Synge's Irish Renaissance Petrarchism Author(s): Reed Way Dasenbrock Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 83, No. 1 (Aug.

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Synge's IrishRenaissance Petrarchism

Reed WayDasenbrock
it has If any part of the small canon of JohnMillington Syngehas been neglected, of seventeen the largestgroup of whichare his translations been his translations, to accountfor:translations sonnetsof Petrarch's.'This neglectis not difficult tend to receiveless attention than originalcompositions, and the translations thatwere of Irish literature. In the contextof crucial forthe Irish Revival weretranslations of the Irish Revival and in the contextof Synge's other work, his translations medievaland RenaissanceItalian, French,and Germanpoets have seemedeccento the main body of his workand to the source of his inspiration. tric,peripheral to do withthis impression, foreveryone knowshis storyof Yeats had something himto go to Aran to "finda lifethathad never finding Syngein Paris and urging been expressed in literature."2 The life in the west of Ireland seems centralto not his yearsof wandering and studyon theContinent before Synge'sachievement, he wentto Aran in 1898. this receivedimage of Syngestandsin need of some correction. Nonetheless, and his knowledge of Italian and the First,thoughhis acquaintancewithPetrarch other Continentallanguageshe would translate fromdate fromthe years before date from the last threeyearsof his life.3 So Arandid notdo Aran,his translations and literatures. Moreover, away withSynge the scholar in Continental languages
done in 1906-9. Eightof these were publishedin the Cuala Press ed. of Synge's poems in 1909,four more were includedin the Maunsel ed. of 1910,and fivemorewerepublishedforthe first timein the 1961 Dolmen Press ed. of Synge'stranslations. There have been fourdiscussionsof thesetranslations more extendedthan a briefremark.T. R. Henn, in his ed. of Synge (The Plaiys and Poems of J. M. [London, 1963]),compares Petrarch's poem "Zefirotorna"(no. 310 of the Canzoniere),Synge's Syinge of the same poem, "The soote season." He also makes some version,and Surrey'sfamoustranslation favorableremarks about Synge'sdictionin thesetranslations. Robin Skelton,in The Writings of J. M. in poetic prose in the translations in relation Synge(Indianapolis, 1971),discussesSynge'sexperiments to Deirdreof the Sorrows,and I summarize his pointsbelow. Skeltonalso, in his beautiful ed. bilingual of Synge's Petrarchtranslations (Some Sonnetsfrom "Laura in Death" afterthe Italian of Francesco Petrarch of Synge'sinterest in Petrarch and suggests that [Dublin, 1971]),givesan account of thehistory for help withthe Italian. Most recently, Toni O'Brien Synge depended on various other translations Johnson,in Synge: The Medieval and the Grotesque(GerrardsCross, 1982), has made a numberof remarks about Synge'stranslations in thecontext ofa study of Synge's"medievalism," butas medievalism is herfocus,she concentrates on thetranslations fromVillon,Walter, and others, not on thetranslations fromPetrarch. It shouldbe clearfrom therestof thisessaythatI consider the Renaissance a moreuseful contextfor Synge'sworkthan "medievalism." Thus Synge'sPetrarch translations have not been extenhave received, sivelystudied or appreciatedby criticsof Synge. The highestpraise these translations came fromC. S. Lewis, who, in the midstof a discussionof Renaissance Petrarchism, the ironically, of whichwas to distinguish thrust Petrarch fromhis later imitators, made this telling aside: "Readers who do not know Italianwill,by theway,learnmuchmoreof thatstrange, greatwork[Petrarch's Rime] fromSynge'sproseversionthanfrom all the Elizabethans and all the Pl6iade put together" (C. S. Lewis, in the SixteenthCentury EnglishLiterature excludingDrama [Oxford, 1954],p. 229). I thinkSynge's translationsare more influencedby Renaissance Petrarchism than Lewis implies here, but Lewis's of thefaithfulness assessment of Synge'stranslations is highpraiseindeed,comingfrom a greatmedieval and Renaissancescholar. 2/W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies (London, 1955),p. 343. 3/Syngetraveledin Italy in 1896 and whilethereboughtand startedto read the poems of Petrarch (see AndrewCarpenter, ed., My UncleJohn:Edward Stephen'sLifeof J. M. Synge[London, 1974],p. 96). He began his Petrarchtranslations in 1906,whenAgnes Tobin, an Americanpoet who had translated visitedhim in Ireland (see Robin Skelton,J. M. Synge and His World[New York, 1971], Petrarch, pp. 103-4).
I/ Some information about thesetranslations and theirneglect: seventeen all translations, Syngecompleted

Allrights reserved. ofChicago. 0026-8232/86/8301-0004$01.00 byTheUniversity ? 1985 33

