Complete Works of the Pearl Poet - Softcover

Finch, Casey; Andrew, Malcolm; Peterson, Clifford; Waldron, Ronald

 
9780520078710: Complete Works of the Pearl Poet
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0520078713 ISBN 13: 9780520078710
Publisher: University of California Press, 1996

Synopsis

This edition presents, for the first time, the entire oeuvre of the Pearl poet with both the original Middle English works and complete verse translations. Poet and scholar Casey Finch uses anapestic tetrameters (and iambic tetrameter for Pearl) in his translations rather than the accented tetrameters of the originals, thus achieving the rhythmic regularity the poems would have displayed when performed to music, as they surely were meant to be. Finch's translations are printed facing the best modern editions of the poems, those of Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron and of Clifford Peterson.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

The late Casey Finch taught in the Department of English at New York University. He was the author of two books of poetry, The Forbidden Book (1981) and Harming Others (1992), and several scholarly articles on literary topics.

From the Back Cover

"Finch's translations will add much to the pleasure and value of teaching and learning late medieval English history."--Robert Brentano, author of Two Churches

"Casey Finch has found an idiom in which these poems can speak Modern English, and in doing so can convey the most elusive and complex effects of the originals. . . . He has conveyed the vitality of these poems in a verse that is as assured, gracious, blunt, urgent, plangent, rich, and perpetually surprising as that of the unknown poet or poets who made them. These brilliant poems have at last found a craftsman who understands the secrets of their intricate luminosity, a faithful steward of a distinctive verbal treasure of the language. In this translation these poems shine as brightly and clearly as they did when newly made, pearls without peer in English."--Anne Middleton, University of California, Berkeley

From the Inside Flap

"Finch's translations will add much to the pleasure and value of teaching and learning late medieval English history."--Robert Brentano, author of Two Churches

"Casey Finch has found an idiom in which these poems can speak Modern English, and in doing so can convey the most elusive and complex effects of the originals. . . . He has conveyed the vitality of these poems in a verse that is as assured, gracious, blunt, urgent, plangent, rich, and perpetually surprising as that of the unknown poet or poets who made them. These brilliant poems have at last found a craftsman who understands the secrets of their intricate luminosity, a faithful steward of a distinctive verbal treasure of the language. In this translation these poems shine as brightly and clearly as they did when newly made, pearls without peer in English."--Anne Middleton, University of California, Berkeley

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
University of California Press
Publication date
1996
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0520078713
ISBN 13 
9780520078710
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
490

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780520068742: The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0520068742 ISBN 13:  9780520068742
Publisher: University of California Press, 1993
Hardcover