Helen Waddell (1889–1965)
Auteur de The Desert Fathers
A propos de l'auteur
Œuvres de Helen Waddell
The Abbé Prévost : a play 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (1731) — Traducteur, quelques éditions — 2,025 exemplaires
Stories for girls — Contributeur — 1 exemplaire
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom canonique
- Waddell, Helen
- Nom légal
- Waddell, Helen Jane
- Date de naissance
- 1889-05-31
- Date de décès
- 1965-03-05
- Lieu de sépulture
- Magherally Graveyard, Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland, UK
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- Northern Ireland
UK - Lieu de naissance
- Tokyo, Japan
- Lieu du décès
- London, England, UK
- Cause du décès
- complications of dementia
- Lieux de résidence
- Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Paris, France
Tokyo, Japan
London, England, UK - Études
- Victoria College for Girls
Queen's University Belfast (BA|1911|MA|1912)
Somerville College, University of Oxford - Professions
- scholar
translator
playwright
poet
novelist
editor - Relations
- Mayne, Rutherford (brother)
Sassoon, Siegfried (friend) - Organisations
- Irish Literary Society
The Nineteenth Century magazine - Prix et distinctions
- Fellow, Royal Society of Literature (1928)
Benson Medal (1928)
Royal Irish Academy (1932)
Corresponding Fellow, Medieval Academy of America (1937)
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 15
- Aussi par
- 8
- Membres
- 1,866
- Popularité
- #13,792
- Évaluation
- 3.5
- Critiques
- 25
- ISBN
- 69
- Langues
- 1
- Favoris
- 3
This was the book that made the reputation of Helen Waddell, the medievalist from my own corner of County Down. It's a study of the lyrical tradition of poetry in the Middle Ages in Europe, tracing influences across geographies and cultures. I found the writing very dense; written very chattily as if these were all people whose reputations we already knew, with minimal context and footnotes mostly to works available only in well-equipped university libraries. I'm really surprised that it did so well on publication in 1927; perhaps the readers of the 1920s were more au fait with early medieval literature than I am.
Still there are some fascinating details in there. It's always interesting to be reminded of the career of Gerbert of Aurillac, which is crying out for an accessible biographical treatment, either factual or fictional. The same goes for the murky story of the Viking Siegfried (or Sifrid, as Waddell calls him). There's the mysterious figure of the Archpoet. And more locally it's interesting to see Liège popping up as an important centre of culture.
She supplies a lot of translations of the lyrics, to which she brings her own good ear for a phrase; here's the Archpoet's Estuans Interius, as set to music by Carl Orff in the Carmina Burana a few years later, with the original text (which fairly bounces along) and Helen's translation.
Estuans interius
ira vehementi
in amaritudine
loquor mee menti:
factus de materia,
cinis elementi
similis sum folio,
de quo ludunt venti.
Cum sit enim proprium
viro sapienti
supra petram ponere
sedem fundamenti,
stultus ego comparor
fluvio labenti,
sub eodem tramite
nunquam permanenti.
Feror ego veluti
sine nauta navis,
ut per vias aeris
vaga fertur avis;
non me tenent vincula,
non me tenet clavis,
quero mihi similes
et adiungor pravis.
Mihi cordis gravitas
res videtur gravis;
iocis est amabilis
dulciorque favis;
quicquid Venus imperat,
labor est suavis,
que nunquam in cordibus
habitat ignavis.
Via lata gradior
more iuventutis
inplicor et vitiis
immemor virtutis,
voluptatis avidus
magis quam salutis,
mortuus in anima
curam gero cutis.
Seething over inwardly
With fierce indignation,
In my bitterness of soul,
Hear my declaration.
I am of one element,
Levity my matter,
Like enough a withered leaf
For the winds to scatter.
Since it is the property
Of the sapient
To sit firm upon a rock,
It is evident
That I am a fool, since I
Am a flowing river,
Never under the same sky,
Transient for ever.
Hither, thither, masterless
Ship upon the sea,
Wandering through the ways of air,
Go the birds like me.
Bound am I by ne'er a bond,
Prisoner to no key,
Questing go I for my kind,
Find depravity.
Never yet could I endure
Soberness and sadness,
Jests I love and sweeter than
Honey find I gladness.
Whatsoever Venus bids
Is a joy excelling,
Never in an evil heart
Did she make her dwelling.
Down the broad way do I go,
Young and unregretting,
Wrap me in my vices up,
Virtue all forgetting,
Greedier for all delight
Than heaven to enter in:
Since the soul is in me dead,
Better save the skin.
I'm glad I have read this at last, and I'll put some of Helen Waddell's other works on my reading list now.… (plus d'informations)