“Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.”
Source: Fugitive Pieces
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Anne Michaels15
Poet and novelist 1958Related quotes
“If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.”
M. H. Abrams (1912–2015) American literary theorist
Cornell Chronicle interview (1999)
John Banville (1945) Irish writer
John Banville: Using words to paint pictures of "magical" Prague (2006)
John Millington Synge (1871–1909) Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore
The Aran Islands (1907)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
Maxim 426; translation by Bailey Saunders
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer
Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)
“or that writing a poem you can read to no one
is like dancing in the dark.”
Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet
Source: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters
William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer
Introduction (p. cli)
The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: an Epic Poem (1776)