Recreating “Holy
Simplicity”
'.
Romanian
Renditions ofJacąues Prererts
Alicante
GINĄMACIUCA
(Suceava)
Motto: “Venerationi mihi semper fuit non verbosa rusticitas, sed sancta simplicitas” St. Jerome1
1 In Letters, 57, XII (Patrologia Latina XXII, 579), apud COD: 130.
1.
Preliminary
Remarks
Among allstyle virtues which are“notorious” torendereven the mostscathingcri-
ticismimpotent - if anything inthis world can - sancta simplicitas rules supreme. The incessant hooting of derision is, indeed, sporadically“disrupted” byacritical
voice whispering in ąuasipious admiration: “Theartist X writes, paintsor compo-ses with a beautiful simplicity ofstyle”, which, comingfroma redoubtablecritic - as they allclaimto be - is tantamount toa ‘full-blown’eulogy.
Now,the ąuestionwhich most naturally springs to an art-lover’s mind is: what is
it about simplicity that makes critics and artistsalikebow beforeit in sheeradmira tion? To the laymind,which tends to take simple,natural thingsfor granted, sim plicity, to be surę, is run-of-the-mill stuff. Butto the connoisseur it isdefinitely
moręthan meets the eye.The straight-forwardreason accounting for this bipolar
perception of thesame style attribute lies in the very naturę of theirroutine. Immer-sed in everyday simplicity, the lay mindcraves for sophistication, whereasthecon
simply dyingfor a gust ofsimple beauty. Totheformer, simplicity is the rule. To the latter, itis the exceptionthereto.
Yet the undeniablefact remains, that neither the laymind nor theconnoisseur
can everhope to imagine, andproperly assess respectively, the hugeamount of hardwork that goes into creating“holy simplicity”.It is exactly a ąuarter of a
cen-tury ago that I first set eyes - by sheer chance, or shouldIsay luck - on one ofJa-
cques Prevert’s “simplesbeautes” (“simple beauties”), Alicante.
For a native speaker of Romanian and English majorminoring inGerman atthe time, only remotely familiarwith Frenchbutwithnopriorsystematic study ofit,
my instant fascinationwith Prevert’s poem seemed,at best, a bit strange.Oddlier even, as time elapsed,its spellbinding gripon mecontinuedas firm as ever. The
only significant change which aging has effected in thisrespect isa maturę reconci-liationbetweenmy heart and my mind, withtheresultthat Ino longerdread to think whatan in-depth analysis of the poem woulddo to its‘first-blush’ magie.On the contrary, I now firmly believethat,far from diminishingits merits,any novel
interpretationof, i.e. readingintothelines of a poem is aptto help enhance its
po-tency and recreateits originalbeauty.
And that is precisely what I have taken upon myself todemonstrate inthe
for-thcoming sections of the present contribution.
2.
The
Sublime
Miracle
of
Creating
“
Holy Simplicity”
Acting asan added incentive to mydetermination to break the spellIhad fallen un-der morę than twentyyears ago was Cassian’s apposite remark thatthere is a pro-
fessed tendency with Prevert’sreaders to succumbto the charmsofhispoetry from the very firstlines they chanceupon. The canonical “loveatfirst sight”,Cassian
claims, is being upgraded bytheFrenchpoet’sreaders to ”love onfirstreading”2
(cf. Poeme'. 5). This particular remarkjust went to provebeyondthe shadowof a
doubtthat, far frombeing anisolated case,what I at first considered an unnaturally strong reaction to Prevert’spoem is, in fact, taken to be the norm with the majority
of his readership.
2 The English translation of this excerpt, as well as of any of the following ones cited in languages other than English, originate with the author of the present contribution.
If,admittedly,a elear indicationthat 1was just “one of themany”, Cassian’s cla- im, however, only added to my curiosity, for the ąuestion formulated in the previoussectionloomed nowlarger thanever: what is itaboutPrevert’s lyricism
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GINĄ MACIUCA
that induced such intenseresponses inhis readers as earlyas theirfirst poem? The
best way to answer thisąuestion is by conducting a meticulous investigation of
such a “firstpoem”, which, in my case, is one of the miniaturę “simplebeauties”in
his first published book,Paroles (1946): ALICANTE
Une orange sur la table Ta robę sur le tapis Et toi dans mon lit Doux present du present Fraicheur de la nuit Chaleur de ma vie3.
3 \n Paroles, 1997: 26.
4 A swift glance at Prevert’s biography shows that in 1936 - i. e. ayear after his divorce from Simo ne Dienne - he took a trip to Balearic Islands accompanied by his new lover, actress Jacqueline Laurent, whom he had only just met earlier that same year. Viewing this biographical detail as cor- roborative evidence, I madę so bold as to infer that Prevert was no stranger to either of the two non-linguistic entities referred to: obiter dictum, Alicante is located within easy reach of the Bale aric Islands.
(Verbatim translation: “An orange on the table Your dress on the carpet And you in my bed Sweet present of the present Coolness of the night Warmth of my life”.)
The very title of thepoem, Alicante,sounds very much like an incantation. The
poet is already at work weaving his magie as stealthilyas a spiderspins itscobweb.
We even get a sneakpreviewof the poem’s dual naturę:down-to earth realism mer-ging into surrealistic mirage, for Alicante can betaken to have both toponymic and metonymicreference. Morę precisely, the word is, in a primary meaning, aplace
name denoting atown in thesouth-eastof Spain, and, ina secondary one, a winę madęnear the homonymous town4.Withthe aforesaiddichotomyin mind,the title can also beregarded as indicative of the melange of reason and lustpermeating the
poem.
At first blush linęoneclaimstobe the perfect depiction of still life.Then again - as previously specified - with Prevert there is always morę than meets the eye.
And, sińce table in this particular context5 can never aspire to assume esoteric
si-gnificance,ouronly hope of encodedmessages restswith the most conspicuous lexeme of the linę: orange. Why, of all fruits, didPrevertdecideto make thisone the semantic focusofhispoem’s first linę? Thechampionsofrealism would no do-ubt come up with a most convenient and reassuringanswer like:because thiswas theveryfruit hehappened to be looking at when feelinginspired to write the poem. Since, however, I am not one of them,Ibeg to differ,and consider therefore the
choice Prevertmadę asa highly significant one,in other words,achoice pregnant
with hidden,thought-provokingmeanings.