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34 Modern Philology (August 1985) that lifeon Aran took a greatdeal of scholarly toil as well, as Declan expressing Kiberdhas shownin his Syngeand theIrishLanguage,thestudythathas done the mostto changeour perception of Syngeand his worksin recent years.By showing of Irishand his sophisticated of theworkthathad Synge'smastery understanding been done in translating literature in IrishintoEnglish,Kiberdhas unquestionably thatSynge'sworkshould be understood as a "bilingual provedhis dual contention weave" betweenEnglishand Irishand that"Synge had a geniusfortranslation."4 All his work,in Kiberd'sview,shouldbe seenas a kindof translation. The focusof Kiberd'sstudynecessarily himfrom in a close precluded engaging examination of Synge'stranslations from Continental hisstress languages.However, on translation as a keyaspect of all Synge'sworkprovides a contextin whichthese translations can be seenas morein keeping withtherestof Synge'swork.The focus of thisessay is Synge'stranslations of Petrarch, and I hope to show that,beyond worksin theirown right, being interesting theyoccupya centralplace in Synge's canon. Kiberd rightly notes that "Synge was no mere Gaelicist but a man who a to bear on the nativeliterary tradition."5 brought thorough European sensibility He also broughta thoroughIrish sensibility to bear on the Continentalliterary tradition.And the translations and poems that resultfromthis interaction are of more detailed study.Moreover,a deeper understanding of whySynge worthy would have been interested in translating Petrarch at the veryend of his lifewill of Synge's otherlate work,not just of thesefine give us a deeper understanding translations. The act of translating as Synge's "thoroughEuropean sensibility" Petrarch, would have informed for poets him,is an act that places one in a richtradition, across Europe duringthe Renaissancetranslated and imitatedPetrarch endlessly. And it is illuminating to place Synge's Petrarch translations in the contextof this Renaissance Petrarchism, as Synge's Irish Renaissance Petrarchism in several The situationof verimportant respects closelyparallelsRenaissancePetrarchism. nacular poets in the Renaissance writing under the shadow of the classical lanhad a colloquial vigorthatthepoet guages was muchlike Synge's.The vernacular wantedto tap, but it lacked-or had lost-the arsenal of genres, and topoi forms, thatconstitute a literary manner. in playssuch languageand a literary Analogously, as The Playboy of the Western a styleand an idiom World,Synge had perfected thatwas superbly successful in representing peasantsand peasantspeechin thewest of Ireland.(This was of coursenot completely his own creation, as Lady Gregory's use of "Kiltartanese" in her re-creations of the ancientIrishsagas in Cuchulainof Muirthemne Men [1904] anticipated and influenced [1902] and Gods and Fighting had createda kindofcrisis.Syngesaw intuitively, Synge.)6 But thatvery perfection I think, thattherewerefirm limits to whatcould be done withpeasantdrama. To but peasantdrama be stayin thatvein would be to exhaustit. Yet could anything written in thatidiom?Could it be thebasis fora genuineliterary language?
4/Declan Kiberd,Syngeand theIrishLanguage(London, 1979),p. 88. 5/Ibid.,p. 59. 6/Hugh Kenner(in A Colder Eye: The ModernIrish Writers [New York, 1983],pp. 62-81) has an excellent discussionof the Gaelic basis of Lady Gregory's and otherIrishwriters' thatcomplements Kiberd's style of study Synge.

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Dasenbrock/ Synge'sPetrarchism 35 Poets in the Renaissancesuch as Wyattand Surreyin Englishand Du Bellay as beingin muchthe same situation:they and Ronsard in Frenchsaw themselves saw theirown languagesas rude and barbaric,lackingany basis fora literary lanand a host of otherpoets in almosteveryEuropean language,set guage, and they, out to construct thatnew literary Petrarch. by translating languageto a largeextent a wide rangeof European literatures, has said: "In As Leonard Forster, discussing we see thatthe creationof new poetic dictiongoes each of thesecases, therefore, of Petrarchor his followers and withthe use of hand in hand withthe influence will devices." Petrarch? I characteristic Why again cite Forster:"I petrarchistic to the suggestion thatthe attraction of petrarchism to people would like to return who weretrying to createa new poetic dictionwas thattheyneededsomething to is highly imitate imitable."7 Petrarch and herewas something mannered, supremely almost formulaic.He wroteon a centralhumanand literary subject,love, and he had the statusof a vernacular classic in the Renaissance.So Wyattand Ronsard and a hostof otherpoets in a hostof otherlanguages could translate thatarsenalof intotheirown languageby translating effects thusexpanding therangeof Petrarch, effects available to poetryin thatlanguageand developing a way of writing about love. These poets,therefore, idiomintowhichtheycould transhad no preexisting late Petrairch. Petrarchprecisely in orderto createthat idiom,in They translated orderto createa poetic diction.These attempts at creating a literary languageof love bore fruit, as can be seen in theexampleof Englandfrom thegreatand highly Petrarchan Elizabethansonnetsequencesof Sidney,Spenser,and Shakespeare. as wellas Moreover,Syngewas aware of theworkof RenaissancePetrarchans that of Petrarch, in particular, that of the Frenchpoet Ronsard. The poems "To Ronsard," "Epitaph: Afterreading Ronsard's lines from Rabelais," and "On A all assert or implya feltkinshipwiththe Frenchpoet. But the names Birthday" with Ronsard in "On A Birthday" and those in "On An Anniversary," coupled Cervantesand Greene and particularly the repetition of Nashe, are not those of Petrarchans. and Ronsard,Syngeseemsto have feltclosestto Except forPetrarch thosewhomone could call the"toughguys"of the Renaissance,writers like Villon or Nashe who are characterized and even brutality by the timbre, strength, Synge to his poems. speaks of in his preface There is some pathos in thisidentification, forwhenSyngewrotethatpreface (and much of his poetry),he was weak and dying.This bringsus to the second fora consideration of Synge'stranslaimportant aspect of RenaissancePetrarchism tions of Petrarch.One of the reasonswhySynge's Petrarch translations have not been accorded verymuchattention is thateversincethe Romantics(at least,until translation has not been veryhighly with honored,at least in comparison recently) theact of writing Translation and original have been "original"poetry. composition seen as two quite distinctactivities, and the "more creative"activity of original When translating, one was composition has been seen as far more significant. and invisible; whenwriting one's own poetry, expectedto be faithful just theopposite was true.Originality was to be praisedand imitation discouraged.But Synge's and historical awarenessof Continental literature "thoroughEuropean sensibility"
7/Leonard Forster,TheIcy Fire: Five Studiesin European Petrarchism (Cambridge,1969),pp. 71,83. The entire secondchap., "European Petrarchism as Training in Poetic Diction"(pp. 61-83), is pertinent.

