C. H. Sisson in Exile, or, Versions and Perversions of Ovid’s Tristia
Abstract
C. H. Sisson strongly identifies with Augustan poets such as Horace, Vergil, and Ovid in his translations of their works, and certain poems reflect their profound influence on him (e.g. “Horace”, “Eclogue”) (As he says in the preface to his Collected Translations [Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1996], xi: “My own verse has been profoundly affected by the interests and aspirations indicated by my choice of matter to translate, and what I have been able to do, and such understanding as I have been able to achieve of the nature of poetry, has depended in no small degree on my non-resistance, over the decades, to the temptations of translation”). While Sisson comments on the importance “for the contemporary poet to dip into” Ovid’s Metamorphoses (See his commentary on lines 401–11 of his translation of Horace’s Ars Poetica in C. H. Sisson, Collected Translations [Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1996], 359), Ovid’s exile figures in multiple poems and becomes a trope that links Sisson’s conception of poetry, politics, aging, and death.
Repository Citation
Trinacty, Christopher. "C.H. Sisson in Exile, or, Versions and Perversions of Ovid's Tristia." In C.H. Sisson Reconsidered, edited by Victoria Moul and John Talbot. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan Cham
Publication Date
1-2-2023
Department
Classics
Document Type
Book Chapter
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14828-6_4
Notes
Series: The New Antiquity (NANT)
Keywords
C.H. Sissons, Modernist poetry, English poetry, Religious poetry, Poetry in translation, Translation studies
ISBN
9783031148279
Language
English
Format
text
