Dear Sonnet,
Unlike you, I haven't yet started my journey on William Shakespeare's works, nor
on many other world famous classics. It's a pity for having been loitering outside instead of strolling inside the garden of literature for so long, but to view it in a positive light, it also promises a wealth of pleasure and surprise ahead in store for me. The garden must be so grand that one cannot do justice to its charm in a few hasty looks, and the day I feel ready to enter the gate I hope
will not be far.
I am, however, not without a little taste of art which, I believe, stems from my
perpetual longing for beauty and perfection, of which Nature and art are the ultimate sources. The flip side of this is my relatively low tolerance of sloppiness and imperfection, and in consequence, those works remembered primarily for their enlightening and educational value would appear less attractive to me than if
they could otherwise be recognized for their engaging use of language as well.
I have read some proses that I appreciate very much for both the language and the images they reflect. Here I will extract a few lines from what I treasure to give you a taste of my taste.
"Creek time is measured in the lives of strange creatures, in sandflecked caddis
worms under the rocks, sudden gossamer clouds of mayflies in the afternoon, or
minnows darting like silvers of inspiration into the dimness of creek fate. Mysteries float in creeks' riffles, crawl over their pebbled bottoms and slink under
the roots of trees." (The Enchantment of Creeks, by Peter Steinhart)
"Autumn takes all the colours of spring and blends and softens them richly to in
tense shades of purple, crimson, bronze, amber and mahogany, displayed either tapestry-wise, side by side, or merged in rich new tones." (My Favourite Season,
author unknown)
"The sky was cloudless, the sun shone out bright and warm; the songs of birds, and hums of myriads of summer insects, filled the air; and the cottage gardens, crowned with flowers of every rich and beautiful tint, sparkled, in the heavy dew
, like beds of glittering jewels." (The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens)
As you can see, the frist two may not be the products of well-known writers, but
don't you agree that all three of them share a beauty "as iridescent as a prismin a morning room"? This is the kind of language I like, and I know there must be a great lot more writings of its kind that I have yet to discover. I admire --
even envy -- these people's consummate skills which enable them to depict the most delicate scenes in such a vivid and lyrical way and with such effortless elegance. To have something smoldering deep down without being able to verbalize it
in a way that is equally touching to the reader as to yourself, it seems to me,
is a real agony. I wonder why I haven't seen any anthology of such descriptive proses when collections of poems and stories are ever so easy to come by. Could it be that the word "prose" is so unlucky as to be associated with being commonplace?
So much for my little taste. Before I put an end to this letter, I'd like to commend a book series that might sound interesting to you. The series is entitled "
No Fear Shakespeare". Why no fear? Because it presents the original text and its
modern version written in plain English side by side. Last week, in a bookstore
, I specially copied down a poem from one such book in the eries, "No Fear Shakespeare Sonnets". Below is what I got.
Original:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Modern:
Shall I compare you to a summer day? You're lovelier and milder. Rough winds shake the pretty buds of May, and summer doesn't last nearly long enough. Sometimes
the sun shines too hot, and often its golden face is darkened by clouds. And everything beautiful stops being beautiful, either by accident or simply in the course of nature. But your eternal summer will never fade, nor will you lose possession of your beauty, nor shall death brag that you are wandering in the underworld, once you're captured in my eternal verses. As long as men are alive and have eyes with which to see, this poem will live and keep you alive.
Do you think the "translation" helpful?
With best regards,
Sandy
