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Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.
Anne Michaels
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that experiencing poetry in translation diminishes the full beauty and intimacy of the original language.

Anne Michaels' quote metaphorically compares reading a poem in translation to kissing a woman through a veil, emphasizing that just as a veil obscures the full experience of a kiss, translation can obscure the depth, nuance, and emotional resonance of the original poem. The idea is that certain nuances and feelings are lost when art is filtered through another language, making the experience less genuine or powerful than it could be.

Themes

PoetryTranslationArtLanguageIntimacy

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about the beauty of original works.

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Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
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There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief...is the weight of a sleeping child.
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