Response to option 2
Most of the best considered poems are believed to have been written by poets who never got to enjoy their publicity. This is because they were written in times when the world had not appreciated the art as well not having a diversified channel to communicate their thoughts. As Steven & Walter state, they simply wrote such poems and left them somewhere where some opportunist who picked and published them. In the process of translating and transforming them into a language the current generation is associated with, they lose their original meaning. This is simply because they cannot bring themselves to the point where they can empathize with the thoughts of the original writer. Furthermore, some of the so called poets that translated such poems may not have been alive during when the poet wrote the poems. This implies that they are translating the poems in an environment that is very different from the original composer.
According to Richards & Beardsley, poetry loses its meaning if it has not been written directly from the thoughts of the poets. This becomes just like any other story that has been retold several times. If it were necessary for a poem to be translated into an acceptable language, then it would as well be represented as something else rather than a poem. People would appreciate such literature more if the author categorically stated that it is a translation of somebody original poem. However, presenting it again as a poem makes it different from what the original author intended and therefore, not having the desired impact. A poem is not just a combination of words as some people put it. It is the combinations of thoughts, emotions and experiences of the author. This is true according to Lewis “Yet a poetry of things. How these things are joined in patterns and with what names of emotion remains always the critical question.” This personal experience can only be expressed by the individual and hence understood best by an audience that directly reads such thoughts.
Works cited
Empson, William. Seven types of ambiguity. Vol. 645. Random House, 2004.
