Elizabeth Bishop and Translation

This insightful exploration of Elizabeth Bishop and Translation reveals the poet's intricate relationship with her translation work and its influence on her poetry.

This book delves into the intricate relationship between Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and her translations, offering readers a comprehensive analysis through close readings of selected poems. It emphasizes how translation serves as a poetic principle that resonates with her original works, revealing a deeper understanding of her creative process. By examining the nuances of her translations, the text uncovers the profound connections between her role as a translator and her identity as a poet.

Elizabeth Bishop and Translation meticulously explores the various translation projects Bishop undertook throughout her life, encompassing works from Ancient Greek, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. By placing these translations within the context of her life and oeuvre, the book highlights the significance of translation in Bishop's artistic journey. Despite the considerable critical interest in her poetry, her translation work has remained underexplored, making this examination both timely and essential for appreciating the full scope of her contributions to literature.

The latter part of the book investigates how Bishop’s translation experiences influenced her original poetry. It pays special attention to the interplay between the familiar and the foreign, examining how this dynamic is reflected in her poems about both exotic locales and more intimate settings. The final chapter posits that the unknown, which resists complete understanding and translation, plays a pivotal role in Bishop's work, suggesting that a unique poetics aligned with translation principles can be discerned throughout her poetry.