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36 Modern Philology (August 1985) in a different, farmorehonorablelight. Petrarch heldthat made himsee translation imitation of models that one found an a it was precisely identity, through proper the through personal styleand voice. Imitationis not the opposite of originality: one findsthe voice that enables one to be original.By properkind of imitation, Petrarchmeantsomething much closer to the originalthan imitation, potentially mightbe meanttoday whena poet like Robert Lowell calls a poem an imitation. HowAn imitation mightbe so close to the originalas to be called a translation. translation is not reallythepoint,as thelaterpoet translates ever,exact or faithful And Petrarch's favorite so as to create something new, his own poetic statement. forthisis theway bees "imitate" new-honey-out something by making metaphor or I transform themhonorably, as bees of nectar:"I quote the authorswithcredit, he finds from various a imitate Elsewhere, many by making singlehoney nectars."8 forwhich and originality forthe play of resemblance different a slightly metaphor should take care thatwhat he writes muststrive:"A properimitator the imitator should not be that it. The resemblance the originalwithout resembles reproducing to the sitter-in thatcase the closer the likenessis the better-but it of a portrait exact resemof a son to his father."9 should be theresemblance Thus, in imitation, blance is not the ideal. One quarries the work of past poets in order to create thatcarriesone's own voice. Of course,what one pronew, something something duces is not completelynew, no more than any child is, and one shows one's frommodels and makingit clear who those models awarenessof thisby working whichsees translation as a wayto write are. This kindof imitation, originalpoetry, is central to Petrarch'sown poetryand poetics, and it became centralfor the to draw a line betweenoriginalcompositionand Renaissance. It is verydifficult in the canon of most Renaissancepoets,fortheyfreely translated and translation their own poemsout ofthepoemsthathad come before.'0 imitated, creating The Renaissance Petrarchans who imitatedPetrarchhimself, like Wyattand him honorably"accordingto his principles. We thinkof Ronsard, "transformed Petrarch as a poet of love, but he is also centrally a poet of death, today primarily and he is unsurpassed as a poet in linking thesetwo themes. His collection of poems in Italian,the Rime sparse or Canzoniere, is, as everyone knows,about his love for Laura. Petrarch dividedthecollectionintotwo parts,whichare traditionally called as Petrarch (Laura) in vita and in morte.These titlesare somewhatinaccurate, beginsthesecond sectionwithpoem 264 and Laura dies in poem 267. Buttheterms vita and morteare appropriateto describePetrarch's in orientation psychological the two sections,toward lifeand toward death, verso vita e verso morte.In the second section, Petrarch,tiringof the instability and impermanence of earthly seeks after the of Heaven. After his Laura's death, things, tranquility quest for Heaven and the Lady can be fused,a fusionwhichresultsin the strangelast 100 poems of the Canzoniere, feyand eroticat thesame time.
to Boccaccio, 1359,fromPetrarch's own collectionof his letters, Rerum libri22:2, 8/Petrarch familiarum MorrisBishop,ed. and trans.,Letters Ind., 1963),p. 183. from Petrarch (Bloomington, to Boccaccio, 1366,Rerumfamiliarum libri23:19, Bishop,ed., p. 198. 9/Petrarch For a full-length and Discovery 10/ studyof thistopic,see Thomas M. Greene,A Lightin Troy:Imitation in RenaissancePoetry (New Haven,Conn., 1981).