5 Cf table (French) = (English) “table' [c] a piece of fumiture with fiat top supported by one or morę upright legs [...]” (LDELC: 1372).
In keepingwiththetitle,the poetcould have chosen thegrapes(Frraisiri)orthe
apple (Frpomme), in anticipation of the Edenie lovestoryalluded toin the conclu-
ding lines.Yet hepreferred instead the orange. A quicksearch in adictionaryof
symbolsfor the connotationsof the fruit atissuehasyielded most relevant
infor-mation. Thus, on account of its many pips, theorangeissymbolicof fertility. That
explains why inVietnam they usedto give away oranges to newlyweds, whereas in
ancientChina an orange given as present toa young girlwastantamount toa mar- riage proposal(cf. DS III: 121).
Afurther possiblereasonmotivating Prevert’s choice is thesemanticbivalence of the word: in a primary meaning it denotes “(evergreen tree with a) round, thick-skinned juicy fruit, green and changing to acolour betweenyellow and red”, and in a secondary one: “(of the) usual colour ofthis fiilly-ripened fruit”(cfOALD- CE: 591;the semantics of the English equivalentof French orangealsoreflects the above-specified bivalence). Followingthesame linę of argument, thecolour, too, is most likelyto beinvested with symbolic connotations, which a second search in the dictionaryof symbols revealed to be even morę numerousthan theones
atta-ched totheformer denotation of the word. Halfway between chthonian red and ce-lestial golden yellow, this colouris considered to be the mostactinic of all,in addi-tion to being reveredas theideałbalancebetween spiritandlibido. However, if this balance is tilted one wayor theother,then the colour immediately tends to assume
connotations of eitherextreme, i. e. ofdivineworship or of debauchery (cf. DS:
121-2).
Thebalanceof evidence amassed so far,on the otherhand, seems tolie in favour
ofmy dichotomous view ofthe poem, withAlicante striking a perfect balance be
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GINĄ MACIUCA
chthonianred isatits bestin the second andthird lines, whererobę [= dress], tapis
[= carpet] and lit [= bed]are charting the mundane area, whereasfraicheur [= cool-ness; chilliness],nuit [= night] and chaleur [= warmth] in the last two lines are morę or less transparent allusions to the distant glow of the celestial spirit.
My “dual naturę”hypothesis is further corroborated by the semantics of most of the nominał constituents employed.To be moręspecific,robę canalso be taken to mean “skin of certain fruits,vegetables,or even animals” (cf. DFR: 702), thus ta-
kingthereader into a morę intimate area, while litaddstothe intimacy viaits se- condarymeaning “bed clothes”(id., 463). On theother hand, the ratherabstract nonfigurativefraicheurand chaleur inthe “twilight zonę” of the poem can bereca- tegorized as conveyors of eroticism when used to signify “tendemess,freshness”,
and “heat; ardour; excitement” respectively(id.,349, 128).
The transparentlylibido-relatedfirsthalfofthepoemis also,synoptically vie-wed, rising to amagnificentcrescendofrom
a) First line’s still life (“Une orange surla table”): no human agent in evidence, through
b) Second’s linę indirect delicate hintat human habitation(“Tarobęsurletapis”): employmentofpossessive adjective ta as modifier of robę hasboth anaphoric and
cataphoric effect, i. e. itrefersthereader backward toa pre-still-life scenario,and forwardto anas yet unpredictable denouement6 to
c) Third line’s most conspicuous presence ofthe beloved (“Ettoi dansmon lit”):
the juxtapositionof the personal pronoun toi -epitomiyingunmitigated directness in face-to-face interactions ,and of the adjunct dans mon lit,indicatingspatiality at its mostintimate- is the closestoneever getstoworldliness throughout Alicante.
6 Last but not least, it also helps build up the suspensę, for one cannot tell if the owner of the dress has left already - and we’re about to hear the poet lamenting over “love’s labour’s lost” - or if she- ’s still there, revealing her naked beauty to the one man who could bring it enduring famę. 7 Obiter dictum, Prevert had ample recourse to humorous employment of polysemy, homonymy,
semantic transpositions and substitutions, etc, particularly in his satirical-poetry section of Para łeś (cf. “La crosse en l’air” (111-142), “Le discourse sur la paix” (226-227), ‘Noces et banquets’ 9240-243), “La lessive” (107-111); in Paroles: 1997).
Speaking volumes for its criticalimportance in thepoem isthe fact that this third
linę istheonly r-ffee one,which could be taken to suggest perfect harmony. This,
in tum, is secondonly toperfect eąuilibrium, theblessed State expressedin the fo-
urth linę, where poet and punster meet to produce an unparalleled synergistic effect7. Theword playis here on twopairs of homophones: doux[=sweet;tender]
versus du [= of (expressing attributivepostmodification: descriptive genitive),and
present [=present, gift] versuspresent [=presenttime], a strategy applied both to reconciie the [+ tangibłe] feature ofthefirsttwo words with the [+abstract] feature
of the last twoones in thelinę, andto effect a sugar-coatedtransitionfrom the libi-
do-relatedto the spirit-relatedhalf of the poem.
The word string douxpresent can,on reflection, be viewed asa go-between in this smooth passage, for it is obviously a borderline-case in terms of semantic
transparency. Morę precisely,choppinglogie even further8, the pre-positive adjec-tive doux, inthis particular context, lends itself to two readings: an inherent one9, in
linęwith thesensual “sweetness”-theme recurring throughout thefirsthalfofthe poem(s.Alicante=sweetwinę,orange =sweet fruit), and a non-inherent reading (doux = pleasing to the senses; gentle, kind or attractive inmanner), heralding the spiritual beauty reflectedinfraicheur and chaleur later on. This magnificent inter- play of directand indirect referencegeneratesin tum the epitomizing metaphor of
the beloved, strategically placed at theexactpointwhere thepoetswitches over from sensualityto theimmateriaL
8 I’m afraid the logic-chopping habit comes with the territory, in this particular case, with the terri- tory of a linguist.
9 An inherent adjective is the label attached to an adjective which characterizes the referent of the modified noun directly.
