Poetry, Music and Translation (P03009)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : LLC-P-P03009

This option is targeted at the point where the concerns of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies overlap; at the intersection between the interdisciplinary study of literature, and the issues raised by literary translation.

In each seminar, we work on a poem originally written in a language other than English, together with an English translation of that poem. The poem in question must contain explicit reference to music, expressed in a way that suggests a link between music and poetry, and should have been written between 1857 and 1968.
Every student taking these MScs must be familiar with a language other than English, as well as with English. Each student can therefore be asked to provide a poem and its translation, and to lead a seminar on that poem, beginning with the topics set out below.
In each seminar, we have two regular topics for discussion, separate but related.
Topic 1: the reference to music. How and why is poetry presented as like music? In what ways is this convincing and unconvincing? And how do poetry and music resist assimilation to each other?

Topic 2: translation. We will always be working with originals and translations. How does translation affect the reference to music, and the ways in which we can take the poem as musical?

A third question will remain permanently in the background: what is the relationship between music and translation?

For the first two weeks, to give students time to find and circulate their material, the course tutor will provide the poems. The first poem to be studied will be Verlaine’s ‘Art poétique’; the second, ‘Air du temps’, by Aragon.

Entry Requirements

none

Subject Areas

Home subject area

European Languages and Cultures - French, (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : Semester 1 (Blocks 1-2)

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

After this course, students will have learnt:

- to use strategies in the discussion of literary translation that take account of the lessons of comparative literary study;

- to foreground the issues raised by translation when discussing poetry;
- to provide material for, present, and lead a seminar focusing on a single poem, within a well-defined theoretical context.