
Various sources--among them a notice at Ron Silliman's blog as I discovered during a search for more homophonic translations- claim poet Louis Zukofsky's 1969 "Catullus" as the first homophonic translation in English.
Howard L. Chase's Homophonic "Anguish Languish" is from 1956; while not a translation of a foreign language, it still a homophonic translation, albeit of English into Anguish.
In a sense, is translating English to Anguish really all that much different than from Latin into English?
After all, in both cases the method used is the same--translating words by sounds, not meanings.
James Joyce actually should be thought of as the first extreme master non-pareil of the homophonic translation, especially at its most complex, multi-lingual and punning, in
Finnegan's Wake.
Perhaps claims for one or another version of homophonic translations or any other literary method are guided by "ideological" considerations; that is, since Zukofsky is considered a major predecessor by Ron Silliman, for example, it is natural he would choose Mr. Z rather than another example as the "first" homophonic translator. Every movement, such as the Language poetry Mr. Silliman is an advocate and "member" of, retroactively constructs its own canon and "ancestors," "influences" and "first" exemplars of any form of writing that it can include within its own territory. Sometimes such demands are forced to alter historical facts in favor of a "poetic history" that favors the canon of the given movement making the claims. This is perfectly understandable, while at the same being misleading. Sometimes omissions of other predecessors are due to ignorance rather than deliberate pruning. After all, it might be frowned upon--let alone impossible (??)-- to claim Anguish Languish as a forerunner in any way to "Language" writing, while to claim Mr. Z is of course to place a very large feather in one's cap. The omission of Mr Joyce is more extreme; yet, again, he and his work would not "fit" the requirements of a Language forerunner.
"Poetic license" is then taken with literary history, and, if repeated often enough, becomes considered the "truth," regardless of the actualities. Does then literary history of this kind become a form of constructed blindness to or omission of history? One can understand this license taken within the proscribed limits of a "movement," yet, outside that movement, is it not simply an alteration of or blindness to facts?
One might then ask if it is permissible to construct literary histories which have nothing to do with historical actualities, in order to maintain a "historical progression" within a literary "movement." Does the fact that there are deliberate "blind spots" or "gaps" within this carefully constructed progression denote an unraveling from within of the foundations of the "movement?" That is, if it is founded on false claims or fallacies (for example, the claim that "grammar is structured by capitalism") does this not entail its eventual collapse unless it is protected and preserved by force of some kind, by the imposition of various assertions as "truths" that are not allowed to be questioned? And does not this force entail gaining the weight of supporters such as the academic institutions, which in turn are part of the state-corporate structures of higher education?
In other words, a perhaps falsified or unknowingly altered history becomes the Official State-Corporate-Institutional "truth" and so is enforced at every level of the overall system in which such literary histories are discussed and used. In this way a hegemonic literary history is constructed which is selected as the one to be taught at the expense of al others. Once this stage has been arrived it, it then becomes necessary to ignore or suppress any questionings of the Official Line. It is this structure and its systems of security that I mean by the word "ideological" in relation with the "history" of homophonic translations into English and in relation to poetry and poetics.
In terms of (American, Language) poetry, of course, it makes sense to say Mr Z is "first." Since this School as it were is the hegemonic academic one today, this means that Mr Z becomes in effect, the, THE, first, without discussion of other examples. In effect, an unquestioning belief is granted to an assertion without it being checked up on, or of other alternatives such as Anguish Languish or James Joyce being considered. An unquestioning acceptance of such claims becomes a method for the establishment of conformity in which to question is considered antithetical to the "good" of an hegemony. To question the "good" of course, is to be considered "outside" the accepted bounds of a discourse, and to be lacking in "knowledge of the truth." In a bizarre way, to question a statement or claim by the Authorities is an "ethical" failure, a kind of moral lapse which needs to be condemned. When the ethical enters the imposition of a conformity, one begins to enter the sphere of a kind of religious unquestioning "faith" that is in effect a certitude of "knowledge of the truth."