10 Substantiating this interpretation is also the idiom etre sur le tapis [= be the talk of the town]. A bird’s-eye viewof the poemis bound to revealasimilar symmetry along the verticalaxisas well. And indeed the left-hand column,tracing themctamorphosis
of the beloved from pagan deity into etherealbeauty, iscomposed of fivenouns
plus a noun substitute- the pronountoi each of which can,tomy mind, be taken
to represent acertain gradation, namely:
a) Une orange-. The beloved woman- viewed as asymbol offertility -is at the
sametimea mystery or a truth (cf thick skin juicy flesh ofthe fruit, an opposition that could as well behinting atthe suffering onehas to undergo in ordertofmally be able to experience true love), which atthis particular stagethe poet tries tofathom or ferret outrespectively, by indulging inthe chthonian lust.
b) Ta robę = Both meaningscited above (“dress”and “skin”) showthe loved one divesting herself offalsetaboosand the conventionsofprudery (two major favo- urite targets of Prevert’s satirical poetry).
10
c) Toi (dans mon lit) - The vision of thebelovedwoman lying naked on thebed is
Recreating “Holy Simplicity”:... GINĄ MACIUCA
The secretofreciprocated love isfinally revealed tothe poet andit is precisely this
revelation thatinducesthe shiftfromshallowsensuality to profound adoration. d) Douxpresent:Asthe poet discovers the asyetunrevealed virtues of thebeloved
- whom he no longer takesfor granted -,spirituality is gradually coming intoits
own.
e) Fraicheur: Thetwo meanings of theword cited earlier on(“coolness” and ”ten-demess”) suggest that,like any human being, the poet has divided loyalties: tothe
mind, towhich inner beauty appeals as a rule, and tothebody, which claimed pre-cedence overthe mind on accountofits being the first to have “charted” the be-
loved.
f) Chaleur: Both “warmth” and “ardour;exitement”imply an emission of energy, an energy which has been slowly buildingup as we progressthrough the poem, ca-
refullyheldincheck up tothefourth linę, only to be convertedintoradiant beauty
atthevery end.
Amorę thorough simultaneous investigation of the left-hand column alongboth vertical and horizontal axesreveals fascinating correspondences between the six
gradations discussed above. For instance, first line’sprimeval metaphorrepresen-
tedbyorangecan without difficulty bematched tofourth line’s finely chiselled
douxpresent,second line’s metonymically employed robęto fifth line’s fraicheur (the skin of the belovedis fresh and tender),while to i in the third linę invites a
simi-lar correspondence to chaleur in the sixthone (the glowing beautyofthe naked be-
lovedgivesoff anexciting warmth).
The same dichotomous principledividestheright-hand columnintotwo zones:
aspacezonę(labie - tapis - lit) and a time zonę(present - nuit - vie). The
symbo-lism attachedtothethree words in the space zonę, however, isnotinthe least ho- mogeneous: two of them(table and lit)are generally regardedas bare necessities,
whereas the third one(tapis) is morę of a luxury item. Worseeven, just like robę in
the samelinę, it is symbolic of social convention, in that it,too, prevents humans
from feeling thenatural simple beautyof earth. As opposed to theconcrete spatiali-ty, abstract temporality continues undisrupted down to the very lastword. The chanceeffected in this zonę is of incremental naturę, morę precisely the time span expandswitheach linę (present< nuit< vie), tracing the evolutionofthe poefs
fe-elingsfrom burningpassiontoa lifelong love.
A comparison of the first and last lines of the poem seems topointin the same direction: theactinic-coloured orange (expressingintense, ifshort-livedfeelings) has been sublimated to pure warm love (chaleur), destined to lastfor ever (s. ma
sym-boi of fertility. Takingthe reasoningonestep further, we have every reason to claim
that the poet’s pursuitof love has come fuli circle: love bumt itself and was rebom again, phoenix-like,from its own ashes, only this timeassuming a morę maturę, spiritual dimension. Asindicated bytheverytitleof thepoem,themessagewhich the poet wishestoputacross,inallprobability, is that not only does true love’s
po-tency increase withage(asthat ofwines does), but, paradoxically enough, it is au- togenous,i.e. ithas that rare power to regenerate itself.
This prevailinglymetamorphicmessage I took the liberty to read into Prevert’s
lines isthe morę baffling, as the poem containsNO VERBS at all. Infact, both Ali cante andLa Belle Saison - the similarly pattemed poem precedingitintheParo- les-seńes —lookvery much like any of Prevert’s 60 collages (proudly exhibited in 1957 at Maeght GalleryinParis, and then 6 yearslater on tour inseveral citiesof
France) orasurrealistic painting, which is notorious toconnectatfirst blush unre-lated images and objects in a strangedreamlikeway11. Nevertheless, despite all outward appearances,one cannotfail to sense the dramatic forcewhich - as with Ravel’s Bolero- keepsaugmentingaswe progress through the poem, a dramatic
forcewhich Prevert owes to hisscreenplay-writingskills12.And indeed, the first
three lines of Alicante make upa perfect scenery on any theatre stage, which is Co
rning tolife under our very own eyes by using the altemate focus of an adroitly ma-noeuvred filmingcamera.
11 In 1924 “Paris, 54 rue de Chateux” - the address at which Prevert was living together with the pa- inter Yves Tanguy and Marcel Duhamel, the founder ofSerie noire - became the meeting place of the French Surrealist Movement, of which the poet was an active member until 1930, when he co-authored a pamphlet openly criticizing the leader of the Group, Andre Breton, and subsequen- tly left the Movement.
12 His career as a theatre and movie screenplay writer began in 1932, when Prevert wrote several sce- narios for the comedy group “Octobre” (La bataille de Fontenoy, etc) and the dialogues for the movie L ‘affaire est dans te sac. Further writings in the linę: Crime de Monsieur Lange (film dialo gues : 1935), Quaides Brumes (screenplay: 1938), Lejourse leve(fi\m dialogues: 1939), visi- teurs du soir (screenplay: 1941), Les Enfants du Paradis (screenplay: 1944).
13 Pataphysics is the science of imaginary Solutions, invented by the French dramatist Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), writer of symbolic farce, from which is descended the theatre of the absurd.
A championof pataphysics13 Prevert deploysall types of resources in his suc- cessful attempttocreatedynamism in a verbless poem, for instance by playing ofif irregular against regular rhymes, or verses with different-numbered feet (evenand odd: 7/6/5/675/5). The decreasing number of feet(7>6> 5) throughout the first three lineshasaneffectsimilartoazoomlens moving in froma distant to a close
Recreating “Holy Simplicity"....
GINĄ MACIUCA
view, thus creating theillusion of motion, which Prevertastutely keeps alive by weaving intothe pattem different rhyme types, suchas: imperfectorobliąue rhy-me (nuit/vie), “rirne riche”, i.e.rich rhyme14{present/present),andleonine, or
me-dialrhyme15 {doux present/du present).
