Potential “Question at Issue” for Critical Essay

So if anyone has time to read over this and help me think of more expansive questions, that would be fantastic.

Here’s what I’m thinking…most of my favorite books/poetry collections are translations from Spanish, Russian, etc. So my question is:

“When held in comparison to their original version, do translated works of poetry owe credit to the original author or to both the original author and the translator (assuming they are two different people)?”

Expanding questions:

Does an author have less control over their translated works or less credibility for them?

Should work ever be translated, especially poetry, when the words are essential and specific?

(This then starts the argument of accesibility)

Hmm. We’ll see. In the mean time, I’d like to recommend you watch the stop-action film Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. It’s great. It’ll make you feel better about life.

virginia woolf is zaney!

“any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certianly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at.” from Shakespeare’s Sister

I think that these woman genuises might have been smart enough to find a man willing enough to let her use his name to publish her work. I know there are examples of this but I’m not smart enough to remember them. I just hope that not all of these women of the sixteenth century went insane with fury because of the inequalities. But Woolf does have a point. I remember studying Shakespeare in one class and it was mentioned that some believe he did recieve help from a female writer for some of his work. Here’s a link to someone else’s blog :

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/07/the_sweet_swan_.html

And the book he talks about:

http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Swan-Avon-Woman-Shakespeare/dp/0321426401

“I don’t get it.” Should art/literature be accessible to everyone?

Today’s discussion, literally ending 10 minutes ago, got my wheels going about intellectualism and issues of class. In Bourdeiu’s “Distinction,” he writes that “scientific observation shows that cultural needs are the product of upbringing and education: surveys establish that all cultural practices (museum visits, concert-going, reading etc.) and preferences in literature, painting or music, are closely linked to educational level” (1809).  Whether you think this is “ok” or “morally right” doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. It is true, from what I’ve experienced. There’s a specific South Park episode with Will Smith and his children, who speak eloquently and talk about going to the theater with the South Park kids who rather blow things up and steal neighbor’s pets.  I think it is a serious problem that your upbringing and class status affects your taste in the arts and essentially controls it.  It seems that those in higher classes have the freedom to decide their tastes and those in lower classes do not.  Richer families can afford private language tutors and have their children fluent in French and spend weekends at the movie theater watching obscure French films.  Lower class families may be limited to viewing movies that are only shown in local cable channels.

somtimes you get far behind and blog 13 times to catch up

I thought I’d share my definition of a classic, that actually ended up being similar to Benjamin’s definition:

(taken directly from my free-writing exercise in class):

A classic stands the test of time. Continues to be influential with the changes in culture, has something important to say in different eras, applies to a broad range of readers, inspires future study and analyzation, scholars are never “finished” with the classic because it is infinitely interesting.  Whenever classic literature is mentioned, I think of Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, Huck Finn, etc. 

I wonder what great works of literature from my generation will be considered classics? It seems that to be classic, you have to last a long time. So time then has to pass.  Yet we already have classic rock and classic movies that were produced in the 20th century (?)