"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
When learning a language, you are rapidly eager to start reading literature in the original text, with the help of a translation. However, these translations are often mapping the original text only loosely which makes the reading quite complicated. The amount of work to produce in order to read the text in the original language is far too substantial to be truly possible. And reading a mere translation is not conceivable (just imagine yourself seeing a film by Bergman or Fellini doubled in English). The language of the poem is a crucial part of it. And for those who aren't able yet to read the language, there will be the audio files where you will hear a native read the poem out loud, so that you will be able to sense the rythm, the tone and other structure features of the poem and the language.
Thus the idea to develop a website focused on linear translation and poems' audio files.
Poetry was the ideal candidate for the type of content we would have in this website because poems are usually short, which enables the reader not to take several goes to read the poem through. And since this website is meant to be a collaborative one, it was more realistic to undertake the linear translation and recording of poems rather than novels or longer forms of literature. (But if you are ready to translate a play or a novel, we would love to put it online.)
Each viewer who wants to promote the poets and the languages he knows can easily join in and help us to increase the scope of the website. It's as easy as a single click!
Thank you!
