Wislaw Szymborska Anlaysis of Translated "could Have" Poem

Wislaw Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist and translator who, described by the Nobel committee, was the “Mozart of poetry”. Szymborska was born on 1923 and died at the age of 88 in 2012. Szymborska won a Nobel Prize in literature in 1996 despite only having published about 200 poems, clearly demonstrating how her poetry went beyond her hometown and into international bounds regarding the volume of them. Szymborska lived through World War II, a time where violence and oppression were found at every corner, where death often killed life, and where life often escaped death. Because of this ambient Szymborksa’s style became deeply influenced towards such topics, and therefore many poems were directed towards the themes of death, loss, and human nature. Among the poems that address death is “Could Have”. In this poem death is not being explicitly addressed, instead it is implied through her use of negative space. “Could Have” revolves around possibilities, luck and destiny or fate even. This poem is incredibly ambiguous; everything is implied or left for the reader to decipher. Because of this constant ambiguity and open-ended ideas the translation received different interpretations. Therefore I will analyze and compare two different translations, one translated by Baranczak and C. Cavanagh (translation 1) and the other by Grazyna Drabik and Sharon Olds (translation 2).

 “Could Have” is another poem that shows that no matter what can we do or don’t do, death will arrive one day. In could have Skymborksa structure consists of many anaphoras, and a parallelism of her structure along all the poem. Her style becomes short and rigid, to the extent that a word becomes a sentence. In could have “it happened, but not to you” (Could have, 5), “it could have happened./ It had to happen”. By Szymborska omitting that what could have happened was death, she actually makes the whole poem more powerful, since by not explicitly stating it gives an eerie tone as if the word was so dreadful it shouldn’t be written. Szymbroska writes a synonym showing the possible results or explanation of a situation: “because, although, despite.” These 3 words have rather similar meanings because of the context they can be used. By not stating what caused the use of such words she exposes what is unsaid. Someone died, “because”…, or someone didn’t die “despite”…. This uncertainty shows the power of death. By everything being a “could have” or a “would have”, and not something defined, it shows how death is never expected, and how life is but a game of “luck” depending on “a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,/ a jamb, a quarter inch, an instant” (Could have, 14-16). This enjambment shows the weakness of life, and how it depends on something as weak as a quarter inch, not even able to rely on a whole inch. It shows how despite or in spite of what someone does or doesn’t do, death is always a possibility, and there is nothing that the mortal world can do about the omnipotent resolution of death.

The two translations of could have differences in their structure. The structure of translation 2 is completely different. One of them is completely followed through, it is continuous and looking as sentences. It means completely different things. One could be that there are a meaning that is continuous. It is never ending. Death will never stop and change. There are many differences but that is the first one. I believe that she is trying to express that death never ends. It is practically run on sentences witout them being sentences. So it looks like a long poem that has no breaks in stanzas or lines. But each sentence is short and sharp. There are many sharp and short sentences in the poem and that ives the sense of ending something abruptly it symbolizes how death will one day arrive and bring something to an end. On the other hand  the other poem translation one is devided in stanzas and breaks. They say the same thing because are translating the same ideas.  The one that has breaks I stanza is giving a different message than the one that is compltelty follow through. I think that the problem is that it was a different interpretation. In could have therethe breaks could symbolize that it just ends and then stops and it’s a cycle. That there is no logic In what I am writing but yet there is. szymborska is presenting a different side to the story. The different structures show how there are differences in structure. ThereBut She will never come and it if amazing because the world is changing and the translation is going to become hard. A pressure that left when we went to the church, and the place will change if there are no things that hurt us. I will want to walk, I cant go up, but it was completely worth it.