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Dasenbrock/ Synge'sPetrarchism 37 foundPetrarch's orienThe RenaissancePetrarchans almostwithout exception of death in the second halfof the Canzotationtowardthe restand transcendence niere uncongenial,so theyusually translatedPetrarchso as to make him more moresensualand less ethereal, readierto makedemands personaland less abstract, in keeping on the Lady and less willingto wait on her." And that was perfectly withPetrarch's aesthetic of imitation: one creatednew workprecisely by imitating and transforming one's model, and of course the centralmodel the Renaissance Petrarchans transformed was thelove poetry of Petrarch himself.

All theseaspects of Renaissance Petrarchism, I would like to argue,are relevantto a consideration of Synge'sIrishRenaissancePetrarchism. Like the Renaisin an attempt Petrarch as an exercisein diction, sance Petrarchans, Syngetranslates to find new, more elevated uses for a folk diction. He also sharedtheirview of and like themhe transformed mode of composition, as an important translation is thathe transformed him.The majordifference Petrarch Petrarch as he translated and we shall latersee thatin a senseSyngewas closer in quite a different direction, in spirit to Petrarch thanthe RenaissancePetrarchans were,thoughhe was perhaps a translator. no morefaithful Though no one has previously placed Synge'sworkin the contextof Renaisit has been seen that these Petrarchtranslations sance Petrarchism, were experimentsin dictionforSynge;thatis, in fact,virtually the onlythingthatis eversaid about them.As Alan Pricehas said,"thetranslations weremainly exercises made at a timewhenhe was experimenting withthepeasantidiomto see ifit was adaptable to otherpurposes."'2And because theyare translations, we can studythisprocess of adaptationin detail by comparinghis versionswiththe original.Let us look at one representative of Petrarch's "Quanta invidiaio ti example,Synge'stranslation "He is jealous of theHeavensand theearth": porto,"whichhe entitled invidia io tiporto, avaraterra Quanta ch'abbracci m'rtolto quellacuiveder etmicontendi l'aria delbelvolto dovepacetrovai miaguerra! d'ogni neporto al Cielchechiude etserra Quanta etsi cupidamente Ains6raccolto lo spirto da le belle membra sciolto, si radosidiserra! etperaltrui invidia a quell'anime che'n sorte Quanta Anno orsua santa etdolcecompagnia, la qualio cercai contalbrama! sempre
11/The literature on thistopic is vast. For a fewcentralstudies, see Forster;Donald L. Guss,JohnDonne, in the Songs and Sonets (Detroit, 1964); and Patricia Petrarchist: Italianate Conceitsand Love Theory and His Background Thomson,Sir Thomas Wvatt Calif.,1964). (Stanford, Alan Price,Syngeand Anglo-Irish Drama (London, 1961),p. 107. 12/

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38 Modern Philology (August 1985) a la dispietata etduraMorte, Quant' ch'avendo inleila vitamia spento occhi etmenonchiama!13 stassi ne'suoibegli andis holding that I ambearing that hasitsarms about face theearth a grudge her, What I wasfinding sadness. me,where great peacefrom awayfrom and shutting herin I am bearing that are after What a grudge theHeavens her, taking that do push their bolt so many. theHeavens with against greediness, I am bearing havegothersweet that I theblessed saints that What a grudge company, I ambearing that is standing inher andwhat a grudge two amalways Death, against seeking; andwill notcallmewith a word.14 eyes, of the poem's structure. Petrarch's The firstthingto note is Synge's treatment sonnetis dividedintofoursentences, each of whichrecordshis envyof something, the earth,Heaven, the saints,and death. He envieseach of thesebecause theyall of the have morecontactwithLaura thenhe does. Syngekeeps the two sentences octave intactand gives each a separate paragraphbut links the two concluding witha semicolon,makingthesestetone slightly tercets longerfinalparagraph.But the fourare morecompletely as he startseach withthe parallelin Synge'sversion, "What a grudgeI am bearing,"whereasPetrarch uniform varieshis expressionof envy. Much more striking than thesechanges is the colloquial turnSynge givesto "What a grudgeI am bearPetrarch's phrases.The keyphrasein Synge'sversion, of is a fine invidia" muchI envy).In Petrarch demotic (how "Quanta rendering ing," the earth embracesLaura; in Synge it has its arms around her. Synge collapses double statement Petrarch's "quella cui veder m'&tolto/ et mi contendil'aria del bel volto" (her whose sightis takenfrom me, and keep fromme the breathof that "is holdingthatfaceaway from me." In line8 Petrarch lovelyface) intoone phrase, unlocksitself forothers). says that Heaven "per altruisi rado si diserra"(so rarely stated phrase and rendersit as one concreteaction: Synge takes this negatively "thatdo push theirbolt againstso many."Finally,in the last line Syngetranslates in hertwo "stassi ne' suoi begliocchi" (staysin herlovelyeyes) as "thatis standing and powerful eyes,"a muchmoreconcrete phrase. freedom and verve.His Synge handles this poem withconsiderablesyntactic lies in theextendeduse of participials, innovation a habittakenoverfrom principal the languageof his playsand yetmarvelously to whathe is translating. appropriate Petrarch's poems are fullof verbswithunspecified objectsor subjectsor withonly a vaguelyspecified duration.Syngeoften is forced to clarify relations subject-object as he translates, but through the use of the present tensehe generally progressive makes our sense of the poem's durationeven vaguer.In thispoem, Syngechanges theeleventh con tal brama"(whichwithwhatdesireI line,"la qual io cercaisempre "I to am always sought), always seeking."This excellent changecarrieswithit the sense of the entirepoem, thatPetrarch is always seekingLaura, thoughhe knows
13/Thisis poem no. 300 of the Canzoniere.My textforPetrarch's poemsand mysourceforall uncredited translations of Petrarch's is RobertM. Durling, ed. and trans.,Petrarch s LyricPoems: The Rime poetry sparse and Other Lyrics(Cambridge,Mass., 1976). Subsequentcitationswill be parenthetical, by the number of thepoem in Petrarch's Canzoniere. M. 14/ J. Synge, Poems, ed. Robin Skelton,vol. I of Collected Works(London, 1962), p. 91. All subwillbe from thisvolumeand citedparenthetically in sequentcitationsof Synge'spoemsand translations thetext.