Ironically, this "knowledge of the truth" becomes a means for cutting off any other "knowledge" and one is back in a Garden of Eden where it is forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge for fear it will reveal that the Knowledge of Received Ideas will be exposed--For are not unquestioned ideas believed in with a form of ethical-religious faith, with a willing suspension of disbelief usually reserved for fiction, often a danger to whatever they themselves consider "a dangerous heresy or questioning?"
Why bother with such questions --other than without a continual questioning, there is the danger of becoming a follower in a herd who obey directives and accept pronouncements as though they are indeed "received ideas" so clearly true as to be taken for granted as being the foundation of a "knowledge," rather than examples of a particular ideology contesting for control of thinking on literary or other histories, let alone the relation of literary history to history itself. Literature then in effect becomes a separated entity distanced from any other criteria and one is returned once again to the rarefied atmospheres of the New Criticism and other Formalisms which flourished in the USA esp during the repressive McCarthy Era, just as today is an Era of Oppression post9/11. In effect, one is confronting an Era of Reaction which rebrands old conformities as new "alternatives" and "experimental, transgressive, radical" ideas and works.
The Anguish Languish
Note: for each entry in case you missed it from previous entries on this blog, will include the Intro with all the explanations etc--each time more entries are posted
Anguish Languishby Howard L. Chace
Here further verse thyme in book firm is the extraordinary version of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD that Arthur Godfrey read aloud on his program — and made famous. And with it are more
FURRY TELLS, NOISER RAMS, FEY MOUSE TELLS, and THONGS, especially transcended by Prof. H. L. Chace, the originator of ANGUISH LANGUISH, for you, your friends, and your family to half pun wit.
PRENTICE-HALL, INC.
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N. J.
Copyright 1956 by
Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.
All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce this book, or any portions
thereof, in any form except for the in-
clusion of brief quotations in a review.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 56-8160
English words are astonishingly versatile and could readily be made to serve a new and extraordinary purpose, but nobody seems to care about this except SPAL (Society for the Promotion of the Anguish Languish).*
(* The members of SPAL are the persons who have written to the author concerning the Anguish Languish, especially the thousands who wrote to request copies of LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT after Sir Arthur Godfrey's inimitable reading of it, on his television show. The society is very poorly organized, in fact few of the members even know they belong. There are no officers, no meetings, no convention and, worst of all, from the point of view of the author and founder, no dues.)
In keeping with its lofty ideals and its slogan, ANGUISH FOR EVERYBODY, the Society is sponsoring this little text, which has three aims:
1. To improve the public's understanding of the Anguish Languish.
2. To improve the academic standing of the Anguish Languish.
3. To improve the social and financial standing of the society.
Policemen and Magicians
A visiting Professor of Anguish, Doctor Blank, who, while learning to understand spoken English, was continually bewildered and embarrassed by the similarity of such expressions as boys and girls and poisoned gulls, used to exclaim:
"Gracious! What a lot of words sound like each other! If it wasn't (sic) for the different situations in which we hear 'em, we'd have a terrible time saying which was which."
Of course, these may not have been the professor's exact words, because he often did his exclaiming in Anguish rather than in English. In that case he would say,
"Crashes! Water larders warts sunned lack itch udder! Effervescent further deferent saturations and witch way harem, wade heifer haliver tam sang witch worse witch."
Dr. Blank was right, both in English and Anguish. Although other factors than the pronunciation of words affect our ability to understand them, the situation in which the words are uttered is of prime importance. You can easily prove this, right in the privacy of your own kitchen, by asking a friend to help you wash up "a dozen cops and sorcerers". Ten to one, she'll think you said "a dozen cups and saucers", and be genuinely surprised if you put her to work cleaning up even one police officer, let alone all the others, and the magicians, too.
If you think that she misunderstands merely because the two phrases sound somewhat alike and not because of the situation, read what SPAL'S Committee on Housewives has to say:
“Presented with a dished-piled-in-sink situation, several hundred well-adjusted housewives thought that cops and sorceress referred to dishes, but seldom did the normal subjects, interviewed under the same conditions, make the opposite mistake. When they were asked to help us wash cups and saucers, some women consented, some made stupid excuses, and some told us bluntly to go wash them ourselves, but practically no one thought that we were talking about policemen and magicians."
