comprensión del espacio

Having sketched a brief overview of the different reactions to Shelley’s lyrical drama and its eponymous hero, it is now time to turn to Gutteling’s Prometheus ontboeid again and ascertain, amongst other things, how well he handled the concrete message underneath the allegorical sheen and melodic versification. Though Gutteling’s contemporaries scarcely scratched the surface o f it, his translation, on closer inspection, yields some very interesting material. It becomes apparent that the translator was most attracted to its formal qualities. The song and choruses with their intricate metres and rhyme schemes

Willem Kloos, ‘Binnengedachten CLXXXUI’ in: De Nieuwe Gids, June 1926, p. 668. P. Kralt

also perceives a link between the Prometheus myth and Kloos’s works in ‘De Dichter als Oceanus’ in: De dichter, zijn geliefde en zijn muze (Leiden: Dimensie, 1985), pp. 127-38 (especially pp. 133-38).

In the preface to his translation, Gutteling had remarked: ‘Prometheus is de grieksche Heiland’,

p. V.

K.H. de Raaf, Willem Kloos: De mensch, de dichter, de kriticus (Velsen: Schuyt, 1934),

gave Gutteling the chance to show off his technical virtuosity. Especially in the fourth act where there is hardly any blank verse left — the principal metre o f the three preceding acts — Gutteling proved himself particularly resourceful. It is here that his freer approach to the original which he explained in his preface is as conspicuous as it is inevitable. I perfectly agree with Wolvekamp-Baxter that, generally speaking, ‘the narrative portions are accurate translations and the lyrical passages show only a certain amount o f freedom unavoidable when imitating so closely the form and acoustic effect o f the original' (p. 238).

The phraseology is conventional and, at times, even archaic, thus reflecting the omateness o f the English text. As a matter of fact, Gutteling's diction resembles very much De R aafs in his Alastor o f 1905, rather than Verwey's in his version o f the same poem. Kloos approved of De R aafs effort, so it is difficult to see how he could condemn Gutteling's translation so mercilessly unless there were some hidden agenda behind the attack. Similarly, Gutteling's motives in dismissing the language o f De R aafs Alastor (en De Cencî) as ‘dikwijls allerminst natuurlijk', given the stylistic resemblances with his own phraseology, are likely to have been partisan in nature.^* Consider, for instance the following excerpt from the opening soliloquy in Prometheus ontboeid.

de Aardbeving-demons moeten De spijkers uit mijn sidderende wonden Loswringen, wen de rots splijt en weer sluit; Wijl uit hun luide afgronden huilend zwermen Stormgeesten, ‘t razen van den wervelwind Opzweepend, treffend mij met scherpen hagel. (p. 2)

The adverbs ‘wen' and ‘wijl' are conventional poeticisms, and the word order in ‘wijl [...] huilend zwermen Stormgeesten' and in ‘treffend mij' can scarcely be called natural. As is the case in De R aafs Alastor, there is a great amount o f artificiality in Prometheus ontboeid. Yet, this is completely in keeping with Shelley's own wrought diction and should not be frowned upon. Representative instances o f other, recurrent archaisms can

Alex. Gutteling, ‘Shelley-vertalingen van Dr. K.H. de Raaf in: De Beweging, February 1909, p. 236.

be found in the line: ‘de wraak / Des Hoogsten raze dan door holle schaduwen’ (p. 28), i.e. the genitive case and the frequent use o f the subjunctive mode.^^

In his introduction to Prometheus ontboeid, Gutteling comments on the looseness o f ‘vorm in engeren zin’ (p. vii). He characterises the volatility o f Shelley’s verse in terms which sound familiar enough: ‘Shelley’s poëzie is een fontein die zijn bekken overstroomt, een vulkaan van onberekenbare uitbarstingen’. Wordsworth’s well-known ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ in the preface to his in the preface to his Lyrical Ballads, and Byron’s equally famous ‘lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earth-quake’ provided Gutteling with the model for his imagery.^® Another influence on Gutteling’s phraseology in the preface, and one which comes hardly as a surprise, is Albert Verwey. Gutteling’s emphasis on ‘de ritmische vaart [...] van Shelley’s verzen’ echoes Verwey’s ‘onweerhoudbaarheid [...] van zijn [i.e. A la sto fs\ beweging’ and ‘de vaart en de vlucht waarmee [Shelleys] verheven geest zich bewoog’ (p. 87) in the postscript of his own Alastor translation. Indeed, even Gutteling’s observation that Shelley’s verse in Prometheus Unbound is not always o f a ‘onverbiddelijke noodwendigheid’, resulting in an occasional ‘retorische uitdrukking’ (p. vii) can be read against Verwey’s template: ‘herhaling o f benadering in de woordenkeus’ (p. 87) is a common feature is Alastor.