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Dasenbrock/ Synge'sPetrarchism 39 her in," that she is dead. Petrarchis bearinga grudge,the Heavens are "shutting Death "is standingin her two eyes"; these verbs implythat all this could go on whichis certainly the sensefoundin Petrarch in generaland in thispoem forever, in particular.5 In thisrepresentative translator. He sonnet,Syngeis a resourceful yetfaithful is also quite accuratelycapturesthe sense of Petrarch'spoem, yet his translation fromthe factthathe is not and original.The freshness comes, I think, quite fresh the Petrarchan or carrying Petrarchpoem over intoan Englishwitha preexisting it in thedictionof his earlierpeasantplays.This is He is putting Italianateregister. a radical experiment inasmuch as thereseemsto be no verygood reasonwhynonidiom.But it works:one never peasantspeakerswould speak in Synge'sAnglo-Irish thedeath of Pegeen Mike. And thefactthatitdoes feelsthatPetrarch is lamenting work shows (and presumably showed Synge) that one can do something withthe idiomperfected in Synge'searlier of thepeasant Anglo-Irish playsbeyondthelimits in this idiom withoutincondrama. Nonpeasant speakerscan expressthemselves or of dramatic And this a failure decorum. gruity expansionof therangeof Synge's to the play Syngeleftunfinished mannerleads directly at his death,Deirdreof the Sorrows. A versionof an old Irish legend also dramatizedby Yeats and A. E., Deirdre was an important for Synge,as everyprevious departureor experiment ruralIreland.And play of his thatreachedthe stagehad been set in contemporary it is an experiment influenced anterior Petrarch translastrongly by Synge'sslightly tions. As Robin Skelton has pointedout, "The speech thatSyngeconstructed for his translations is verysimilarto thatof Deirdreof theSorrows."'6In bothworks, he uses metrical as equivalents forstanzas,and a restrained speech,proseparagraphs versionof his idiomspokenby figures from thefolkin thewestof veryfarin origin Ireland on whom Synge based this idiom. Synge's Petrarchtranslations were in diction that served as a trial run for the (and experiments larger tragically of Deirdre. unfinished) experiment Thus we can see how Synge's work with Petrarchis similarto the work of RenaissancePetrarchans such as Wyattand Ronsard.None builton Synge'swork theway thegreatElizabethanpoetsbuilton Wyatt's, buteach is trying to expand a folk idiom beyondits limits, vernacular and each does so by translating Petrarch. of imitation, Moreover,Synge is also, in keepingwiththe Renaissancetradition Petrarchso as to createhis own voice. We have seen thisto a degreein imitating the colloquial mannerin which he handles his originalin "What a grudgeI am such bearing,"but thisis mucheasier to see in some of Synge'sothertranslations, as "Laura waits for him in Heaven," a translation of "Li angeli elettiet l'anime beate" (Canzoniere, no. 346). Here Synge stays faithful to Petrarch'stheme of afterLaura and Heaven, but witha fewmodifications thattransform our yearning viewof Laura, Heaven,and Petrarch's yearning: Li angeli eletti beate etl'anime cittadine delCielo,ilprimo giorno
che Madonna pass6, le furintorno
piene di meraviglia et di pietate.

makes frequent use of iterative 15/Greene tense (p. 119) has made the relatedpointthat Petrarch present is an appropriate verbs;Synge'suse of participials equivalent. The M. I 16/Skelton, ofJ. Writings Synge(no. above), p. 135.