What Anguish Really Is
The experiments described above, and hundreds of similar ones conducted by the SPAL show that an unbelievable number of English words, regardless of their usual meanings, can be substituted quite satisfactorily for others. When all the words in a given passage of English have been so replaced, the passage keeps its original meaning, but all the words have acquired new ones. A word that has received a new meaning has become a wart, and when all the words in the passage have become warts, the passage is no longer English; it's Anguish.
Are There Any Good Reasons to Study Anguish?
This is not altogether a silly question, and it deserves the prompt and unequivocal answer any Anguish Languish enthusiast will give it.
"Watcher mane, ardor rainy gut raisins toe sturdy Anguish?" he will say, and will probably give you an impressive list of them which will certainly include the following:
1. Anguish is Fun.
You and your friends can make a game out of learning Anguish, and you'll have fun developing your own style and observing each other's efforts. How to begin will be explained later.
2. Anguish Languish means verbal economy.
If words can be made to do double, triple, or even quadruple duty, it is obvious that we don't need so many of them. Wouldn't it be a comfort to know that in the event of some unpredictable disaster wiping out half of our English vocabulary, we could, if we had learned Anguish, get along nicely with what we had left? (Whether or not such a calamity is likely to occur seems entirely beside the point; in times like these one should be prepared for any emergency.)
3. Anguish helps out in certain social situations.
People who aren't sure of themselves should learn Anguish. Suppose you have been asked to dinner by the president of your company and his wife. Since you haven't met your hostess, you have spent some time, before going, thinking up something to say that will really interest her. Finally you decide to ask, during the dinner:
"Mrs. Bellowell, didn't I hear that your brother Henry was discovered to be in collusion with those election crooks?"
The moment arrives, but you no sooner get her attention than you have sudden misgivings. Too late to change your subject, you slip deftly into Anguish:
"Mrs. Bellowell... deaden are hair ditcher broader Hennery worse dish-cupboard toe bang collision wet dozer liquor-chin crocks?"
Chances are that everyone will be so fascinated by the graceful form of your question that not even your hostess will attach much importance to what you've asked.
4. Anguish relieves that terrible craving to tell dialect stories.
People who are addicted to telling dialect stories, or chronically frustrated because they can't tell them without Scotch brogue or Brooklynese getting mixed up with the Deep South, will be overjoyed with Anguish. Anguish is definitely not a dialect, since it consists only of unchanged English words which anyone can pronounce. By imparting a delicate and indefinably exotic accent to one's speech, however, it not only provides a socially acceptable substitute for telling dialect stories, but adds to one's personal charm.*
(* ANGUISH ANONYMOUS, an organization of former dialect story tellers, sponsored by SPAL, can be called in difficult cases.)
5. Anguish improves your English.
As your anguish vocabulary increases, you'll find that your English vocabulary does, too, but you must be careful not to mix them up- something which people orphan do when they begin to use words accordion to the way they sound rather than how they're spelled. Words which are rare in English are often common enough in Anguish, so you have new opportunities to see them. Suppose you're spending a week-end reciting nursery rhymes in Anguish to a happy group of children or immature adults, and come across SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE, A POCKET FULL OF RYE. In Anguish, this, of course, is SINKER SUCKER SOCKS PANTS, APOCRYPHAL AWRY. This will give you an unexpected chance to use the last two words.
You'd be surprise to know how many people haven't the faintest idea about what a xyster is until they hear a SPAL member talking about his fodder, murder, broader, and xyster. This makes them want to look xyster up. When they do, they find that, although xyster* in Anguish may mean sister, in English it's nothing in the world but a common raspatorium. Now raspatoria, and, therefore xysters are important surgical instruments, nice to know about before being scheduled for an aberration.
Speaking of xysters, hominy people know what higglery is? Very few, yet it occurs in the Anguish Languish version of something as well known as:
“Murder, mare ergo art toe swarm?
“Yap, mar doling dodder,
Hank your clues honor higglery larme
An dun gore norther warder!”
While you're looking up higglery, you might find larme, just a few pages away in Webster's Unabridged.
(* The plural of xyxter in Anguish, is cisterns. See, in this book the story Center Alley)
6. Practical Anguish
Anguish can be used for a group study at parties and entertainments; as a psychological test of something or other (we don't know just what*), and as practice material in Speech and Typing classes.
