V---2nd Coral/: Gottfried Benn

[Mark Kohut]

No translation yet, but it looks like Kai and Ian hit it like a rock.....

  Roberto Calasso- 2001 - 290 pages - Preview

Benn was forever overturning categories in the minds of many of his readers. How 
can one be regressive and classical at the same time? How can one be algae or a 
jellyfish and at the same time the capital of a column? ...
 books.google.com - More editions- Add to My Library▼-  In My Library: Change▼ 
	* Facing fascism and confronting the past: German women writers from ... - Page 
34
  Elke Frederiksen, Martha Kaarsberg Wallach- 2000 - 320 pages - Preview

regression. To paraphrase Nietzsche, who was so important for Benn, it is the 
heart that drives the head to "go under" (Untergang) in a gesture of "going over 
" (Ubergang), that allows one to transcend one's humanity. ...
  


http://books.google.com/books?id=32yURfFuCr4C&pg=PA183&dq=Regressiv+%2B+Benn&hl=en&ei=DbokTYGvGIbGlQfIqdHrAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Regressiv%20%2B%20Benn&f=false





----- Original Message ----
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, January 5, 2011 11:04:17 AM
Subject: Re: V---2nd Coral/: Gottfried Benn

I agree completely that poetry does not translate well. Too much is
lost. There is so much in German I wish I could read that I am certain
there is not enough time, given a normal lifespan, for me to learn the
language and read it all. Too late a start. Still, I do hope to get
some in before my rocket reaches its terminus.
Meanwhile, I'll look for the translations, as I did with Rilke,
Goethe, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, and those others.

2011/1/5 Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>:
>
> On 04.01.2011 18:17, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>
>> Although coral seems to cross
>> the line and be a little of each, as it builds its own inanimate
>> structures from its animate functions.
>
>
>
> The poet Gottfried Benn saw that too.
>
> I'll type down for you one of his most famous poems plus a strophe from an
> even more famous
> poem. You won't have any problems to find (perhaps even online)
> translations, that will give you an
> idea. But then again it's not possible to translate poems in a proper way
> ...
>
> REGRESSIV [1927]
>
> Ach, nicht in dir, nicht in Gestalten
> der Liebe, in des Kindes Blut,
> in keinem Wort, in keinem Walten
> ist etwas, wo dein Dunkel ruht.
>
> Götter und Tiere --- alles Faxen.
> Schöpfer und Schieber, ich und du ---
> Bruch, Katafalk, von Muscheln wachsen
> die Augen zu.
>
> nur manchmal dämmert's: in Gerüchen
> vom Strand, KORALLENKOLORIT [my italics],
> in Spaltungen, in Niederbrüchen
> hebst du der Nacht das schwere Lid:
>
> am Horizont die Schleierfähre,
> stygische Blüten, Schlaf und Mohn,
> die Träne wühlt sich in die Meere ---
> dir: thalassale Regression.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> BLAUE STUNDE [1950]
>
> (...)
>
> Du bist so weiß, man denkt, du wirst zerfallen
> vor lauter Schnee, vor lauter Blütenlos,
> totweiße [sic!] Rosen Glied für Glied --- KORALLEN [my italics]
> nur auf den Lippen, schwer und wundengroß.
>
> (...)
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> KFL
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."