Gaston Burssens

XXIV

اللغة: الهولندية

الترجمات: السلوفانية (XXIV), الانجليزية (XXIV), الألمانية (XXIV)

XXIV
Adieu

à Yvette

Adieu. Dit zijn de laatste noten
die ik gespeeld heb op mijn ribbenkast.
Een kast, waarvan ik in de laden
wat blanco vellen heb geborgen,
papieren voor de dorst.
Zij zullen met mij begraven worden,
mishandeld en mijn slaven worden
en adders aan mijn borst.
Maar goed. Vandaag ben ik nog krekel,
doch morgen ben ik mier,
die overmorgen al zijn hekel
¬– uit zijn reserves in de pekel –
aan apropos, atoom en spirocheten
posthuum zal zetten op papier.
Adieu! Wie weet of ik niet zal beklijven
door ’t schrijven van een later lied,
of ik het schrijven zal of niet.
Zinloos of niet.
Levend of niet.

الترجمات:

اللغة: السلوفانية

XXIV
Adieu

za Yvette

Adieu. To so zadnje note,
ki sem jih zaigral na svoj prsni koš.
Omaro, kamor sem v predale
spravil nekaj praznih listov
papirja za žejo.
Pokopani bodo skupaj z mano,
trpinčeni bodo in moji sužnji bodo,
ti gadi, ki se na mojih prsih grejejo.
A dobro. Danes sem še čriček,
jutri pa bom termit,
ki bo pojutrišnjem kljub odporu
– iz svoje rezerve v razsolu –
kot à propos, atom in spiroheta
postumno padel na papir.
Adieu! Kdo ve, ali se ne bom vtisnil v spomin
s pisanjem kakšne poznejše pesmice,
ali jo bom napisal ali ne.
Nesmiselno ali ne.
Živ ali ne.

اللغة: الانجليزية

XXIV

à Yvette

Adieu. These are the final notes
I’ve tapped out on my ribs and chest.
A chest, in whose drawers
I’ve stored a few blank sheets,
paper eggs for my nest.
They will be buried with me,
be abused, enslaved by me,
be vipers at my breast.
No matter. Today a cricket I trill,
tomorrow an ant I’ll caper,
that the day after its hate will spill
- from its stores that brine vats fill -
of topics, atoms and spirochaetes
posthumously onto paper.
Adieu! Who knows if I shall endure
through a later song or not,
whether I’ll write it or not.
Absurd or not.
Alive or not.

اللغة: الألمانية

XXIV

à Yvette

Adieu. Dies sind die letzten Noten,
die ich gespielt habe auf meinem Brustkasten.
Ein Kasten, in dessen Fächer ich
ein paar leere Blätter weggesteckt habe,
Papiere für den Durst.
Sie werden mit mir begraben werden,
missbraucht und meine Sklaven werden
und Nattern an meiner Brust.
Sei’s drum. Ich bin noch Grille heute,
Ameise bin ich morgen,
um übermorgen meinen ganzen Hass
- vorrätig noch im Pökelfass -
auf Apriori und Atom und Spirochäten
im Nachlass zu entsorgen.
Adieu! Gut möglich, dass ich haften bleibe
durch ein zu schreibendes Gedicht,
ob ich es schreibe oder nicht.
Sinnlos oder nicht.
Lebendig oder nicht.

Gaston Burssens

Foto © private

* 18.02.1896, Dendermonde , بلجيكا
† 29.01.1965, Ekeren, بلجيكا

Gaston Burssens is an odd man out in the world of Dutch-language poetry. As the author of deliberately disruptive or even provocative poetry he was as much notorious as famous. Yet he was very popular with his fellow-writers and literary connoisseurs. Burssens made his reputation as one of the three ‘real’ Flemish expressionists and won international recognition with his collection Piano (1924), with its strikingly original design.

Foto © private

Burssens’ initial development as a poet was set against the background of the Flemish Movement. He belonged to the first generation of Flemings able to pursue their secondary education partly in their mother tongue and who, under the influence of a number of inspired teachers, were very conscious of the importance of Dutch as a cultural language. On the eve of the First World War he published some sombre romantic juvenilia, which reveal little of the later recalcitrant poet.

The Great War was a turning point. At a stroke it became clear to a whole generation of new Flemish poets that the nineteenth century was over and that the world was ripe for radical change. For this younger generation it also meant that the relationship between the various communities within the Kingdom of Belgium was in need of a radical overhaul. With a mixture of reforming zeal and foolhardiness Burssens and his contemporaries plunged into activist politics; a cultural and social project designed to produce not only a new society, but also a new literature.

Burssens’ poetry from the period 1917-1924 – including the collections Liederen uit de stad en uit de sel (Songs from the City and the Cell, 1920) and Piano – show parallels with the international avant-garde. Formally one can detect influences from German and French expressionism and from the poetry of Paul van Ostaijen, while in terms of subject matter the poems partly follow the line of Kurt Hiller’s ‘Aktivismus’ and Henri Barbusse’s internationally oriented cultural movement Clarté.

The years of high expectations and cherished ideals were inevitably followed by disillusion. From the early 1920s on the struggle for a peaceful and just European League of Nations gave way to a one-man guerrilla campaign against the bourgeois order. His poetry, which up to then had been expressionist, developed via a playful expressive period into what one might call experimental confessional lyricism.

The form of the poems became increasingly regular, rhyme reappeared, but Burssens was never to lose his contrary tone. He remained the anti-bourgeois word-conjurer who was able to raise the strangest of quirky thoughts to the level of poetry. Typical of his later unruly classical period are the deliberately deformed (irregular) sonnets of his last two collections, Adieu (1958) and Posthume verzen (Posthumous Poems, 1961).

Although Burssens has often been dismissed as an epigone of his contemporary and friend Paul van Ostaijen (1896-1928), he has a unique position in the poetry of the Low Countries. His quality was appreciated only relatively late, but despite his lifelong sense of neglect, Burssens did achieve in his lifetime the recognition he deserved with the award of two Belgian State Prizes for Pegasos van Troja (1952) and Adieu (1958). Besides poetry Burssens wrote grotesque prose – the most important examples of which are included in Fabula Rasa, proeve van objektief dagboek (Fabula Rasa, Attempt at an Objective Diary, 1945 and 1964) – and a small number of essays and plays.

Matthijs de Ridder

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الترجمات:

XXIVAdieu

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XXIV

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XXIV
Adieu