14 “A word rhymes with its homonym” (cf Alberto Rios’ A Glossary of Rhymes: www.pu- blic.asu.edu/~aarios/ formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html)
15 “Rhyme that occurs at the caesura and linę end within a single linę - like a rhymed couplet printed as a single line”(ib.)
16 Intermittent rhyme= “Rhyming every other linę, as in the standard ballad quatrain. X4X4 ”, inser ted rhyme= "Rhyming abba ”
17 “A linę left without rhyme in a generally rhymed passage” (ib.).
18 S. also the other label employed for inserted rhyme: envelope rhyme (ib.)
As amatter offact, therhyming pattem as such (XAAYAA) defies classification
with anyclear-cut category, striking one rather as either an idiosyncraticmerger of
intermittentandinsertedrhymes16, or as a regularly rhymed poem disrupted by two
thom lines17. Inthe erotical eąuation inherent inthe poem, Xand Yarethe varia-bles,signalling the changefrom asensual to a spiritualąuality,while the remaining
lines (AAAA) represent the constant, indicating that, though the poefsfeeling has
takenon a new dimension, its intensitycontinues undiminished. On the otherhand, these four regularly rhymed lines canbeviewed as lovingly embracing or envelo-
ping18 thefourth linę (Douxpresent dupresent), whichjust goes to prove one morę
time thatthisis indeed theąuintessentiallinę of the poem. Andso does, for that matter, the intemal-rhyme pattem, while providing freshevidenceinsupport of the “inner harmony” theoryadvanced earlier on in this section.
Fluidityin the verb-freeAlicanteis alsoeffected by setting in motiontheenergy immanent inone’ssenses. Thepoem synergetically appealsto four of them: a)the visual:Alicante, orange, table, robę, tapis, toi, lit, present(1)-,
b) the gustatory: Alicante, orange, table (associated with food as a rule), toi
(through metaphoricalassumption of the sensuous featuresfromorange in the first linę),doux\
c) the olfactory:Alicante, orange, robę, toi (s. metaphorical extension discussed
above, which inthiscaseis taken to apply to bothorange and robę), lit, present(i) (an account of metaphoricalextension identical to that of toi),fraicheur, chaleur,
and
d) the tactile:Alicante, orange, table, robę, tapis, toi, lit, presentfraicheur, cha leur.
The above analysis of “sense-appealing” lexemes has proved extremely usefiil inhighlighting thekeywords of the poem: Alicante, toi andpresent^), the synesthe- zic focalpoints on which allfoursenses previously listed seem to converge. The effect of love - vicariously experienced throughthepoem by thereader/listener as
well - onthe poet isvery much like that of getting intoxicated withthefine full-bo- died Spanish winę: it will fiiddle one’s brain atfirst and, as a result, tum one’s sen- suality loose (s.first three linescoming to a climax in Et toi dans mon lit), and then, inasecond, in-vino-veritas, phase, reach down into one’s subconscious and bring
out one’s innermostfeelings,yeamings and convictions, which one is mostlikely to represswhensobering up, namely thatlove is in realityadoux present which one would bewell advised to keep safe and tendas one’s most cherished possession.
The poet’s finał feelingis one of joie du vivre,of consummate happiness: he seems to have found his soul matęat last19.
19 An idle hope, alas, for in 1943 he was to fali in love with Janinę Tricotet, his wife-to-be (1947) and mother of his daughter, Michele (1946).
20 “Linger a while! Thou art so fair!”: the famous words enunciated by Faust when addressing the fleeting moment (cf Goethe, Faust, Part I, Scene IV, lines 1700-01, cf Goethes Werke, herausge- geben von dr. Chr. Christiansen, Gutenberg Verlag, Wien, p 298).
Whichbringsus to apossible explanation accounting for Prevert’s paradoxical decisiontobanishallverbs from his poem.If the equally verblessLa Belle Saison was intended, in allprobability,to spotlight a certain moment ofeveryday routine, Alicantemostlikely tries to capture this unique moment of sheer bliss andrenderit etemal. Furthermore, ifthe continual flow oflove’s highly proteanenergy is also suggested by the absence of punctuation marks allthrough the poemup tothevery end, then the finał fuli stop resorted to canonly be takento indicate thatthepoem
mustbe viewed asaself-contained unit, whichin tum reflects a completed evolu-
tion of the feelingdepicted, hence the Faustian “Yerweiledoch!Du bistso schón!” - stanceof the poet20. \n Alicante'seulogising,concluding lines, Prevert,the
surre-alist, tums inevitably romantic, to such an extentthatthereaderallbuthears John
Keats’ quintessential “A thing ofbeauty isa joy forever:/ Itsloveliness increases,it will never pass into nothingness” (“Endymion” , bk.i, 1.1, in Selected Poems,
Recreating “Holy Simplicity”:...
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3. The Sustained
Toil
of
Recreating “Holy Simplicity
”
A prima facieby far lessstrenuous task thanferreting outits cryptic meanings, translatingAlicante intoRomanianis not exactlymere child’s play. Though, ad- mittedly, ofcommonlineage - i.e. they are both descendedfrom Latin - French and Romanian differ interms of theforma mentis oftheir native spcakcrs, which
moręoftenthan not came to be viewed as the crux of thematter in literary transla-
tion. Hence the challenging decision facing the translator,who is expected to cho-
ose between two typesofapproach: the ethnocentric one, whichadvocates “dome-stication” of thesource-text (cf. Schleiermacher, inStórig 1969: 47) - i.e., in lay
English, “bringing it all back home” - , orthe ethnodeviant approach,promoting “alienation” ofthe target-text (ib.) - i.e., innon-linguistic parlance, “sending the reader abroad”.
3.1 Gellu Naum’s Renditionof Alicante
A surrealist poet himself, Naum21 devoted his writings toclearingawayfusty lite
rary conventions rather than morał ones, in a bold attempt to bring in philosophy
andmathematics to rationalizechaos and randomness. Hispoetry sets out to shock readers into accepting the new conventions either by juxtaposingextremes lingu-istically (via employment of antonyms)and philosophically (geometrie pattems
vs. amorphousfigures,zoomorphic vs. human representations), or bydoingaway with capitals and punctuationmarks.
