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  • Has anyone got a reliable French translation of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night". I have seen literal translations but I want a version that has correct imaginary and nuances.

  • Has anyone got a reliable French translation of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night". I have seen literal translations but I want a version that has correct imaginary and nuances.

    That depends entirely on whether any good French translator of English poetry has done one. As you've seen, on the Internet you find all sorts of well-intentioned translations that miss the point. French versions I've just looked at on the Internet aren't necessarily that bad metrically, but just not very poetic, and don't rhyme. If there is an existing good one, it'll be in a published book, and someone might well have typed it up and put it on-line, but I can't find anything like that.

    I think in the case of this poem a translation would be difficult, as it relies so much on -ight rhymes in English, which are notoriously difficult to render in French. It's not impossible, just needs someone with the skill to do it, but in any case would end up as quite a different poem. I'd have a go but while I can translate poetry from French into English, I can't translate it from English into French.

    Also, you mean 'imagery', not 'imaginary'. Was that phone auto-correct/complete again?

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