I walk through the park, watching the birds rustle in the bushes. The fish are jumping in the pond. I can’t help but feel sad. I am crazy in love with this woman that doesn’t love me back. She truly is a beast, a creature of nature.
This is a very gnomic poem. Nature is incorporated into it. Line five of the original poem reads, “For beste of bon and blod.” It says that “beste” could mean either best or beast, and that it could even be translated into creature. I skipped over the most obvious meaning and went straight to hidden ones. The most obvious meaning for “beste” was best, but I didn’t feel like that was the intended meaning. It is implied that “the creature of bone and blood” is a reference to the woman he loves. He has a world of emotion built up inside himself that drives him crazy. He is crazy in love with her, but she doesn’t feel the same which makes him very sad. It’s almost as if the poet is saying that the birds are going to sing, the fish are going to jump, and he is still going to be sad no matter what. I interpreted it to mean that we all have our struggles, but life still goes on. With nature being incorporated into this poem, is could mean that this feeling is natural. The poet could be implying that what is happening is part of the law of nature. Birds in the forest are natural. Fish in the sea are natural. It is only natural that a person should feel sadness and still be in love.
If you interpreted the word “beste” as best instead of beast, you would get a whole different meaning. I chose to go with the translation “beast”, or creature, because I felt like it made the poem more powerful. It shows just how crazy in love he is and how he feels about her not returning his love. It also shows that he cares. If you were to translate it into “best” then it has a whole new meaning. He would still be sad and crazy in love, but he would still consider her to be the best thing in the world. With that translation, you lose the sense of emotion. It doesn’t have as great of an impact on the poem and the meaning behind it. Translating “beste” as
“beast” gives us a more powerful image and allows for us to feel his pain with him. You lose that when you translate it as “best”. With that translation it’s as if he accepts the fact that she doesn’t love him and he doesn’t care. That is not the natural way to feel when your love is rejected. Naturally, we think the worst of people when we are rejected. That is the natural way to feel. We become overwhelmed with sadness, but we still care about them deeply. We consider these people to be beasts and creatures of nature because they don’t love us like we love them. Since this poem is gnomic, we have to keep in mind the laws of nature. We may accept it if someone hurts us, but we won’t consider them the best thing that has ever happened to us. The translation has to remain gnomic because that was the intention of the poet. The gnomic aspects have to be carried throughout the poem in order for it to have the greatest impact on the reader. The way that the poet is feeling in this poem has to be a natural feeling for this situation.
I just recently finished "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I had no idea what this novel was going to be about going into it; all I knew was that our 10th grade English class study it. Right off the bat I noticed that our narrator was not your average Joe. The narrator is death. When I realized this I said to myself, "Oh this is going to be good." The novel is all about the Holocaust and it is shown from a German point of view. Leisel Meminger's mother gives her away to a foster German family. On the trip to this new family, Leisel's brother dies. So right from the start death is there. I'm not going to give you a synopsis of it, because I think you should read it for yourself. Just know that a German family hides a Jew in their basement for a while, and death is around every corner. That last line of the novel really got me though..."I am haunted by humans."
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