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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Williams in TranslationThe results of the First-Ever Radio Free Mike Tennessee Williams Re-Titling Contest are in! The challenge was to agree on a better German title for A Streetcar Named Desire, since Endstation: Sehnsucht had the cadence and sensuousness of a three-pound liverwurst.
It was almost a dead heat between the most literal choice, Eine Straßenbahn Namens Verlangen, and a write-in candidate, Eine Straßenbahn Namens Sehnsucht. "Verlangen" means longing, sexual or otherwise. "Sehnsucht" is almost the same and consists of two evocative roots -- sehnen (to yearn) and suchen (to seek) -- but it has too many consonants and that awkward trochaic clonk. So Verlangen, which gives the title a nice rolling rhythm, wins by the slimmest of tie-breaking votes -- mine.
I still think German lacks a good word for "desire." Begier and Gelüst and Trieb all sound unsinuous and bony. Geilheit is a thing for animals; which didn't prevent Die Geile Bahn from chugging happily up in third place. In German slang it also means "The Cool Train," so I guess it deserves to be the title of maybe an Ice Capades show.
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
1:23 PM
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