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TONY
KLINE COLLECTION: POETRY IN TRANSLATION
The
Tony Kline Collection presents modern high-quality
translations of classic texts by famous poets
as well as original poetry and critical works.
Poetry
and Drama
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Baudelaire
: Eighteen poems in translation.
Charles Baudelaire was born
in Paris. He made a name as an art
critic and translator of Edgar Allan
Poe, but his fame rests on the poems
of Les Fleurs du Mal. He visited
Mauritius in 1841 but lived most
of his life in Paris in poverty
on a small allowance. He is pre-eminently
the poet of the City, and an illusory
immorality clings to his poetry
that reveals, in reality, the sensitivity
of a deeply moral spirit.
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Tendresses:
Translations of poems in the European
Languages.
Sappho, Catullus, Dante,
Petrarch, Goethe, Leopardi, Pushkin,
Heine, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Mandelshtam,
Machado, Akhmatova, Quasimodo, Celan,
Neruda.
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Perspectives
/ From
the Mountain: Original
poetry, in the mainstream European
tradition. s
The tone is serious, wide-ranging,
and critical, in the sense of promoting
scepticism towards social structures,
and validating the importance of
the unique, individual and private
mind.
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Ovid:
The Amores: Ovid's three
books of elegies, mainly erotic,
and mostly addressed to his unidentified
lover Corinna.
The
setting is sophisticated Augustan
Rome, the tone cool, ironic, witty
with an underlying seriousness.
Ovid shows his understanding of
the game of illicit love, and reveals
his mastery of language, and his
desire for, and expectation of,
immortality.
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Ovid: The Art of Love :
Ovid's Ars Amatoria, three
books of worldly advice to those
involved in the game of love.
Ovid
was exiled to the Black Sea Region
by Augustus for "a song and
an error" (carmen et
error). This was the song.
The error is a matter for speculation.
Certainly this work is near the
edge of what might be conventionally
acceptable even in later times,
more for its worldliness than its
explicit sexual reference.
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Ovid: The Cures for Love :
Ovid's Remedia Amoris, his
book of worldly advice to those
trying to escape from love.
In
a witty and cool manner, Ovid describes
the various methods for disentangling
the heart from a love affair. Along
the way, Augustan Rome once more
comes to life, explicitly and amusingly.
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Ovid:
The Heroides: The Heroides
are fictional letters written
by eighteen women of myth and history,
to their lovers or ex-lovers, capturing
their thoughts and feelings at a
critical moment in their story.
Ovid shows the depths of his humanism,
and a sensitivity towards the female
psyche remarkable at this early
date. Among the women are Phaedra,
Dido, Ariadne, Medea, Sappho, Helen,
and Hero. The Hero and Leander letters
are particularly fine, and influenced
Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander' and
Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'
among other works.
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Ovid:
Poems of Exile: The
Poems of Exile comprise the verse
letters Tristia, and
Ex Ponto, of AD8-16.
During this period Ovid was exiled
to Tomis (modern Constantza in Romania)
on the Black Sea (Pontus). He died
there possibly in AD17 or 18. The
early poems show the magnitude of
the disaster his banishment represented
to him, while the later poems of
Ex Ponto show him more resigned
to exile while continuing to write
with undiminished skill and intelligence.
Added
to these works is Ibis,
a curse on an unknown enemy which
involves copious references to myth
and history.
An
in-depth hyper-linked index is provided
for all three works.
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Ovid:
Fasti: The six books
of the Fasti.
Ovid
edited the six books of the Fasti,
his study of the Roman Calendar,
from exile in Tomis. They cover
the first six months, January-June,
of the calendar, and Ovid interweaves
information on the Roman festivals,
Roman history, and astronomy, as
well as various associated myths
and legends. The remaining six books
covering July-December were probably
intended but were either never completed,
or have not survived.
An
in-depth hyper-linked index is also
provided .
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From
the Greek: Translations
from the Ancient Greek by George
Theodoridis.
Lines
of Love, Wine and Song: The
Muses at Work: A selection of poems
from Anacreon to Sappho and beyond.These
modern, lively versions bring to
life the charm, beauty and realism
of early Classical Greece, in a
personal selection from the lyric
poets.
Aristophanes:
Acharnians. The bawdy irreverent
satirical anti-war play by the master
of the Ancient Greek Old Comedy.
The first of a trilogy.
Aristophanes:
Peace. A further instalment
of his trilogy opposing the Peloponnesian
War between Athens and Sparta.
Aristophanes:
Lysistrata. The last and most
famous play of his trilogy opposing
the Peloponnesian War.
