venuti

244 The Translator’s Invisibilitylyrical “I” in the translation that was explicitly male: “I have in mytranslations tried to bring over the qualities of Guido’s rhythm, not linefor line, but to embody in the whole of my English some trace of thatpower which implies the man,” what Pound later called “a robustezza,a masculinity” (ibid.:19, 242). But Pound’s most innovative translationstended to diverge from his modernist critical representations of theforeign texts, principally because his translation discourse was soheterogeneous, full of textual effects that undermined any illusionism,any sense of the foreign author’s presence, any coherent “I.” In thesame way, Blackburn’s lyrical prosody definitely constructs a subjectpositionwith which the listener/ reader can identify, but the rhythmsare always varying, asymmetrical at points, and the lexical andsyntactical peculiarities are constantly foregrounding the textuality,weakening the coherence of the speaking voice, splintering thediscourse into different cultures and periods, even different genders(depending on the genre), now locked in a mutual interrogation. Hereis the opening of Blackburn’s version of Cercamon’s Ab lo temps qerefrescar.With the fine spring weatherthat makes the world seem young again,when the meadows come green againI want to beginwith a new songon a love that’s my cark and desire,but is so far I cannot hit her markor my words fire her.I’m so sad nothing can comfort me,better off dead, for foul mouthshave separated me from her, Goddamn them—o,I would have wanted her so much! NowI grouch and shout, or weep, or singor walk aboutlike any hare-brained golden thing.And how lovely she I sing is! morethan I know how to tell you here.Her glance is straight, her color’s freshand white, white without blemish, no