Translation
In 2010 the first complete translation into English has been done. Before that there was no full translation into any European language. Prem Chaya (Prince Prem Purachatra) began a précis version, The Story of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (1955, 1959), but completed only two of the three planned volumes. J. Kasem Sibunruang compiled an abridged version in French, with some commentary, as La femme, le heros et le vilain. Poeme populaire thai. Khun Chang, Khun Phen (1960). Klaus Wenk translated the famous chapter 24 by Sunthorn Phu word-for-word into German, in Studien zur Literatur der Thai: Texte und Interpretationen von und zu Sunthon Phu und seinem Kreis. Hamburg and Bangkok (1985).
There are very few studies on Khun Chang Khun Phaen in western languages. Prince Bidyalankarana (Krommuen Pitthayalongkon) wrote two articles on the poem in the Journal of Siam Society in 1926 and 1941 which explain the metrical form of the sepha and give a summary of the plot. E. H. S. Simmonds published an aritlce in Asia Major in 1963 which compares one episode in the standard text with a version he recorded in performance.
Khun Chang Khun Phaen has been completely translated into English by husband-and-wife team Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit in 2010.
Read more about this topic: Khun Chang Khun Phaen
Famous quotes containing the word translation:
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 27:6.
KJ translation reads: Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
“Whilst Marx turned the Hegelian dialectic outwards, making it an instrument with which he could interpret the facts of history and so arrive at an objective science which insists on the translation of theory into action, Kierkegaard, on the other hand, turned the same instruments inwards, for the examination of his own soul or psychology, arriving at a subjective philosophy which involved him in the deepest pessimism and despair of action.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)