21 He had a B. A. in Philosophy (with studies begun in Bucharest and pursued later in Paris) and a penchant for flamboyant nonconformism. He wrote poetry Camera cu ceafa (“The Foggy Room”), Heraclit, Oglinda oarba (“The Blind Mirror”), Vasco de Gama, Libertatea de a dormipe
o tampla (“The Freedom to Sleep on a Tempie”), etc, plays and poems for children (Cartea cu Apolodor (“The Book Featuring Apolodor”), A doua carte cu Apolodor (“The Second Book Fe-
aturing Apolodor”: National Writers Association’s Award) and was constantly acclaimed as one of the best translatora of French literaturę (Diderot, Stendhal, Hugo, Prevert, Char).
In view of theabove representation, NaunTstranslation of Prevert’s Alicante (s.
verbatim translation into Englishbelow) strikes one as a disconcertinglyorthodox one:
O portocala pe masa Rochia ta pe covor $i tu in patul meu Cadou gingaę al clipei
Noctuma mea racoare Caldura vie|ii mele.
Poeme: 14
(An orange on the table Your dress on the carpet And you in my bed
Delicate present of the moment My nightly coolness
My life’s warmth.)
The onlytenable “mitigating circumstance” thatcould be invoked injustifica-
tion ofhis ethnodeviant,orbetter said,“target-language-genius-deviant”22 version
is an otherwise perfectly legitimatereactionofthe disciple standinginaweofhis
surrealist master.
22 “Genius” here is taken to denote the “creative power” inherent in a certain language.
23 Discussion of this - to my mind - rather infelicitous choice will be resumed later on in subsection III.2.
24 cf DFR, p.252: “DOt7X, DOUCE [,..]3. Gingaę: voix douce".
25 Even though there is no other adjective available relating to the noun noapte, most native speakers
of Romanian still tend to regard it as a neologism and use instead the prepositional periphrasis de
noapte in attributive function. In this respect Romanian differs from English, where two adjec- tives relating to night share and share alike: nocturnal has come to cover the formal and the techni- cal styles (cf a nocturnal visit, nocturnal creatures such as owls and badgers, s. LDELC: 922),
while nightly has taken on the informal meanings (cf a nightly news broadcast, s. LDELC: 919). It
is precisely this semantic ramification that practically left me no other choice but to translate noc- turna as nightly.
The first point Ibeg to differ on isNaum’sdecision to keepon the fruit, of which the French signifier(o rangę),pregnant withfar-reaching connotations, is a farery
fromthe euphony-disruptingbulky Romanianportocala2\
The next most striking discrepancy is the complete disregard of thecentral pun (Doux present du present), causing - as expected at this particular juncture - a sharp decline inartistic craftsmanship.This theRomaniantranslator does his best to cushion by bringingginga§ [= delicate; gentle; loving, affectionate,tender (cf
£>7?E:473)]24 25 into play, anepithet which makes unambiguousreference tothe inhe- rent beauty of the beloved.
As for the conveyance of the romantic streakrevealed inthe concluding lines, Naum thinks fit to resort to prepositiveemployment of theadjectivenoctuma^
as-Recreating “Holy Simplicity”
GINĄ MACIUCA
sociation ofthis adjective indicative ofthe elevated stylewith racoare
(“cool-ness”), a word pertaining tothe average Romanian vocabulary.Furthermore, both
prepositive employment of adjectives and recourse to such synphasically ill-assor-
ted lexemes,to be surę, are salientfeaturesof the Romanian Romanticism.
As would beexpected from aliterary-convention defying poet, the rhyming
pat-tem of the original seems to be theleast ofNaunfsconcems. It is, conseąuently, conspicuous by its absence. The decreasingnumberof feet throughout the first
threelines,on the other hand, is being strictly observed(8> 7> 6)- if shortenedby a
foot each -, and, asaconcomitantthereof, sois the ploy of altematinglines with even and odd number of feet. The concluding lines however, witha seąuencing of
identical numbers (7-7-7), no longer reflect the original pattem. Moreover, as ifin- tent od demonstrating that, inhisview atleast, these lines are on apar in terms of fi
nał significance attached tothepoem,theRomanian translator takesthe liberty of
inserting an extemalwordmea [= my] inthe fifth linę, in order for the number of
feet tocontinue undiminished.
Ali in all, I consider Naum’s rendition of Alicanteto beafairlyfaithful one, with respect both to meaningconveyed and to lackofcanonicalformal restraints. Its, so
to say, Capital sin, nevertheless, is the failure to putacross to theRomanian reader
thevast array ofconnotationsdiscussedfurtherabove intheprevioussection,
in-evitably compounded by thatof the same unsuspecting readerto grasp the com-plexity hiding behindthe “holy simplicity” of these six lines.
3.2. My Own Rendition of Alicante: AModest Proposal
A fair inference fromthe laststatement above would be thatit takes morę than a
true-to-pattem or even truc-to-spirit translation in order forthereaderto realize that -as previously specified - there is actuallyto Alicante much morę than meets
the eye. My personal choice in this particular case - which, needless to say, does notnecessarily havetobe alsothe ideał one-is the only rendition apt to put a trans latoron her/hismettle, namely the one true to the genius of the target language.
With not even the slightest intention of passing it off assuchaone, I am now
put-tingforward myowntranslationof Prevert’s poem, accompanied bya verbatim English version:
Un mango pe noptiera Rochia ta pe covor
tu m dormitor
Al noptii crud fior Al vietii mele dor.
(A mango on the bedside table Your dress on the carpet And you in my bedroom Delight granted, if temporar(il)y Night’s tender thrill
My life’s ardent desire.)
Now then,sińcea first glimpse of myrendition will most certainly induce many a reader to rashly assign me tothe “traduttore-traditore” (translator-traitor)type, an
ample gloss is additionallysubmittedbelow indefence of the choices andchanges
that have been madęand effected respectively.