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40 Modern Philology (August 1985) etqual novabeltate?" "Cheluce6questa dicean tralor:"perch' abitosi adorno dal mondo errante a quest'alto soggiorno nonsalimaiintutta etate." questa aver Ella,contenta cangiato albergo, si paragona perfetti purcoi pifi etparte ad orad orsi volge a tergo, s'io la seguo, etparch'aspetti; mirando etpensier ond'iovoglie tutti al Cielergo l'odopregar perch'i' purch'i'm'affretti. The first theHeavens, and simple left were dayshepassedup anddownthrough gentle andthey ingreat onetotheother:-wonder, saying standing, is that? at all?Thelikeofherself hasn't "What newlight What newbeauty risen upthese from thecommon world." long years wellpleased with theHeavens, wasgoing herself with the Andherself, forward, matching that onetime, andanother, a little, and turning her most were before her, waiting perfect yet after that I'mlifting headbackto seeifmyself wascoming her. and It'sfor thoughts upall my I do hearherpraying thatI should be making haste willintotheHeavens, because forever. [P. 97] Synge'sLaura does not simply pass overto Heaven; she passes "up and down" as if she were taking a promenade"throughthe Heavens." Synge usually uses "the which has a slightpolytheistic flavorto it. This Heavens" in these translations, withquite Petrarch's reverence is heightened sense thatHeaven is not beingtreated when "Li angeli eletti et l'anime beate" (the elect angels and blessed souls) is translatedas "gentleand simple." This is a good example of Synge's directand of Heaven, its directness is demythologizbut as a description colloquial phrasing, of and inspections ing. Heaven seemsjust like earth,withbeauties,promenades, newarrivals. of Petrarch movesbeyondnuance. The sestetis whereSynge'stransformation Petrarchin line 10 says that Laura "si paragona pur coi piii perfetti." This is a in Heaven. Syngeinterprets (or mispassive: she is equal to even the mostperfect thisas a reflexive verband arrivesat "matching herself withthemost understands) This has an altogether one consonantwithLaura passing different effect, perfect." pushy;she is "wellpleasedwiththe Heavens," up and down. Synge'sLaura is rather as ifshe had not been surein advance thatshe would likeit. morehumanthan Petrarch's, and she is altogether Synge's Laura is therefore made to have a more humaneattitudetowardPetrarch.In Petrarchit seemsthat she waits("par ch'aspetti")and that,beingas humaneas she everis in the Canzofor Petrarchto hurry to Heaven ("perch'i' l'odo pregar niere,she is even praying heras "waiting a little." pur ch'i' m'affretti"). Syngedrops the seemsand describes In the final line she is praying"that I should be makinghaste forever." Synge decides that "pur" modifiesPetrarch'shaste and translatesit-quite oddly-as forever. All these small shifts work together, and together theymake Synge's poem in impactfromPetrarch's, morepersonal,morematter-of-fact, more quite different Some of thesechangesseem to stemfrom down-to-earth. of the misunderstandings consonantwiththe othershifts in syntaxand dicItalian,but theyare nonetheless tion towarddirectness and realism.Synge therefore conforms to the Renaissance

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Dasenbrock/ Synge'sPetrarchism 41 in that he transforms his originalcoherently and pervasively, canons of imitation akin to thatof Wyattand Ronsard. Though and he does so in a way remarkably more abstractand less personalsonnets the seemingly Synge chooses to translate of the colloquial enables him to concernedwith death and Heaven, his mastery and concrete. of Heaven familiar makeevendeathand theinhabitants the liberties in relating I am the moreconfident Syngetakes on occasion with his Petrarchoriginalsto the Renaissance notion of imitation (ratherthan simply of Synge's"original"poemsuse themas inaccuracies)because a number dismissing of heritage past poets to speak forhimin a way thatis also partof the Petrarchan worksto and "On An Anniversary" imitation.The namingin "On A Birthday" the past authorwhileit enables the modern that revivifies establisha relationship to a past poet one. Many of Synge's poems striveto establishsuch a relationship to comment on thepresent. This comment (or poets) and thenuse thatrelationship is authorized ofthepast poet,yetit remains Synge'sown. by thepresence "To Ronsard"is a good exampleof this: AmI aloneinLeinster, andConnaught Meath In Ulster andthesouth, ineachsong andsonnet To trace Ronsard, your spirit, ordrouth? with wine Shining oldsweet Howyouwere inyour France happy theBellerie Beside andNaiadswheel anddance Where youheard nymphs In moon-light jovially. [P. 30] This establishesa relationship that is both an identification and an opposition: he identifies himself with but also establishes a contrastbetween Ronsard, Synge in favoroftheformer. RenaissanceFranceand modernIreland, a contrast implicitly In IrelandSyngealone invokesRonsard'sspirit, but clearlyhe wishesthathe were not alone in doing so. In thisway,Synge invokesRonsard'svoice and spirit(in a numberof senses)to makea comment on thelack of wine,nymphs, and joviality in Ireland. This poem (and thereare othersin Synge'scanon like it) is an imitation in the sense we have been exploring:Syngereproduces a certain"air" of his model without replicating it. In thissense,it maybe morePetrarchan in thatitconforms more versions of closely to the canons of creative imitationthan his more faithful Petrarch.But I would claim thatthesepoemsand translations accomplishthesame task fromslightly different directions: bothare attempts to recover the Renaissance foundin the poetry of Ronsardand Petrarch. In both,the past poetic of imitation and the modernone givena voice. The two voices fuse in the poet is revivified poem at hand.