It is clear that Kloos stood isolated with his negative opinion o f Gutteling’s rendition. When the first two acts were published in De Beweging (December 1908), P.N. van Eyck wrote a very enthusiastic letter and asked for an offprint. In his correspondence with Verwey, he even admitted: ‘de vert. v. Shelley deed mij een oogenblik beduusd staan’. A f t e r Gutteling’s death, Isaac P. de Vooys, co-editor o f De Beweging, spoke very highly of Gutteling’s translation skills in his ‘In Memoriam’, in terms well beyond the

Other notable archaisms include ‘oer-baaiert’ (p. 30), ‘tijgen’ (p. 41), and ‘donderklooten’ (p. 90), the two last examples probably because of Gutteling’s wish to preserve the rhyme: ‘Als tooverkolken spelen daar / Zoet-stemmige echo’s en zij tijgen / Door Demogorgons machtge wet, / Smeltend verrukt of zoet ontzet, / Langs ‘t heimlijk pad een geestenschaar; / Als stroomen die van bergdooi stijgen’ and ‘Vloek die den schepter tildet, / Die heel ons groen en blauw heelal wel wildet / Met donkren ondergang omwikkelen rondom, / Zendend een vaste wolk, om heete donderklooten / Te reegnen, en ‘t gebeente van mijn kindren stuk te stooten’.

^ See John 0. Hayden, ed., William Wordsworth: Poems, 2 vols (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), vol. 1, pp. 870-71; and Leslie A. Marchand, éd., Byron's Letters and Journals, 12 vols (London, Beccles and Colchester: John Murray, 1973-1982), vol. 3, p. 179.

H.A. Wage, ed.. De briejwisseling tussen P.N. van Eyck en Albert Verwey: Deel 1: juli 1904- april 1914. Achter het Boek 23, Nos 1-3 (‘s-Gravenhage: Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum, 1988), p. 57.

conventional requirements o f an o b i t u a r y . T h e reader will also recall Kuiper’s outspoken approbation which I quoted earlier in this chapter. It must have been a very daunting task, not made easier by Gutteling’s constant ill health, to tackle this most complex o f poems in the Shelley canon. The whole work took about two months to translate; by 27 May 1908, Gutteling could inform Verwey that it was finished.

Without any doubt, Verwey played an indispensable role in perfecting the text before its publication in the ‘Wereldbibliotheek’ series. Indeed, many a letter was exchanged between Noordwijk-aan-Zee and Driebergen, dealing with specific translation problems. On one occasion, when he sent Verwey yet another list of queries and asked for his help, Gutteling added with apparent admiration: ‘u bent zoo vindingrijk’ (Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 257). Throughout the course o f 1909, Gutteling kept busy polishing his translation. When he asked his mentor the permission to dedicate Prometheus ontboeid to him, Verwey answer implies that he had taken a considerable

part in its realisation:

Niets, trouwens zijn alle correcties tegenover de groote en voortdurend toegenomen deugd van je eigen vertaling, dichterlijke zuiverheid en taalkundige trouwheid. Daarom, en niet om de overigens aangename samenwerking, zal ik je arbeid graag aan me zien opdragen (Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 264).

This explains why Verwey did not tardy in speaking up for Gutteling’s labours when Kloos had produced his acrid review. As none other, he had witnessed (jutteling’s zeal and marvelled at the care with which he had undertaken the tremendous task.^^ He also knew about his pupil’s genuine admiration for Shelley which, as the dedication of Prometheus ontboeid suggests, probably found its origin in his reading o f Verwey’s set of ‘1816’ translations in 1904. In January 1906, Gutteling had been engrossed in Dowden’s two-volume The Life o f Percy Bysshe Shelley which inspired him to compose a lengthy poem, ‘Shelley’, in August of the same year. Unlike Kloos, Verwey knew o f its existence, and had it eventually published in the May issue o f his journal in 1914 (see Chapter Two).

Isaac P. de Vooys, ‘In memoriam Alex. Gutteling’ in: De Amsterdammer, 20 November 1910; reproduced in Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 215. Much of the factual data about Prometheus ontboeid on the following pages has been culled from this work.

For instance, on 3 October 1908, Verwey wrote to Gutteling: ‘Dat je groote reien als die van “De Schim” [Jupiter’s Phantasm] zoo juist, en zoo goed in den vorm vertaald hebt, is bewonderenswaardig’. Quoted from Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 243.