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Prose
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Ovid:
The Metamorphoses : A
new, complete, English translation,
and in-depth mythological index.
This is the most accessible
translation of Ovid's "The
Metamorphoses" ever produced.
It combines readable contemporary
language with an in-depth mythological
index, which is fully hyper-linked
to the main text, and vice versa.
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A
Honeycomb For Aphrodite:
A critical study of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. The
title derives from the myth of Daedalus
and forms part of an extended analogy
for the creative arts. The
text is hyper-linked to the author’s
translation of the Metamorphoses
which is also included in the downloads.
The cover photograph (right)
shows the English sculptor Michael
Ayrton’s cast (1968) of a natural
honeycomb in gold, using the "lost
wax" method. Ayrton (1921-1975)
created many brilliant works inspired
by the Daedalus myth, and a cast
of the golden honeycomb is buried
with him in his grave.
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Like
Water or Clouds : The
T’ang Dynasty and the Tao.
The brilliant, and tragic,
T’ang Dynasty of China, which reached
its zenith in the eighth century
AD, is explored, through its history,
ways of thought, and the lives and
works of China’s three greatest
Classical poets, Wang Wei, Li Po,
and Tu Fu. It contains in-depth
reference to Buddhism, Taoism and
Confucianism, the Taoist Search
for Immortality, and conceptual
parallels with modern western science.
Extensive, highly-crafted, translations
from the three poets are also included,
and the text is hyper-linked to
the poems.
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Tao
Te Ching : Lao
Tzu. A new translation of the classic
Chinese Taoist text.
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Storming
Heaven :
Four Elizabethan lives: Through
History Literature, Myth and Idea:
Essex, Marlowe, Raleigh, Donne.
The pressures of late Elizabethan,
and early Jacobean, England produced
many great individuals, who challenged,
and were challenged by, their society,
as modernity emerged from the chrysalis
of the past. The lives of Essex,
Raleigh, Marlowe and Donne are explored,
through biography, and the history
of ideas, in a lively, non-academic
work, enriched by quotation from
letters, poetry, plays and other
sources.
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Tony
Kline Collection: DANTE
AND OTHERS
Poetry
and Drama
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Looking
Back at Earth:
A collection of
the author's original
poetry centred
around the themes
of spiritual search
and individual
identity in the
modern world.
Previous
collections of
the author's poetry
can be found at
OVID AND OTHERS,
see the Contents
list on the left
of screen.
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Nature
& Spirit:
A further collection
of the author's
original poetry.
Previous
collections of
the author's poetry
can be found at
OVID AND OTHERS,
see the Contents
list on the left
of screen.
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The
Presence of Light:
A further collection
of the author's
original poetry.
Previous
collections of
the author's poetry
can be found at
OVID AND OTHERS,
see the Contents
list on the left
of screen
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The
Singing Of The
Real World:
A new collection
of the author's
original poetry.
Previous
collections of
the author's poetry
can be found at
OVID AND OTHERS,
see the Contents
list on the left
of screen
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Garcia
Lorca :
Fourteen poems
of Love and Death
Garcia
Lorca is a major
literary figure,
not only in Spain,
but throughout
the world. His
work consists
of various novels,
short stories,
and poetry, as
well as painting
and drawing. On
August 19, 1936,
during the early
days of the Spanish
Civil War, Lorca
was beaten, and
assassinated.
He was accused
of subversive
activity, but
evidence today
suggests that
it may have been
a crime committed
in response to
his homosexuality.
His entire body
of work remained
censored until
Franco's death
in 1975. This
did not, however,
prevent him from
becoming one of
the most widely
read of authors.
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Garcia
Lorca :
Twenty More Poems
in translation
A
further selection
from Lorca's complete
poetry. These
creations confirm
his lyrical mastery
and span his whole
output from earlier
to later works.
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Lorca :
Early Poems
A
selection of Lorca's
early poetry,
prior to the Gypsy
Ballads of 1924-27,
including poems
from the collections
Book of Poems,
Poem of the Deep
Song, Suites,
and Songs.
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Garcia
Lorca :
Five in the Afternoon
A
further selection
of major work
including poems
from Gypsy Ballads,
Six Galician Poems,
Sonnets of Dark
Love, Uncollected
Poems, and the
Lament for Ignacio
Sánchez Mejías
(the matador,
photographed here).
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Garcia
Lorca :
Theory and Play
of The
Duende
A
new translation
of Lorca's lecture
on the Duende,
the force of authentic
artistic inspiration.
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Osip
Mandelshtam
: Twenty-four
poems in translation
Osip
Mandelshtam was
Jewish, of Latvian
parents, and was
brought up in
St Petersburg.
