
01:30:11.840 --> 01:30:13.990
optimistic message it's it's so ironic
01:30:14.000 --> 01:30:16.790
and it's so scandalous but is is that
01:30:16.800 --> 01:30:19.430
final scene with Gretchen's apparent
01:30:19.440 --> 01:30:22.070
forgiveness can we see any of that to be
01:30:22.080 --> 01:30:23.990
earnest even if the man who receives it
01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:26.870
is not deserving whatsoever is there a
01:30:26.880 --> 01:30:29.669
kind of love prevails idea in there or
01:30:29.679 --> 01:30:32.229
is that wishful thinking of my own
01:30:32.239 --> 01:30:33.830
>> I don't think it's wishful thinking. I
01:30:33.840 --> 01:30:36.229
think it's one of the possibilities.
01:30:36.239 --> 01:30:40.310
Um, and that you could say that's the
01:30:40.320 --> 01:30:42.310
good and the bad thing about a lot of
01:30:42.320 --> 01:30:45.350
irony. the good
01:30:45.360 --> 01:30:47.669
if you again back to Keith if you if you
01:30:47.679 --> 01:30:52.310
hold these opposites together like that
01:30:52.320 --> 01:30:55.910
and you see the possibility of either
01:30:55.920 --> 01:30:57.669
um
01:30:57.679 --> 01:31:01.350
losing my words there
01:31:01.360 --> 01:31:03.430
>> it's the possibility of of that in a
01:31:03.440 --> 01:31:06.550
sense it's up to the reader then to to
01:31:06.560 --> 01:31:09.030
see which balance which way the balance
01:31:09.040 --> 01:31:13.990
is is is is tilting and
01:31:14.000 --> 01:31:16.390
and that's a text.
01:31:16.400 --> 01:31:19.030
In many ways, it's up to us which way
01:31:19.040 --> 01:31:21.350
the balance is
01:31:21.360 --> 01:31:25.830
is tilting. What kind of citizens are
01:31:25.840 --> 01:31:30.229
we? What kind of people do we um elect
01:31:30.239 --> 01:31:32.390
to lead us?
01:31:32.400 --> 01:31:34.310
All that is absolutely necessary. That's
01:31:34.320 --> 01:31:36.950
why it's important to,
01:31:36.960 --> 01:31:38.870
as you probably know, the UK is bringing
01:31:38.880 --> 01:31:43.110
the voting age down to 16 and and I
01:31:43.120 --> 01:31:46.390
think that's a good thing because that
01:31:46.400 --> 01:31:51.590
generation is is still actually hopeful.
01:31:51.600 --> 01:31:52.709
It's
01:31:52.719 --> 01:31:55.270
>> not the ones I know.
01:31:55.280 --> 01:31:58.070
>> Very pessimistic teenagers.
01:31:58.080 --> 01:31:59.430
Um,
01:31:59.440 --> 01:32:01.703
>> you got a very narrow view of it, but
01:32:01.713 --> 01:32:02.709
[laughter]
01:32:02.719 --> 01:32:04.070
without
01:32:04.080 --> 01:32:07.030
>> Yeah, I um
01:32:07.040 --> 01:32:09.030
Yeah, I'm a little bit scared of the
01:32:09.040 --> 01:32:11.750
kids of people younger than me. I hope
01:32:11.760 --> 01:32:15.110
this doesn't become a a a running theme
01:32:15.120 --> 01:32:18.229
as I get older. [laughter]
01:32:18.239 --> 01:32:21.910
Yeah, the screens. I think we're kind of
01:32:21.920 --> 01:32:24.229
winding up now. Thank you again so much
01:32:24.239 --> 01:32:25.910
for joining us, David. At the end of our
01:32:25.920 --> 01:32:28.950
interview, we always ask our guest, um,
01:32:28.960 --> 01:32:32.070
what book would you sort of add to the
01:32:32.080 --> 01:32:34.390
biblical cannon? Meaning that billions
01:32:34.400 --> 01:32:36.470
of people all over the earth every
01:32:36.480 --> 01:32:43.270
Sunday hear a little bit of this text.
01:32:43.280 --> 01:32:44.950
>> That's like desert island disc.