Gutteling’s dedication o f Prometheus Unbound to Verwey was originally more comprehensive than the printed version. It is worthwhile examining the manuscript version. After having intimated that ‘Shelley’s Gedichten van ‘t jaar 1816’ were his inspiring example, Gutteling explains that there was also another reason which warranted his choice to honour Verwey, namely ‘omdat hij in Idéalisme, Schoonheidsliefde en eigen Kunst Shelley’s waardige volgeling heeten mag’ (Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 231). One can only speculate how Kloos would have responded to this, if he would have responded at all, that is, for he never acknowledged the existence o f Verwey’s early ‘1816’ translations with even the slightest reference. Verwey himself, however, had some misgivings about the original dedication: ‘het publiek zou volgeling als navolger lezen en zeggen: Net mijn opinie’ (Wolvekamp-Baxter, p. 231, emphasis mine). Indeed, in the past Verwey had had to swallow such an unpleasant rebuff with regard to his own affinity with Shelley. After the publication o f his debut Persephone en andere gedichten in 1885, a reader, with the sobriquet Pepifax, wrote a sarcastic letter to De Nederlandsche Spectator.

Gij dweept met Shelley, niet waar? Toe zeg ja! Zeg mij dat gij zijn “Epipsychidion” hebt genoten en nachten hebt besteed aan ‘t lezen van zijn “Prometheus Unbound”. [..•I Enfin; het zal U toch plezier doen. Ik heb ontdekt dat Shelley een profeet, een helderziende was in de toekomst. Ik zal het U bewijzen. Gij weet hoe onze Albert Verwey op 31 Dec. 1884 een gedicht maakte, voorkomende in zijn bundel: “Persephone en andere Gedichten”, biz. 39, getiteld “Rouw om ‘t Jaar” .... Welnu, Shelley heeft dat gedicht reeds gekend in 1820, want op 1 Jan. 1821 heeft hij er eene Engelsche bewerking van geschreven. Gij hebt het gedicht maar te lezen om te zien dat wel niet de woorden, maar geheel de oorspronkelijke gedachten van Verwey hier zijn nagevolgd. [...] Ik heb nu geen tijd, maar ik ga dien Shelley nog eens doorlezen. Ik heb zoo’n stil vermoeden, dat hij nog wel meer van Verwey heeft nagevolgd.^

Verwey’s seemingly over-cautious reaction to Gutteling’s praise becomes understandable at once. As we have seen in Chapter Two, Kloos was also very sensitive to any representation of himself as a mere follower (‘volgeling’) of Shelley. Gutteling took Verwey’s criticism to heart and dropped the final line of the original dedication.

^ Pepifax, in: De Nederlandsche Spectator, 1886, p. 155. Quoted from Dekker, pp. 171-72, italics mine.

Despite Kloos’s claims to the contrary, Gutteling’s translation is fairly accurate, save some minor s l i p s . O f tremendous significance, however, I believe to be the following imperfections. Though not wrong in themselves, Gutteling’s choice o f words demonstrates that he too was not always fully conscious o f the political subtext underneath the mythological surface.

Great Sages bound in madness And headless patriots and pale youths who perished unupbraiding. Gleamed in the Night I wandered o’er —

(1,11. 768-70)

Though Wolvekamp-Baxter is very tentative in her suggestion, I am convinced that Shelley wanted ‘headless’ also to be read literally; i.e. patriots guillotined for their radical beliefs and actions. Gutteling’s ‘Helden verdwaasd’ thus is a too restrictive interpretation o f Shelley’s adjective. Verwey, who had assisted with the correction o f the proof and had been immensely helpful in improving the final text, apparently, read over it as well. In another instance, Gutteling originally translated Shelley’s ‘Leave the bed, low, cold and red / Strewed beneath a nation dead’ (l, 11. 504-5) as ‘Laat het bed, laag, bloed-besmet / En koud, onder een volk verplet’. By using the Germanic, less defined word ‘volk’, Gutteling loses the allusion to the nation foremost in Shelley’s mind, i.e. France. The ‘Wereldbibliotheek’ version is more literal and accurate, allowing for a sense of ‘statesmanship’ to be read in ‘natie’: ‘Laat het bed, laag, koud en rood, / Waar een natie neerligt, dood’. However, the ‘disenchanted nation’ (l, 1. 567) remained ‘een volk zijn ban verbreken[d]’, even adding another imprecise rendition: Shelley’s ‘disenchanted’ has clear overtones of the general disappointment (the equivalent of Kloos’s ‘desolation’) which France and its sympathisers were experiencing after the euphoria o f the Revolution. Gutteling’s ‘ban’ does hardly do justice to the meaning Shelley wanted to convey in this line.