(* A research psychologist plans to use Anguish Languish to provide data for a study entitled: "Individual and Sex Differences in Configurational Perception of Artificially Contrived but Phenomenologically Comprehensible Auditory Stimuli." This sounds as if it should mean something.)
How Can One Learn Anguish?
1. Read everything in this text aloud, and preferably in a group. Make a game of it. You'll find it easier to understand Anguish when you hear it than when you see it. If you have trouble, listen to someone else read it to you, preferably someone who doesn't quite know what he's reading. This often gives the best effect. Watch what happens when the listeners understand better than the reader.
2. Don't try to read too fast and be sure to give all words their usual English pronunciation, regardless of the new meaning the word has acquired. An accurate pronunciation and good intonation are most effective.
3. Don't worry if you seem to have suddenly acquired a slight accent; your friends will tell you that this is most attractive.
The first item in this collection is a story familiar to all readers - LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. Or, as you can probably say now in Anguish, LADLE RAT ROTTEN HUT.
Heresy ladle furry starry toiling udder warts - warts welcher altar girdle deferent firmer once inner regional virgin. This sentence means: "Here is a little fairy story told in other words - words which are altogether different from the ones in the original version."
ORIOLE RATTY? DEN LESS GAT STUTTERED
Noisier Rams
Marry Hatter Ladle Limb Marry hatter ladle limb
Itch fleas worse widest snore.
An ever-wear dept Marry win
Door limb worse shorter gore.
Sinker Sucker Socks Pants Sinker sucker socks pants
Apocryphal awry
Foreign turnkey blank boards
Bagged inner pyre.
Whinny pious orphaned
Door boards bay-gander sink.
Worsen dizzy jelly ditch
Toe setter furry kink?
Door kink worse inner conning horse
Conning otters moaning.
Door coin worse inner panda
Aiding burden honing.
Door mate worse inner gardening
Hankering ardor cloys.
A lung camel blank board
An sniffing offer noise!
Effervescent Effervescent further ACHE
dare wooden bather CHECKING.
Effervescent further PEG
way wooden heifer BECKING.
Effervescent further LESSONS
dare wooden bather DITCHERS.
Effervescent further ODDEST
way wooden heifer PITCHERS
Effervescent further CLASHES
way wooden kneader CLASH RUMS.
Effervescent further BASH TOPS
way wooden heifer BASH RUMS.
Effervescent further TUCKING
way wooden heifer LANGUISH.
Effervescent further WARTS
nor bawdy cud spick ANGUISH!
Oiled Murder Harbored Oiled Murder Harbored
Wen tutor cardboard
Toe garter pore darker born.
Wenchy gut dare
Door cardboard worse bar
An soda pore dark hat known.
Pitter Paper Pitter Paper peeked or parker peckled paupers
Or packer peckled paupers pitter paper peeked
Aft Pitter Paper peeked or packer peckled paupers
Ware aster packer peckled paupers debt pitter paper peeked
3
Fey-Mouse
Tells
Casing Adder Bet Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out
— Ernest Lawrence Thayer
Heresy borsch-boil starry a boarder borsch boil gam plate lung, lung a gore inner ladle wan hearse torn coiled Mutt-fill.
Mutt-fill worsen mush offer torn, butted hatter putty gut borsch-boil tame, an off oiler pliers honor tame, door moist cerebrated worse Casing. Casing worsted sickened basement, any hatter betting orphanage off .526 (punt fife toe sex).
Casing worse gut lurking, an furry poplar—spatially wetter gull coiled Any-bally. Any-bally worse Casing's sweat-hard, any harpy cobble wandered toe gat merit, bought Casing worse toe pore toe becalm Any-bally's horsebarn, (Boil pliers honor Mutt-fill tame dint gat mush offer celery; infect, day gut nosing atoll.)
Bought less gat earn wetter starry.
Wan dare, inner Mutt-fill borsch boil pork, door scar stud lack disk inner lest in-ink:
MUTT-FILL 2
UDDER TAME 4
Water disgorging saturation! Oiler Mutt-fill rotors, setting inner grin-stance, war failing furry darn inner mouse.
