Don't get me wrong, it's just that they are lazy, rhymes are super lazy. Compare this:
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
And some random russian piece (first one from the google):
"I still recall the wondrous moment:
When you appeared before my sight
As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light.
In sorrow, when I felt unwell,
Caught in the bustle, in a daze,
I fell under your voice’s spell
And dreamt the features of your face.
Years passed and gales had dispelled
My former hopes, and in those days,
I lost your voice’s sacred spell,
The holy features of your face.
Detained in darkness, isolation,
My days began to drag in strife.
Without faith and inspiration,
Without tears, and love and life.
My soul attained its waking moment:
You re-appeared before my sight,
As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light.
And now, my heart, with fascination,
Beats rapidly and finds revived
Devout faith and inspiration,
And tender tears and love and life."
I mean, english one is just plain text. I can do that too
And pretend
That it's something poetical
But it's not
You get my point.
>sight/light
stopped reading right there
Both poems you posted are in english. Also, no classical poetry had rhyme either. Meter is more importNt.
As a consonantpilled rhymecel i love when poems rhyme. It makes it easier to memorize and fun to read
> I can do that too
Please do - and please post it.
>You get my point.
Not really. You can't act like the comparison speaks for itself, because it doesn't. To me the Shelley poem feels really rich and evocative in its language, it shares the kind of antique dignity it's talking of, whereas I couldn't pick out a single line from the random Russian one that isn't (to me) dull and trite. Obviously you disagree, but I can't tell why. Are you just talking about half-rhymes?
If you're into poems that are ultra-tight in how they stick to poetic constraints, then English poetry can do that too. Check out Swinburne, for example:
>A multitude noteless of numbers,
> As wild weeds cast on an heap
>And sounder than sleep are their slumbers,
> And softer than song is their sleep;
>And sweeter than all things and stranger
> The sense, if perchance it may be,
>That the wind is divested of danger
> And scatheless the sea.
I wonder when words like “wild” first became accepted as two syllables rather than one, in Elizabethan stuff it seems to always be one, which obviously feels somewhat awkward to a modern ear.
And yeah I have no idea what point the OP thinks he’s making by posting a translation into English, lol.
Personally I prefer Ozymandias (the first one) to the second. I can many poets writing the latter, and it is certainly relatable on a human emotional level, but the former possesses an eternal and timeless quality, and exhibits a kind of mastery and quality of sight which strikes me as prophetic.
Check out Bryan Cranston's reading of it here, really blows all those milquetoast romantic audiobook readings of it out of the water..
Why do some people like Pink Floyd, and others like Simon and Garfunkel? Same thing going on here.
Read John Donne
>refutes himself in his own post
Way to go, champ.
Fricking affirmative. Or any of the metaphysical poets.
Also this.
>"I still recall the wondrous moment:
>When you appeared before my sight
>As though a brief and fleeting omen,
>Pure phantom in enchanting light.
Holy shit lmao. Poetry really can't be translated. I feel bad for languagecels
To add some perspective for the languagecels:
Pushkin (this is one of his most famous poems) is noted for the clarity and simplicity of his language. He's the Mozart of poetry. He creates beauty out of plainness and without any sentimentality. He revolutionized Russian poetry - before him, people would write poetry in flowery rococo language.
Flowery rococo language is exactly what we see in this translation.
Compare the first four lines with a direct translation:
>I remember the wondrous moment
>In front of me, you appeared
>Like a fleeting vision
>Like a spirit of pure beauty
I'm not saying this is a better translation (you can't translate poetry...) but this should make it clear how much of the poetic translation is simply padding. "Pure phantom in enchanting light" is the opposite of what Pushkin would write.
This is an example of a common problem with translating poetry to English. English is incredibly compact, you need fewer syllables to express the same image or idea, so translators are forced to pad with nonsense to maintain the syllable count.
Damn я пoмню чyднoe мгнoвeниe sounds bad in English.
T. Russian speaker
>Why english poems are so bad?
Wordsworth
You made no point
Black folk
Most poems that don’t rhyme are shit. A shit poem that rhymes is better than a shit poem that doesn’t rhyme.
English as a language is too precise and noun-heavy, which makes it unsuitable for the ethereality and dynamism of poesy.
You literally posted two English poems. What are talking about? Is this bait? The translation you post is really shit too btw. No doubt the original language is better.
>poem regularly noted to have non-rigid iamb pen with rhymes all over the place
>totally controlled counter example that is actually a translation
Epic, simply epic.
take this
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44746/sonnet-23-methought-i-saw-my-late-espoused-saint
about the same length as what you posted. You should probably read more, and take meter into account.
Kind of not a fair comparison. Pushkin was a literal supergenius when it came to poetry, if he had written in English everyone would know his name.