FOREIGN MATTER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 729, 3 July 1953, Page 5

FOREIGN MATTER

Sir-May I thank "M.K.J." for his helpful and courteous reply to my letter on the use of the phrase poéte maudit? He agrees with me on the general use of foreign phrases, and I with him. A certain amount of difference of opinion in detail is bound to arise. Some phrases do "save circumlocution," and I gather from my reading that numbers of English phrases have passed into French. I would plead, however, for the substitution of translations wherever practicable as, for example, "staircase wit" instead of esprit d’escalier, and a sparing use of relatively rare expressions. Today I came upon poéte maudit (in an English weekly) only, I think, for the second time. I suggest that if a phrase like this is used, a translation might be inserted in brackets. If "M.K.J." had done this, there would have been three letters less for Listener space, but perhaps our little discussion has been worth it.

SMOOTH PASSAGE

(Wellington).

Sir-Surely "Smooth Passage," writing in your issue of June 5, can have little ground for objecting to a reviewer’s use of the term poéte maudit at the present day, seeing that Verlaine published his book of studies called Les Poétes Maudits as long ago as 1884. Like parnassiens, symbolistes and sutréalistes the term has a reasonably clear connotation in literary discussion; and like those terms it has acquired an international value which would make attempts at translation merely pedantic. as well as unnecessary.

RIMBAUDISTE

(Wellington).