For openers, I substituted mango[= mango] forportocala[= orange], a decision justified by:
a) The oversized four-syllable portocala (Neo-Greek origin:portokali, cfDEX'. 827) is, so to say, euphonically-challenged when compared to sprightly two-sylla-ble orange (Arabie origin: ndranj,cf CED\ 1009).
b) In additionto ruining themusicality ofthis firstlinę,the larger number of sylla-bles in portocala inevitably shiftsboth the caesura further towards the end and, with it, attentionaway from the symbolic connotations ofthe fruit, cf:
“Une orange // 3 syllables Un mango // 3 syllables “O portocala // 5 syllables sur la table’ 4 syllables pe noptiera 5 syllables pe masa” 3 syllables (Prevert) (Maciuca) (Naum)
Aphonetically morę felicitous choice - compared toNaum’sportocala - would
also have been thethree-syllablepiersica [= peach],which, due to its round form
anddelicate skin, in particular, has the addedadvantage ofconnotingmaidenlybe-
auty atits ripest.Nevertheless,redundant as it soundsrhythm wise,the extra sylla-ble is by far notthe main disadvantage of the word piersica. What reallygrates on
theear of a sensitive reader here isthe sibilants it contains, most likelyto mar the
euphony of thepoem. Finally, a thirdfactor which precluded the use ofpiersica
was the factthat, unlikeexotic oranges, peaches are indigenous to Romania,a deta-il whichin tum can,on reflection, cause theaura of mystery surroundingthe be- loved togrowdimmer.
Recreating “Holy Simplicity”:... GINĄ MACIUCA
With mango the poem runs no such risk (cf mango-, “a tropical pear-sha- ped”(OALDCE: 511) “fleshy yellowish-red fruif/DOE: 496/). On the contrary, by bringing an impliedrhyming pattem (mango/tango) to bear on the
subcon-scious, ithelps build upthe eroticsuspensę (cf also the famous saying “it takes two totango”).
A further translationallicenceI resorted to isthesubstitution of noptiera [= bed-sidetable] for masa [= table], in anattempt to:
a) Compensate rhythmically for the missing foot, cf:
“Un orange sur la table” (7 feet) Un mango pe masa (6 feet)
b) Match - even ifimperfectly (cf: Un mango pe noptiera) - the euphonic effect which Prevert achieves through multiple employmentof r, cf:
“Une orange sur la table/Ta robę sur le tapis”(all through the poem, as a matter
of fact, except for linę 4)
c) Compensate semantically forthe missingpat [= pat: noptiera= bedside table], while giving a preview of what is about tohappen in the bedroom (dormitor). Fur-thermore, taking the reverse route, the reader canby inference - aswell as by
com-paringlexical structures- readinto linę 4 (§i tu in dormitor =And you in the bedro om) the seąuel §i tu in patul meu [= Andyou in my bed]), semanticallyequivalent toPrevert’s Et toi dans mon lit, and perfectly consistent withUn mangope noptiera
[=Amango on the bedside table],
Thethirdblatantchange effected is - as anticipated above - the substitutionof
dormitory [=bedroom] for pat[=bed], This was done mainly incompliancewith therhyming pattem, while observance of the rhythmical one (decreasingnumber
of feet throughoutthefirst three lines)left meno other wayout butto drop the po-ssessive meu [= my],
The semantic role attached to dormitor is identicalwith that includedinthe se-
mantic description ofpat,namely Locus. The onlydifference between them resi-
desinthefeature [size], with dormitorsemantically incorporating pat, which, of necessity,bringsabouta major change in thedynamicsof these three lines. Thus,
even though faithfully pickinguptheBo/ero-like ostinatoof Alicante, my rendi- tion unfortunatelyfails to reflect the zooming-intechniąue appliedby Prevert. The
decreasein minuteness, however, is compensated for by an increase insubtlety, in
thatdormitor,through lackof precise targeting, allowsofaneven morę veiled refe-rence to sensuality“onthe loose”,with theulterior motivein mindof making
addi-tional amends for the double occurrence of r, which renders the harmony of the third linę slightly imperfect.
Now then, the acid test for any translator brave enough to take on Prevert’s Ali
cante is undoubtedly linę 4. That is precisely why, acutely aware of the sacrifices I had already madę for fear of not altogether marring the holy simplicity of the poem, I decided to keep the pun on at all costs. After numerous unsuccessful at- tempts which all seemed to confirm my worst fear, namely that I was merely squ- aring the circle, a sudden flash of inspiration produced Deliciu-n dar, dar temporar, i.e. the closest I could ever hope to get to Prevert’s Doux present du present, even if, inevitably, at the expense of some other technical detail: in this particular case, the number of feet (exceeding by two - not one by one - that of the previous linę).
The pun in my translation is on the semantic equivalent of French $resent(i),
dar(I) [= n. present, gift], and its homophone dar(2) [= conj. but]. However, in order
for it to take efifect, insertion of an additional comma between the two homopones presented itself as a must, with the morphological versescape adjusted accordingly. Thus, the Romanian counterpart of French present^) - ostensibly alluding to a short-lived feeling - is here the lexeme temporar [= adj. fleeting, temporary; adv.
temporarily], which has the added advantage of recreating, together with darm, the leonine rhyming pattem of the original, cf Doux present / du present and Deliciu-n dar,/Dar temporar.
The reverse strategy has been applied in the case of the French adjective doux, rendered semantically by the Romanian noun deliciu, which appeals to the palate and to the eye alike, cf DEX, p 274: “Placere deosebit de marę; desfatare. Fig.
(Fam.) Lucru, flinta incantatoare” (“Immense pleasure; delight. Fig. (Inf) delight- ful thing or creature”). A morę appropriate choice would have been the adjective
delicious [= delicious], with an unambiguously gustatory reference of its primary
meaning. However, for obvious rhyming reasons specified above, the only possi- ble employment of this adjective is a prepositive one, which most native speakers of Romanian woul consider highly emphatic, or, worse even, construe as conno- ting frivolity - as indicated by the addition inserted below, cf Delicios dar, ... buna bucatica! (Delicious present, ...quite a dish, isn’t she?).
Providing a sharp contrast to the above interpretation, Deliciu-n dar is a morę fe-
licitous match for the French Doux present, perhaps due to the very fact that it is equally uncommon in everyday speech. The “fiilly-fledged” phrase reads in dar, but occurrence of a redundant foot in the first half of the linę greatly discouraged me from using it as such and madę me prefer instead the abridged form of the pre- position, i.e. with z dropped. Aregular of literary style, -n dar is at heart a verbless
Recreating “Holy Simplicity”:... GINĄ MACHJCA
abbreviated relative clause (cfDeliciu (care mi-a fost dat) in dar — Delight (which has been) granted),with-n dar [=asapresent] performing as a syntactic synonym
of the passivepast participledaruit [= bestowed, given away].Myprime reasonfor translatingAlicante - the reader is kindly reminded - was toreveal the high com-plexity of the logie inherent inthe simple beauty of thepoem, and that is exactly one direction inwhichboththe elliptical relative clause Deliciu-n darand thepun effected (darm, dap-fiadduce copious proof.
