Augusta Gregory (1852–1932)
“The Grief of a Girl’s Heart,” draft translation of “Donal Og”
Undated
Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
“The Grief of a Girl’s Heart”
Augusta Gregory (1852–1932)
“The Grief of a Girl’s Heart,” draft translation of “Donal Og”
Undated
Gregory’s version of the eighth-century lament “Donal Og” (“Young Donal”), which she titled “The Grief of a Girl’s Heart,” is the most renowned of her Irish translations. In it, a young woman pours out her sorrow at the prospect of the man she loves going “across the sea” without her, despite all his promises. The poem has been acclaimed for its incantatory, nonmetrical rhythms, and for the effect of its “Kiltartan” language and its intensifying compression of the original. Published with many of her other translations in The Kiltartan Poetry Book, it has been reprinted widely since. It was the favorite poem of the English poet Ted Hughes, who said “I think no short poem has ever hit me so hard, or stayed with me so closely.”
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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