Ekphrasis in Richard Siken’s Poetry: A Translation of “Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/belasinfieis.v12.n1.2023.44674Keywords:
Richard Siken. War of the Foxes. North American poetry. Ekphrasis. Poetry translation.Abstract
With the publication of War of the Foxes (2015) Richard Siken’s poetry, characterized by free verse and a cinematographic aesthetic, turns heavily to the fine arts, in a constant dialogue with painting, using ekphrasis as a rhetorical resource. In order to propose a translation for one of the poems in the collection that exemplifies this dialogue, we examine ekphrastic aspects of Siken's aesthetics through a brief analysis of the poems "Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light" and "Three Proofs". Discussing the space of this tool in the poet's aesthetics allows us to seek solutions to maintain the elements found in the poems in a translation into Portuguese, which enables a better understanding of the performance of the choices regarding the characteristics of this activity in poetry. A translation proposal for the poem "Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light" is therefore presented, as well as comments about the translation process.
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References
Barry, P. (2002). Contemporary Poetry and Ekphrasis. The Cambridge Quartely, Special Issue on Contemporary Poetry II, 31(2), 155–165.
Butts, L. (2015). Richard Siken’s WAR OF THE FOXES. The Iowa Review. https://iowareview.org/blog/richard-sikens-war-foxes
Kempenaers, T. (2019). Queer Discomfort: Desire and Heteronormativity in Richard Siken’s Crush. College Literature, 46(4), 914–941.
Kronenberg, S. (2015). Love in Contemporary Gay Male Poetry in the Works of Richard Siken, Eduardo C. Corral, and Jericho Brown. Cordite Poetry Review, 1.
Rodolpho, M. (2010). Écfrase e Evidência nas Letras Latinas: Doutrina e Práxis. [Dissertação de Mestrado, Universidade de São Paulo].
Siken, R. (2005). Crush. Yale University Press.
Siken, R. (2015). War of the Foxes. Copper Canyon Press.
Vieira, M. de P. (2017). Écfrase: de recurso retórico na Antiguidade a fenômeno midiático na contemporaneidade. Todas as Letras, 19(1), 45–57.
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