01:32:44.960 --> 01:32:46.790
>> Exactly. Yeah. But it's for other
01:32:46.800 --> 01:32:52.550
people, not for you. [laughter]
01:32:52.560 --> 01:32:55.669
I've read so much and with such close
01:32:55.679 --> 01:32:57.030
there's one thing I'd like to say about
01:32:57.040 --> 01:32:59.750
that just before we go on
01:32:59.760 --> 01:33:04.229
it pertains to that um we have a we had
01:33:04.239 --> 01:33:06.310
two very close friends the husband has
01:33:06.320 --> 01:33:11.750
died when you his his wife Ly was um
01:33:11.760 --> 01:33:13.750
Danish originally and they were our
01:33:13.760 --> 01:33:15.830
closest friends in Durham when I was
01:33:15.840 --> 01:33:17.830
teaching there and Helen was teaching
01:33:17.840 --> 01:33:21.669
there as well and uh Ly
01:33:21.679 --> 01:33:24.149
once just said a propo of nothing really
01:33:24.159 --> 01:33:27.350
that um she's reading she she just said
01:33:27.360 --> 01:33:29.830
I'm reading Middle March again
01:33:29.840 --> 01:33:32.629
>> um and I thought well that's nice and
01:33:32.639 --> 01:33:35.590
she said yeah um
01:33:35.600 --> 01:33:38.629
read it periodically
01:33:38.639 --> 01:33:42.790
>> suddenly thought that's what a book is
01:33:42.800 --> 01:33:45.669
the text on the page is exactly the same
01:33:45.679 --> 01:33:47.590
nothing has been done to it is probably
01:33:47.600 --> 01:33:49.669
the same reition that Lotty always had
01:33:49.679 --> 01:33:50.550
with
01:33:50.560 --> 01:33:52.709
and she read it now and then she read it
01:33:52.719 --> 01:33:55.270
then and then she read it then
01:33:55.280 --> 01:33:57.990
>> and that's
01:33:58.000 --> 01:34:00.950
in a sense that's what the good books do
01:34:00.960 --> 01:34:05.270
is they are there. They're written and
01:34:05.280 --> 01:34:07.110
nobody normally speaking is fiddling
01:34:07.120 --> 01:34:09.430
around with them. they are there and
01:34:09.440 --> 01:34:13.350
it's you who's changing and if when you
01:34:13.360 --> 01:34:16.229
read it the second time you say I missed
01:34:16.239 --> 01:34:19.669
that you are a different person reading
01:34:19.679 --> 01:34:22.310
that same text not wholly different by
01:34:22.320 --> 01:34:25.590
any means but that is what I I don't see
01:34:25.600 --> 01:34:27.350
you take any book with you to a desert
01:34:27.360 --> 01:34:29.735
island to take one like middle
01:34:29.745 --> 01:34:30.709
[clears throat]
01:34:30.719 --> 01:34:34.470
>> but it it would be something that bears
01:34:34.480 --> 01:34:36.629
where there's a kind of discourse going
01:34:36.639 --> 01:34:39.189
on between you and the book and you are
01:34:39.199 --> 01:34:41.669
open that's critically important. You
01:34:41.679 --> 01:34:46.390
are open to to um
01:34:46.400 --> 01:34:49.430
to things which you just hadn't realized
01:34:49.440 --> 01:34:51.830
noticed and been able to hack so far and
01:34:51.840 --> 01:34:53.910
now suddenly you come.
01:34:53.920 --> 01:34:56.070
>> Yeah. Me and Milo are both big middle
01:34:56.080 --> 01:34:57.430
middle march fans.
01:34:57.440 --> 01:35:00.310
>> Yeah. Would make the Bible a lot larger.
01:35:00.320 --> 01:35:01.830
That's [laughter]
01:35:01.840 --> 01:35:05.750
not a problem.
01:35:05.760 --> 01:35:07.590
It's quite a lot.
01:35:07.600 --> 01:35:09.430
>> It's cannon now. All the councils have
01:35:09.440 --> 01:35:11.590
agreed marches in.
01:35:11.600 --> 01:35:13.910
>> No, no, no. I'm just thinking that I was
01:35:13.920 --> 01:35:15.270
just thinking about the Bible because
01:35:15.280 --> 01:35:18.070
the Song of Songs is quite something.
01:35:18.080 --> 01:35:21.669
>> Yeah. Read the Robert Alter translation.
01:35:21.679 --> 01:35:25.189
>> It's It's glorious. Yeah. It's the most
01:35:25.199 --> 01:35:30.149
sensual one uh composed in English.
01:35:30.159 --> 01:35:31.110
Yeah.
01:35:31.120 --> 01:35:33.189
>> Excellent. Well, I wish you both best of
01:35:33.199 --> 01:35:34.629
luck in all things and
01:35:34.639 --> 01:35:36.470
>> and yourself.
01:35:36.480 --> 01:35:37.030
>> Great.
01:35:37.040 --> 01:35:39.510
>> A pleasure. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
01:35:39.520 --> 01:35:39.990
>> Bye-bye.
01:35:40.000 --> 01:35:42.800
>> Goodbye.