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Also, you mean 'imagery', not 'imaginary'. Was that phone auto-correct/complete again?
Auto cucumber. And yes it's conveying the right feeling I'm looking for. What translation of "Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light" into French works. I've seen it literally but I don't think it's effective. I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a book. And thanks for taking the time to respond.
Lanterne_Rouge-
I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a book.
I just had another look, and the only published volume of translation listed on Wikipédia is this:
Vision et prière, poèmes traduits par le poète Alain Suied, coll. Poésie Gallimard
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas
This is his version of 'Do Not Go ...':
N’entre pas sans violence dans cette bonne nuit (Do not go gentle into that good night)
N’entre pas sans violence dans cette bonne nuit,
Le vieil âge devrait brûler et s’emporter à la chute du jour ;
Rager, s’enrager contre la mort de la lumière.Bien que les hommes sages à leur fin sachent que l’obscur est mérité,
Parce que leurs paroles n’ont fourché nul éclair ils
N’entrent pas sans violence dans cette bonne nuit.Les hommes bons, passée la dernière vague, criant combien clairs
Leurs actes frêles auraient pu danser en un verre baie
Ragent, s’enragent contre la mort de la lumière.Les hommes violents qui prient et chantèrent le soleil en plein vol,
Et apprenant, trop tard, qu’ils l’ont affligé dans sa course,
N’entrent pas sans violence dans cette bonne nuit.Les hommes graves, près de mourir, qui voient de vue aveuglante
Que leurs yeux aveugles pourraient briller comme météores et s’égayer,
Ragent, s’enragent contre la mort de la lumière.Et toi, mon père, ici sur la triste élévation
Maudis, bénis-moi à présent avec tes larmes violentes, je t’en prie.
N’entre pas sans violence dans cette bonne nuit.Rage, enrage contre la mort de la lumière.
Traduction d’Alain Suied Dylan Thomas Vision et prière Gallimard COLL. POÉSIE -
https://www.espritsnomades.net/litterature/dylan-thomas-flamboyant-jusqu-a-la-brulure/
It's evidently a poor translation (one of undoubtedly loads without rhymes because people find rendering it in villanelle too difficult), so I doubt I'd bother with trying to find a book. Sometimes, with poetry you just have to accept that it's either untranslatable or just hasn't been translated properly yet. Obviously, there may be a better one somewhere.
Oliver Schick
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?