“General” Front & Back - the Royal Exchange Theatre

Alex Jennings as Peer Gynt (RSC, 1994)
Peer (Alex Jennings) and Åase (Haydn Gwynne) in the 1994 RSC production
Discussion Points
Peer Gynt’s account of his struggle
with a reindeer is shown below in
three different translations. Use
Michael Meyer’s comments on the
art of translation to help you to
consider the following questions.
£ Do the translations all tell
precisely the same story?
£ What effects do the different
verse and prose forms have upon
the translations?
£ All three translations were
written to be performed. How
do you imagine each would work
in performance?
£ The version by Frank
McGuinness was commissioned
by a theatre in Dublin. Does this
knowledge affect your reading of
the speech?
“Bang! The bucko’s on the ground, me on his back the minute he’s landed.
Have him by the left ear. Knife ready to drive itself into the skull. Mad roar
out of him, bastard standing on all fours, a back kick hits the weapon out of
my fist. He has me pinned about him, horns up my leg have me fucked like
I’m finished, then he’s off… Hammers of hell along the ridge -”
A version by Frank McGuinness from a literal translation by Anne Bamborough
“I fired then.
Down the deer fell on the hillside -
And the instant that he stumbled
Up I jumped, on to his shoulders,
Gripped him firmly by the left ear,
Drew my knife to slice his windpipe -
Hey! the ugly brute starts screaming,
Jumps up, sends my dagger flying,
Sheath and all. I’m caught. His antlers
Pin my legs, as tight as pincers.
Off he goes - his stride’s enormous! -
Bounds along the ridge of Gjendin.”
Kenneth McLeish
“I fired. Down he dropped,
smack on the hill!
But the moment he fell, I
straddled his back,
Seized his left ear, and was
about
To plunge my knife into
his neck -
Aah! The brute let out a
scream,
Suddenly stood on all
fours,
Hit the knife and sheath
from my hand,
Forced its horns against
my thigh,
Pinned me tight like a pair
of tongs,
And shot right on to the
Gjendin Edge!”
Michael Meyer
The quotations in this section are taken from
the following translations of Peer Gynt:
Christopher Fry and Johan Fillinger
(Oxford World’s Classics, 1989)
Michael Meyer, in Ibsen: Plays 6 (Methuen)
Frank McGuinness (Faber and Faber, 1990)
Kenneth McLeish (Nick Hern Books, 1990)
Exchange Education -
Peer Gynt Resource Pack
Written by Kim Greengrass ©1999
Peer & Åase from the 1962 Old Vic production