Chapter 6. Translating rhyme and rhythm
to recreate Krik’s sonnet form meant that solutions also had to be evaluated in
terms of Rhyme and Rhythm. Unsurprisingly, there was much more Rhyme and
Rhythm work overall in Krik (16.0% and 15.6% respectively) than in Toen wij
(0.3% and 5.0%). I also saw Toen wij’s sound as important, however, though based
more on assonance and fluency – as reflected in a greater proportion of Sound
(misc.) work and Feel/Flow judgments with Toen wij (4.9% and 4.6% respectively)
than with Krik (0.5% and 1.7%).
As the main differences between the poems’ profiles are related to Rhyme and
Rhythm, and as these foci occur mainly in Krik, the following sections analyse
Krik’s rhyme- and rhythm-related work. They also examine how far such work
might make the translator consider creative shifts.6.3.5.2 Managing rhyme and rhythm
I had already formulated a whole-project approach for translating the Soneti ́s
rhyme and rhythm, which I followed in Krik. The Soneti ́s rhyme schemes vary
from poem to poem, but share certain common principles: they are divided into
two quatrains and two tercets (four-Line and three-Line stanzas respectively);
the quatrains’ rhyme schemes mirror each other without re-using the same
rhyme sounds (e.g. ABBA CDDA, or AABB CCDD); and the two tercets are in-
terlinked by cross-rhymes (e.g. EFE GFG or EFG EFG). Hence I also followed
these overall principles, but – as with Krik – without attempting to reproduce
each source poem’s rhyme scheme (contrast Figure 43 with Figure 44). Most
source poems, like Krik, have a distinct hexameter beat – which I always tried to
recreate. Many of these, again like Krik, also have fixed syllable counts, a key
feature of BCS poetics: this I sometimes tried to recreate, using it in intermediate
versions of Krik but abandoning it by the published version (contrast Figure 44
with Figure 45).
With Krik, this approach was managed in three phases: generating rhyme
pairs; then rewriting each Line to bring its rhyme word to the end, in fluent,
stylistically acceptable discourse that fitted the rhythm pattern; and then repeat-
edly polishing the resulting ‘rough poetic’ output. These are examined in more
detail below.6.3.5.3 Generating rhyme pairs
Here I worked within each quatrain and then across the two tercets, seeking out
rhyme-links between words within any two Lines of the literal version – as in
Lines 5–6: How do I know that in the wood a bird was crying // when there is only