He visited the
Crimea in 1921.
His individualistic
poetry with its
responsiveness
to Classical Greece
and Rome, and
its lament for
the direction
the Russian Revolution
had taken, provoked
and offended Stalin,
and he was arrested
and exiled to
Voronezh (near
the Don, south
of Moscow) in
1934. He returned
from exile, but
was re-arrested
in 1938, and died
on his way to
a labour camp.
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Rainer
Maria Rilke
: Duino
Elegies
The
ten Duino Elegies
were written between
1911 and 1922,
the name being
taken from Duino
Castle near Trieste,
where Rilke stayed
during the winter
of 1911-12. In
the Elegies he
explores the mysteries,
challenges and
painful difficulties
of modern human
existence.
Rilke
was born in Prague
in 1875, of German
descent and Austrian
nationality. Travelling
widely, he met
Tolstoy, and worked
as Rodin's secretary
in Paris. He died
in 1926.
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Rainer
Maria Rilke
: Selected Poems
A
selection of Rilke's
major poetry including
works from New
Poems, Requiem,
the Sonnets to
Orpheus, and the
last Uncollected
Poems.
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Johann
Wolfgang Goethe
:
Faust
Parts I &
II
Goethe
(1749-1832), greatest
of German poets,
achieved fame
with his tragic
romance Werther.
He travelled to
Italy in 1786.
His writing includes
poetry, plays,
travel notes,
and the tragedy
of Faust which
he worked on throughout
his life.
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Petrarch:
The Complete
Canzoniere.
Francesco
Petrarca, 1304
to 1374, the great
Italian lyric
poet, was brought
up in Provence
where his father
a notary lived
in exile. He entered
the service of
the Colonna family,
and lived a full
public life. His
poetry in Italian
dedicated to the
unknown (possibly
mythical) Laura,
had an immense
humanist influence
throughout Europe,
as a map of love,
and a model for
lovers. Sidney
in England was
a direct heir
of the Petrarchan
tradition.
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Leopardi:
The Complete
Canti.
Giacomo
Leopardi (1798-1837)
was born
of an aristocratic
family in Recanati
and plagued, like
Heine, by crippling
illness. He lived
in Florence, Bologna
and Milan before
finally settling
in Naples where
he died, the greatest
Italian poet since
Petrarch. A unique
voice, he nevertheless
has affinities
with Byronic ‘Romanticism’,
with the Europe
of the ‘superfluous
man’ portrayed
in the works of
Pushkin and Lermontov,
and also with
Classical Stoicism
and Epicureanism.
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Baudelaire:
Twenty-nine more
poems, mainly
early or minor,
which demonstrate
Baudelaire's range
of themes and
poetic forms.
An initial collection
of eighteen major
poems by the great
French poet, and
a brief biography.
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Catullus:
The complete,
unexpurgated poems
of Gaius Valerius
Catullus, with
a detailed hyper-linked
index.
Catullus
led the new poetic
movement in the
late Roman Republic.
His powerful and
explicit verse
comments, wittily
and acutely, on
his contemporaries,
and on his relationship
with Claudia Metelli,
his Lesbia.
He is also
capable of great
lyricism and tenderness.
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Horace:
The four books
of Odes.
Quintus
Horatius Flaccus
(65-8BC) knew
most of the eminent
Romans of his
time, including
Virgil and Tibullus.
Maecenas was his
friend and patron,
and gave him his
beloved Sabine
farm. His celebrated
Odes brought the
subtleties of
Greek lyric metre
to Latin poetry.
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Tibullus
and Sulpicia:
The complete poems
of Albius Tibullus
together with
the poems of,
and about, Sulpicia
from the Messalla
collection.
Tibullus
(c54-19BC)
was a friend of
Horace and contemporary
of Ovid.
Sulpicia
is represented
by a number of
poems by her and
about her.
They exhibit a
strong personality,
and are a fascinating
if all too brief
glimpse into the
mind of a well-educated
Roman girl.
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Virgil:
The major works
of Publius Vergilius
Maro (70-19BC).
The
Eclogues: The
Pastoral Poems
The
Georgics: On Farming
The
Aeneid: The Epic
of Aeneas of Troy
and the Origins
of Rome.
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Geoffrey
Chaucer:
Troilus and Criseyde
- a modernised
version, Troilus
and Cressida,
which maintains
Chaucer's rhymes
and diction wherever
possible while
'translating'
obsolete words
and phrases into
modern idiom.
Chaucer
(c1342-1400) adapted
the tale from
Boccaccio's Il
Filostrato,
and it reveals
the influence
on him of Italian
culture, particularly
the poetry of
Dante and Petrarch.
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