The romantic streak in lines 5 and6 is beingmadęconspicuous throughrecourse
to reversed word order: premodifying nominał phrase + modified noun, cfAl nopt- ii..fior, Al vietii...dor, inplace of the run-of-the-mill sequencing of postmodified nouns fior... al noptii, dor al vietii.
Again, forrhyming reasons, racoare had to be ruledout as a potentialmatch for
French fraicheur and I tumed instead to the double-barrelled fior, whichcan be stretched semantically to connoteeither excitement and joy (cf Englishthrill), or an unpleasantsensation of coldness,especially from fear or discouragement (cf
Englishchill). Extremelybeneficialthoughit was to rendering the line’s key-con-cept,this last maneouvre left theverse, however, with amissingfoot andanincom-
plete rangę of meanings, for the “tendemess” connoted byfraicheur was still nowhere inevidence. The most suitablecandidate for filling both thesefunctions
tumed out to bethe adjectivecrud, which, in conjunctionwithfior, alsocontributes
toąuasireduplicatingthe phoneticversescape (Observe, in thisrespect, thedouble occurrence and thepositionofr in the French word, ascompared with the Roma-nian word string: fraicheur- crudfior). An equally appealing feature of this adjec- tive isits availability for assuming anegativeconnotation suggested by its secon-dary meaning (“cruel”), which makes it an ideał match for the semantically
biva-lent noun itpremodifies.
Finally, for both consistency’s sake and reasons listed above, the sixth linę is
re-placingcaldura (the semantic equivalent of French chaleur)with the less abstract, yet highly proteandor, possessed of five topic-relatedmeanings defined as
fol-lows:“1. Strong desire to see (again) sb or sth which one is extremely fond of [...] 2. A State of feeling in which oneis striving for, hankering after or aspiring to sth
[...] 3. Sufferingcaused bythelove fors.o. who is far away[...] 5. Taste, fancy,li-
king for (sthto eat or drink) [...] 6. Strong erotic feelingfor s.o.”(cfDEX\ 316) This vast arrayof meanings is oneofthe two major reasons for whichdor can be
regarded as the focal pointinmy rendition.The other one is closelyrelated to that paradoxical omniscience of a translatorwhowas not contemporary withthe author of the original. In other words, evenif denied the privilegewhich his contemporary
readers were allowed, of relating Prevert’s poetry to firsthandinformation on its author, I am at thisparticular juncturein aposition to groundmy rendition on
care-fully sifted biographicalfacts. Itis precisely here thatthe discrepancy betweenpoet
and translatorchronology wise looms larger than ever: the former’s view of what she/he is creating is prevailingly prospective, whereas the latter’s view of what she/he is recreatingis a decidedlyretrospectiveone. That in tum accounts forPrev-
ert’sunadulterated blisswhile contemplating what henaively imagines to be the love of his life (cf Chaleur de ma vie), as contrastedto myAl viefii mele dor, a morę tentative claim to everlastinghappiness - muchrather an undisputed oneto “love’s
labour’s lost”-, which only a furtive glance at years1943, 1946 and 1947 of his
biography (s.Notę 19 above) could have generated.
The veryorigin of thelexemedor (cIDEX, p. 316: Lat.pop.Dolus (< dolere ”a durea”); cf Vulgar Latin dolus (< dolere “to hurt, topain”), in association withthe negative meaning of crud (= cruel),is indicativeof a new dimension which my
translation assumes: that of the sufferingcausedbylove, or better yet, bythe less
cheerful prospect of fading or nolonger reciprocated love. Thisrather disąuieting
notę I tooktheliberty toend onwould, admittedly, be moręin tune with apoem en- titled, say, Lachryma Christi (cf CED,797: “(L, Chrisfs tear)a sweet but piąuant winę from grapes grown on Vesuvius), but, if we are to grant the logieof lines4 and 5in Prevert’s original, aswell as thesemantic interplay ofthe concluding lines (cf fraicheur - chaleur),then the notion of“everlastinglove” tends to get a bit fiizzy.
So, inthe last analysis, what myversion actually effects is asubtle shift in per- spective, fromthe auctorialpresent - i.e. past, as viewed by a contemporary
re-ader26 - to a “fast-forwarded” future-in-the-past -asviewed by same. Or,
meta-phoricallyput, it suggests that, intoxicated with this noble feeling as he seemed to be, thepoet’s quest for the love of his life was in realitynotoveratthe time.
26 By “contemporary” here I mean a reader contemporary with the translator of the poem.
With the burden of this slightly alteredperspective lyingheavy onmy mind, I did my bestto keep the rhyming and the rhythmicpattems unchanged.
Unfortuna-tely, adherence to the former could only takeeffect at the expenseof the latter. Even so, with the lines each longerbya foot than the respective lines of theoriginal,the
altemation of odd and even numbers of feet is nevertheless being observed- though not inthe orderof the original, cfPrevert: odd/even/odd/even/odd/odd, Maciuca: even/odd/even/even/even/even -and so is the differencein numberof
feet between consecutive lines, withthe sole exception of linę 4,which, given the symmetryimposedby the leonine rhyming pattem, could only accommodate an
Recreating “Holy Simplicity . GINĄ MACIUCA
even number of feet. Submitted belowarethethree rhythmic pattems compared:
Prevert: 7Z6Z5Z6Z5Z5; Naum: 8Z7Z6Z7Z7Z7, Maciuca: 8Z7Z6Z8Z6Z6. Since the second halfof thepoem is the one which, as they putitinbroadcasting parlance, fadesin the closing musie, I thoughtfit - unlikeNaum -to follow thetapering pattem of the original.
Which brings us to yet another forte of Prevert’sAlicante-, its musicality.
4. TheMagie Power of Setting “Holy Simplicity” to Musie
Asmostof hispoetry27, this poem, too, all but cries out loud for being set to musie.
Apparentlythisloud ery got Chuck Perrin’s sharp ear,who,bywritingthemusie
for it,immenselyenhancedits lyricism.
27 Joseph Kostna- aHungarian musician whose acąuaintance Prevert madę as early as 1934 - was the poet’ s main collaborator intheprovince ofmusie (cf. Chasse d l 'enfant and Z. 'enfance (1936), 21 chansons (1946)). Further celebrities inthe filed whoshowed an interest in Prevert’s poems: YvesMontand, Juliette Greco, Jacques and Mariannę Oswald,SergeReggiani.