In the Dutch version, a similar obfuscation o f the political realities behind Prometheus Unbound can be found in the fourth act where Shelley’s phrase the ‘Republic o f [...] Planets’ (iv, 1. 398) mirroring the poet’s democratic ideal o f ‘Truth, liberty and love’ (l, 1. 651) on a cosmic level, is rendered as De [...] staat van de planeten’. A few 65

pages later, when a voice from heaven sings in exaltation ‘Our great Republic hears... we are blest, and bless’ (iv, 1. 533), the translation gives: ‘Ons rijk hoort toe; zeegnend in zaligheid’. The English lines recall an important phrase in the preface which Gutteling excluded as a whole from his translation. Shelley had written: ‘the sacred Milton was, let it ever be remembered, a Republican, and a bold enquirer into morals and religion’. Shelley seems to have pictured himself in this intellectual tradition for Prometheus Unbound is a similarly bold gesture by another humanitarian rebel. What Milton’s Republican spirit meant for Shelley can be inferred from the following surviving fragment written in 1820. Note again the use of Shelley’s favourite incentive verb (i.e to rise) in the first line:

I dreamed that Milton’s spirit rose, and took From life’s green tree his Uranian lute;

And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook All human things built in contempt of man, — And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked. Prisons and citadels...

{PW, p. 634)

It is also worth pointing out that originally Shelley had described the luscious garden in his ‘Sensitive Plant’ as ‘a Republic of odours and hues’. B y passing over such a significant word as ‘republic’, the complex fabric o f interconnecting, significatory strands is entirely lost in Gutteling’s dutchified version. What is more, the omission of the preface, enhanced by the careless rendering o f phrases charged with consequential meaning, robs the poem of its objectifying framework.

A final example will illustrate how easy it is to miss the political reality behind the original text. In the age of Romanticism, America exerted an enormous appeal to European rebels and critics of the monarchy. The works o f the Norfolk-born Thomas Paine, including the pamphlet Common Sense of January 1776 which had emboldened the United States to declare themselves independent from English supremacy on 4 July of the same year, were very popular among the radical circles to which Shelley belonged.

Gutteling translated ‘nightshade’, the plant, as ‘nachtschaduw’. For details, see pp. 238-40.

^ See Timothy Webb, Shelley: A Voice not Understood (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), p. 78.

Several references to Paine’s writings can be found in Shelley’s letters. The English poet articulated his admiration for the United States, and especially for the American constitution, in his Philosophical View o f Reform, written in the same year he conceived Prometheus Unbound.^^ Approached from this angle the chorus o f spirits singing the following lines in the fourth act o f the lyrical drama acquires added meaning:

And our singing shall build. En ons zingen zal bouwen In the Void’s loose field. In de ijle landouwen

A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield; Van ‘t Leêg, voor de Wijsheid een heilig We will take our plan Naar ‘t menschenrijk richten [domein From the new world of man We ons, ‘t nieuw-gestichte.

And our work shall be called Promethean. En ons werk zal genaamd naar Prometheus {Prometheus Unbound, \'V,W. 153-58) {Prometheus ontboeid, p. [zijn.

It is not inconceivable that Shelley is alluding here to the liberated, democratic society in ‘the [N]ew [W]orld o f man’; an allusion which becomes totally obscured in Gutteling’s ‘’t nieuw-gestichte’ ‘menschenrijk’. It would, o f course, be unfair to demand an acute sensitivity to the strong ideological undercurrent in Shelley’s poetry at that time when it has only been in the past two decades that New Historicists have openend our eyes to his far-reaching ‘iconoclasm’.^* Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine how such an important shibboleth as ‘Republic’ could be glossed over.^^ I would argue that, rather than being bent on consciously altering the tenor of Shelley’s argument, Gutteling, and with him Verwey, must have thought key-phrases like ‘Republic’ insignificant details which could

See William Keach, ‘Shelley and the Constitution of Political Authority’ in: Shelley: Poet and Legislator o f the World, ed. by Betty T. Bennet and Stuart Curran (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 39-48. Shelley had already referred to America as a model for Europe in his Laon and Cythna: ‘There is a People mighty in its youth, / A land beyond the Oceans of the West, / Where, though with rudest rites. Freedom and Truth / Are worshipped [...] Nay, start not at the name — America!’ (Canto XI, 11. 4414-16, 4439 \PW, p. 146]).

Just twelve years ago, Jerold E. Hogle still felt that modem scholars have never fully understood ‘just how iconoclastic he [i.e. Shelley] was and remains, both in his critiques of established belief systems and in his revelations about subliminal transferential tendencies in thought that really underlie these systems’. Shelley’s writing ‘explodes with revolutionary movements and implications hitherto unrecognized’. Jerold E. Hogle, Shelley's Process: Radical Transference and the Development o f his Major Works (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1988), p. vii.

J.J. van de Leeuw, in his analysis of Prometheus Unbound in Minerva, is more scrupulous, as his reference to ‘de Groote Republiek der goden en demonen’ illustrates (p. 462). Interestingly enough, in one of Kloos’s Shelley editions (Appendix 2, item 2) the phrase ‘republic [...] / Of planets’ is underlined in pencil (p. 250).

be safely sacrificed in translation. The net result, of course, is hardly distinctive from