betweenSynge and those Renaissance However,thereis a crucial difference and the difference is in the voice thatemerges from poets who imitatedPetrarch, the poetic of imitation.The most obvious difference betweenSynge and Renaissance Petrarchanslike Wyattand Ronsard as translators of Petrarchis in the

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42 Modern Philology (August1985) thattheychoose to translate.RenaissancePetrarchans transpoems of Petrarch's late and imitate almostexclusively written in Laura's lifetime, poems of Petrarch's and themeof the poems fromin poems fromin vita,as theyfindthe orientation morteuncongenial.Synge translates fromin morte.Petrarchin these exclusively last poems is oriented towarddeath in thesensethathe knowsdeath is comingand he is preparing forit. Whiletranslating in theyears 1907and 1908,Synge Petrarch also knewthatdeathwas comingto him,and it is nottoo muchto say, I think, that forhimtranslating thesepoems was a preparation fordeath.This explainsSynge's choice of poems fromin morteto translate; it also shows thattheyare morethan exercisesin poeticdiction, as thesubjectmatter of thesepoemswas fullof thematic resonance forSynge. love affair withan actressin the Abbey Synge was involvedin a tumultuous Theatre,Molly Allgood, and, as the poem "A Question"shows,he was concerned withthefateof their after his death. Deirdreis an exploration of these relationship issues,and it is no coincidencethatfromthe beginning Synge intendedMolly to play Deirdre. Deirdre'slover,Naisi, dies beforeher.She lamentshis death,though she has partially caused it; she refuses to leave his body; and finally she commits suiciderather thanliveon without him. I doubt that Syngewould have wantedMolly to practicesutteeon his grave. But in Deirdrehe shows anxietyabout the depthof her love, hopingthattheirtie will survivehis death yetalso claiming, withDeirdrein act 2, thata shortintense love may be betterthan a long lifethatends in age and decrepitude: "It may be I will not have Naisi growing an old man in Alban withan old woman at his side, and younggirlspointing out and saying 'thatis Deirdreand Naisi,had greatbeauty in their a sharpend to theday is braveand youth.'. . . It maybe we do well putting as our fathers glorious, puta sharpend to thedays of thekingsof Ireland."17 The relationship betweenthis themein Deirdreand the poems of Petrarch's is both important and complex. Petrarch Syngechose to translate is, in a sense,a Deirdrewho did not commitsuicide on his lover'sgrave. He liveson, but his life seemsemptyand futile. This paradoxicallymay have reassured Synge.These final poems of the Canzonierewould have shown him that his and Molly's love could survivehis death. They also argue that dyingfirstis betterthan livingon in the absenceof thebeloved,and theyportray deathas a blessedstate. There are, of course, important differences betweenSynge's situationand Petrarch's. Laura was not Petrarch's fiancee:she was married to someoneelse and seemsneverto have paid muchattention to Petrarch. Petrarch livedfortwenty-six yearsafterLaura's death and clearlydid not spendall his timesighing and wishing fordeath. But thecentralthemeof thepoems in morteis deathand theeffect of the earlydeathof a loveron a love relationship. thosepoems Syngetranslates primarily of Petrarch'sthat are in praise of death, and this completely atypicalchoice of shows thatthese Petrarch translations poems by Petrarchto translate were much more than merelyexercisesin diction for Synge. These poems are a significant fordeath shownby Deirdrein Deirdreof the Sorrows:I parallelto the preference would say source if the source of both the poems and the play did not lie so
17/J.M. Synge,Plays: Book II, ed. Ann Saddlemyer, vol. 4 of CollectedWorks (London, 1968),p. 237.

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Dasenbrock/ Synge'sPetrarchism 43 to come to terms with) obviouslyin Synge'sawarenessof (and courageousattempt his own approaching death. In thisway,thesetranslations of Petrarch's love poems about deathare at thethematic center of thewritings of Synge'sfinaltwo years.