Mutatis mutandis,when setting apoemto musie, the composeris in factrecre
ating it in asui generis fashion. Inour case,a fashion which only a listener familiar with Prevert’s style can hope to empathise with. Nonetheless, on firsthearing Per-rin’sAlicante, I must confess Iwasrather at aloss for wordsand I had to playit several times before finally uncovering themajorstrategies employed for transpo-singthe poetical into the musical, and subsequently coming to terms with his
rendi-tion. For instance, the interplay of regular and irregular rhymes Perrinreflectsby
followingone beator series of beats whilealtogetherignoring the next one. Fur-thermore,certain melodie pattems which atfirst blush sounda bit outof tunewith the larger arrangement of musie are there to remindthelistenerthat, besides
tur-ning words into rhythmical elements, this magie art has theby far morę important mission ofbringing out novel meanings, inparticularconnotations which not even the boldestliterary critic could ever dream ofreading intothe linesof a poem. Still, withall its complex deep structure patteming, Perrin’s rendition, too, is
superfi-cially possessed of a Prevert-like simple beauty.
Morę importantly even, the conversion of one formofart intoanother is accom-panied bya secondary one,of energytypes. Aspreviously shown, the lastthree li
nes of the poem sublimate sexuality into spirituality. Ultimately, with Perrin’s
the spiritual. To sum up. I am in no position to speak for Naum or Perrin, but I can certainly speak for myself, and confess that, all in all, uncovering the complexity behind it, and recreating the miraculous „holy simplicity” of Prevert’s Alicante was an extremely time-consuming job, but a week away from hard labour. Though, to be perfectly candid about it, I have got a further confession to make: “toiling away” at an exquisite love poem by a “notorious” lover of simple beauty whose only fault was that he believed in the magie power of etemal love is, indeed, hard labour, but, to be surę, a hard LABOUR ... OF LOVE.
Literaturę
CED Schwarz, C. et al., (eds.), 1990 Chambers English Dictionary. Edinbur-gh-New York-Toronto: W&RChambers Ltd
COD The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1981, Oxford-New York :
Oxford University Press.
DEX Coteanu, I. et al. (coords.), 1998,Dicfionarul explicativ al limbii romane.
Bucureęti: Univers Enciclopedic.
DFR §aineanu, C., Dictionnaire Franęais-Roumain, 1928, Bucarest: Imprimerie
„Cultura Nationala”.
DOE Dicfionarul Oxford Explicativ,2004, Bucure§ti-Oxford-London: Litera
In-temational-Oxford University Press-Dorling Kindersley Limited.
DS Chevalier, J., Gheerbrant, A., 1994, Dicfonar de simboluri, III(P-Z), Bucu-reęti: EdituraArtemis.
OALDCE Homby, A. S. et al. (eds.), 1992, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
LDELC Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture, 2003,Essex: Pearson EducationLimited.
Prevert, J., 1965, Poeme, Bucureęti: Editura pentruLiteratura Universala.
Prevert, J., 1997, Paroles, Editions Gallimard.
Schleiermacher, F., 1969, „Uber dieverschiedenen Methoden des Ubersetzens”, in Stó-rig, H. J., ed.,Das Problem des Ubersetzens, Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft
Trask, R. L., 1993, A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics, London-New
York: Routledge.
Trask, R.L., 2007,Language and Linguistics. The Key Concepts, Oxon-NewYork: Rout
Recreating “Holy Simplicity”:... GINĄ MACIUCA
Recreating “Holy Simplicity Romanian Renditions of Jacques Prevert s Alicante
While still underthespell of Jacąues Prevert’s intriguingly unsophisticated Alicante, and in relentless pursuit ofuncovering novel strategiesfor creating literarybeauty, I decided
to subject the poem to a minutę scrutiny inthe hope of ferreting out the secret stuff “holy simplicity” is madęof.Muchtomy surprise, “lurking” behind thissancta simplicitas Ifo-
und a fine networkof complex pattems, each carefully designed to interactwith the rema-
inderin a flawless manner, thus considerably enhancing the potency of the ensemble. The followingare several of themajor pattemsinvolved: dichotomous partition into sexuality and spirituality; colour-related symbolism; word play; dual-nature semantic pattem of
keywords (signalling interweaving of libido-related and spirit-relatedzones); interplay of inherent andnon-inherentreadings of adjectives,ofregularandirregularrhymes,or of verseswith different-numbered feet (even and odd); effective intermingling oflexemes
which synergetically appeal tofour human senses.
In thesecond phase, my research was steered away from fathoming the miracle of cre ating “holysimplicity”towardsinvestigatingthe sustainedtoil of recreating it ina diffe-rentlanguage: Romanian. Thetwo subsections devotedtothe topie in question submit to the reader GelluNaum’s translation of Alicante,and the one originating with nonę other thanthe author of this contribution respectively. Abrief comparison of the two renditions
has yielded the followingpoints ofdissimilarity: a) Naum’sisa true-to-spirit translation,
whereas minę has been created withthe genius of the target language in mind. Herefrom
stem the maincontrasts listed below. b)Naum keeps on the fruit (Fr signifier orange,
Romsignifierportocala), while I madęsoboldas to replace it bythe equally exotic man go for reasonsspecified under 111.2 below(s.also substitution of noptiera (= bedside ta-ble) and dormitory (=bedroom) for masa(Fr table) and pat (Fr lit) respectively. c) Naum
completely disregards thepuninlinę 4, whereas I didnot think twiceabout slightly modi-
fying the rhythmic pattem in order to be able torender the formerinto Romanian. d)Likewise, Naum translates in utter defiance of therhymingpattem, whereas tome ob-serving it is amatterof prime importance.
Needless to say, I am quite willing to take boththeblame and thecredit -if any — for
thevast array of meanings I took thelibertytoreadinto Prevert’s poem,aswell as for the
translational licencesresorted toin thehope of successfully puttingtheseunique connota-
tions acrossto thereader.
The concludingsection discusses still a further possibilityof recreating Prevert’sAli cante, namelyby setting it to musie. In this respect, Chuck Perrin’s rendition has the ad-ded advantage ofenhancingitslyricism, while concurrentlytakingthe poem to that ma-gical space hovering above the spiritual.
Keywords:style simplicity; French modern poetry; sexuality vs. spirituality; translation; Romanian; true-to-genius-of-target-language rendition; setting poetry to musie.