Bought, watcher thank hopping? Soddenly wan offer Mutt-fill pliers hitter shingle, an an-udder plier gutter gnats toe beggar! Soda war ptomaine earn basis. Bust off oil, Casing ham-shelf, Mutt-fill's cerebrated better, worse combing ope toe bet!
Whinny kraut inner grin-stance sore Casing combing, day stuttered toe clabber hens an yowl, "Date's CASING! Attar bore, Casing!" An whinny hansom sickened basement sundered confidentially ope tutor plat, oiler Mutt-fill rotors shorted:
"CASING ROAR!
CASING ROAR!
ROAR, ROAR, CASING!"
Putty ladle Any-bally, setting oil buyer shelf inner grin-stance, worse furry prod offer gut lurking loafer. Lack oiler udder pimple, Any-bally worse shore debt Casing worse garner winner boil gam fur Mutt-fill.
Casing weaved tutor kraut, an castor sweat glands add Any-bally, den retched darn tutor grunt an robbed dart honors hens, an warped haze hens honors pence.
"PLY BOIL!" shorted door empire, gadding impassioned.
Casing pecked upper bet, an locked adder patcher, any set tomb shelf:
"Latter comb! Arm garner smirk disk boil rat offer defense!"
ZOMBIE! Door boil short pest Casing lacquer canning boil. Casing dint peony tension turret.
"STORK WARN!" crater empire.
Door kraut inner grin-stance stuttered shorting an coursing.
"Wart inhale's madder wet debt empire's ICE? Hazy gun BLAND?"
"Lessen, empire-Java heifer ICE exempted? Batter goiter seeder obstetrician!"
"Boor! Boor! B-o-o-r!"
"O water bag BOMB!"
Door patcher warn dope akin, any boil short pest Casing lacquer bullock firmer raffle.
"STORK TOE!" setter empire, lurking unctuously adder kraut.
Oiler Mutt-fill fens an rotors war hurling wet anchor! Servile bear bordels an corker cooler bordels cam firmer grin-stance, an fail honor grunt, nut for firmer pore empire's fate.
Inner grin-stance, ladle Any-bally, hoe dint lacquer seer loafer mucker bag foal otter ham-shelf, bay-gander wiper ice wetter tawny ladle lazy hanker-sniff.
Wants akin, Casing locked adder patcher, disk term wetter lock off gram razor-lotion honors phase.
"Jest locket Casing!" whiskered door kraut, "Disk term, Casing manes baseness. Badger Casing's garner smirk debt borsch-boil rat offer defense!"
SWASH! Casing swank adder boil wet oilers farce! Water swank! Wart anomalous farce! Wart gram razor-lotion!
Water sham debt Casing dint hitter boil!
"Stork tree—yore art!" whiskered door empire, trampling, an gadding ratty toe dock corker cooler bordels an bear bordels.
Door kraut worse stunt.
Any-bally worse sopping historically inner tawny ladle lazy hanker-snitt.
Wail, yawl nor debt putty pacer pottery coiled CASING ADDER BET—spatially doze lest melon-colic versus:
O psalm-war an disk levered lend, door soreness shunning brat;
Door benders plying psalm-war, an psalm-war hurts alite,
An psalm-war manor luffing, an psalm-war chaldron short;
Butter ash nor jarring Mutt-flu—muddy Casing hash stork art!
Bought lessen, forks! Wander nor wart rally hopping? Wail, doze putty versus becalm cerebrated—an Casing becalm cerebrated, toe! Suture bag kraut off pimple cam toe Mutt-fill toe shag hens wetter hansom borsch boil plier debt Casing win enter parlor-tricks, an gat retch. An, whinny gut retch (conjure gas?) Casing becalm door diverted horsebarn off putty ladle Any-bally.
4 Lath Thing Thumb ThongsHormone Derange O gummier hum warder buffer-lore rum
Enter dare enter envelopes ply,
Ware soiled'em assured adage cur-itching ward
An disguise earn it clotty oil die.
Harm, hormone derange,
Warder dare enter envelopes ply,
Ware soiled'em assured adage cur-itching ward
An disguise earn it clotty oil die.