One of the frustrations, the challenges, the problems; probably the joys, of translating is choosing the correct idiom to translate into. Taking the words, sentences, phrases, lines, from the language of one country and translating them into the corresponding or equivalent language of another country is the type of work that can be done by almost anyone.

Even the most cursory glance will reveal some fundamental differences between the above two versions of the same poem. Robert Graves’ rewrite came about due to a number of flaws he felt existed in William Blake’s poem. He writes of these in ‘Tyger, Tyger’, an essay collected in The Crane Bag and Other Disputed Subjects. In the essay, Graves is particularly scathing of Blake’s tendency to mix his

Many of the biographical details of Roy Campbell’s life have contributed to his exquisitely beautiful poetry being willfully ignored by most of the publishing world.

In her introduction to Campbell’s translations of the poems of St John of the Cross, Campbell’s wife,