What I am suggesting, in brief, is thatSyngewas makinghis own statement, in effect his own poetry,by translating these poems of Petrarch's, whichhe writing found to be apposite to his own situation.'"We should intuitthe presenceof the translator in these translations: to speak for Synge borrowsthe voice of Petrarch him. The reason whythis has not been seen and whythesetranslations have not been sufficiently of originality, which appreciatedis that the Romanticcriterion such short shrift to has continued to our of translation, gives govern perception in recovering the Synge's work. Nonetheless, Synge was not alone in his interest Renaissance poetic of imitation. To a considerableextent, thispoetic of imitation has been recoveredin the seventy-five years since Synge's death. Our notion of whatconstitutes thanitwas, bothin the poeticoriginality todayis farmoreflexible sense thatWeare farbetter at seeingthe originality in translations such as Synge's about influence and intertextuality, in and, in the wake of recentcriticaltheories the sense thatwe can see the importance of modelsforall creativework. In these translations, therefore, Syngeis (thoughagain thishas not been recognized) partof a centralimpulsein modernliterature. thevoice ofa past poet as a speaker, as a persona,was, forinstance, Borrowing thechiefaesthetic of the work Ezra of Pound. The poetshe chose,for strategy early the most part,were also medievaland early Renaissancelyricpoets,mostlyProvenqaland Italian. Pound developedthispoeticof thepersona,like Synge,bothin translations (of Cavalcanti, Arnaut Daniel, and others)and in originalcompositionsthatused poets like Cino da Pistoia and Bertrans de Born as personaeof the between poet. Moreover,likeSynge,his realaim was to breakdownthisdistinction translation and originalcomposition.And, in the somewhatlaterworksthatare Pound's real masterpieces of creativeimitation, Cathay(1915) and the Homage to Sextus Propertius has (1917), he achieves thisaim. The mask that the translator taken on is a perfect fit.Furthermore, Pound's recovery of the Renaissancepoetic of imitation, so close to Synge'sin theserespects, has beentremendously influential, fortheinterest responsible manycontemporary poetshave shownin translation. I would not want to claim for Synge any influence on Pound here. Pound's workin thisarea was farmoreprolonged, and influential than Synge's. extensive, The Moreover,thoughthe older poet, Syngeis not even the priorin thisinterest. discussedin thisessay all date from1906to 1909,and none poems and translations was publishedbeforeSynge'sdeath in 1909. By that time Pound was writing the on The Spiritof Romance poems in Personae,also publishedin 1909,and working the similarity in theirinterests (1910). Nevertheless, gives us one final,contemeccentric interest in Petrarch, porarycontextforunderstanding Synge'sapparently
Robin Skeltonhas touchedon this,thoughhe has not exploredhis insight: "All thesonnetsthatSynge 18/ are fromLaura in Death and expressmoods whichhe himself chose to translate was feeling at thistime" (Skelton,ed., Some Sonnets from"Laura in Death" aftertheItalianof FrancescoPetrarch [n. I above], p. 16).

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44 Modern Philology (August 1985) not at all eccentric, as I hope I have shown.And in one respect at least,Syngewas in his Petrarch in advance of Pound. Synge'sgreatachievement transconsiderably in theVicthefakeantique qualitydeemednecessary lationswas to breakthrough torian era for translations of old poems. His dictionis fresh, and contemporary, and he broke into this diction without effort. exciting, through seemingly to get to the same point. His earlytranslations, It took Pound yearsof effort of 1910-12,are stilted, such as theCavalcantitranslations labored,and in thorough It need of modernization, as he himself was recognized. onlywhen Pound moved thatDante GabrielRossettihad put his transaway fromthe earlyItalian material unfamiliar material lator's stamp on and began to work with the comparatively fromthe Orientthatwould resultin Cathayand Noh, or Accomplishment (1917) thathe finally achieveda fresh, idiomfortranslation. contemporary When he does that,interestingly source forhis enough,the one recognizable idiom is Synge. He knew Synge'swork through his friendship withYeats, and in facthe was livingwithYeats whenhe translated theN6 plays.19 Pound's N6 translationsof 1917occasionallyslide intosomething reminiscent of Synge's surprisingly branch,thissilkywood plays:"Times out of mindam I heresetting up thisbright with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you'd get in the grass-cloth of Shinobu, thatthey'dbe stillsellingyou in thismountain."20 Whereis Shinobu,we wonderfora moment, in Mayo? And thoughI do notfindthisecho of somewhere in theJapanesecontext, felicitous itcan be takenas one final Synge'sidiomterribly indication of Synge'sconsiderable and stillunrecognized in his translaachievement tions. Synge indeed had a geniusfor translation, as Declan Kiberdhas argued,a manifested in all his workbut explicitly manifested in thesefascigeniusimplicitly of Petrarch. natingtranslations New Mexico State University
19/See Richard Ellmann, EminentDomain: Yeats among Wilde,Joyce,Pound, Eliot and Auden (New York, 1967),pp. 70-71. to of Ezra Pound (London, 1975), p. 286. Kenner,in his introduction 20/Ezra Pound, The Translations The Translationsof Ezra Pound (p. 13), sees an echo of Yeats ratherthan Synge in Pound's N6 Ellmann(p. 71) notesa generally Irishtone; but it is unmistakably translations; Synge'svoice thatcomes across in thephrase"Timesout of mindam I heresetting branch." up thisbright

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