America today — of free verse in the translation of formal poetry — throws out poetic form to such an extent that the images and other aspects of content can all be relatively easily preserved. And the results are rarely terrible, but usually mediocre, because the approach is a given and too easy to be inspiring.
There is a continuum of fidelity to various combinations of form and content. In the last two centuries translators have worked all along this continuum of fidelity, e.g., keeping the meter, dropping the rhyme, and trying to keep as many images as possible; changing the meter, being loose with the rhyme, and trying to keep the power (or ambiguity) without worrying about all the images; dropping the meter but trying to keep a rhythm and a suggestion of rhyme, while preserving the imagery; and so on. There are an infinite number of possible combinations, and many more formal and content-oriented attributes, which is what makes poetry translation so exciting.
To make this idea of a fidelity continuum concrete, let me share with you three translations, from across the continuum, of a sonnet by the early twentieth-century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who is one of the poets most frequently translated into English today. Although Rilke was generally a formal poet, many English-language translators have not preserved his meter and rhyme, or used any meter at all. Some have not even tried to capture his alliteration. Because all three translations below of the sonnet “Archaïscher Torso Apollos” were originally published in 1981 or 1982, there is no question of period differences (although there might be questions of age and attitude toward current trends). The translation by George F. Peters preserves the sonnet’s iambic pentameter and its rhyme scheme. The translation by Stephen Mitchell preserves the iambic pentameter, but usually half-rhymes (that is, uses alliteration and assonance) rather than rhymes, and does not preserve the same rhyme scheme. Robert Bly’s translation employs a very free version of iambic pentameter and no rhyme scheme (although there is one end-rhyme in the second stanza and a couple of internal rhymes as well). As a sign of respect for the sonnet form, all three translations preserve the fourteen lines and the stanzas. For those who know German, the original can be found in the endnotes.*
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