Hold That Thought

Pranking Emily Dickinson

07.02.2014 - By Washington University in St. LouisPlay

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So far, we've considered how authors and historians portray lived-lives in their creative or academic works, but what about creative works from the past? Can they too be "reinterpreted" in the present? Poet Paul Legault, co-founder of the small press Telephone Books and a writer in residence at Washington University in St. Louis, tackled questions such as these with his 2012 book, The Emily Dickinson Reader: An English-to-English Translation of Emily Dickinson's Complete Poems. He'll discuss how he sought to connect present readers with these works from the past by translating these beloved poems back into English, and how translation is a broader concept than simply substituting one language for another.

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