ABSTRACT
This chapter explores not only the issues of free verse in translation but also the nature of free verse in a number of key cases. These include the political poetry of Pablo Neruda and the translation of ‘Explico algunas cosas’; translations of Catullus and Ovid in the Renaissance and the present; the vers libre of Jules Laforgue; Brecht and east German poetry; and postcolonial verse. Translation poses a particular challenge to free verse but also an opportunity to interpret the rhythmic structure of the original poem freely as it is not always possible to replicate the exact rhythmic cadence of each line in a new language. The degree of freedom used is a matter for the translator, but it is clear that translators who are also poets themselves approach the translation of poems with more creative and more rhythmic freedom than those who are ‘mere’ translators. This chapter also looks as how poems that are originally in syllabics and/or accentual form can move into free verse forms.
