…until, with reflection and understanding, we suddenly recognize that world as our own, understood at a more profound level. In this new book, Ken Gorfkle’s translation and commentary on Rosenmann-Taub’s poems shed new light on a body of work that has been praised for decades but rarely examined in depth.
Rosenmann-Taub’s poetry has been translated and anthologized over four continents during the last seven decades. Gorfkle’s book now breaks new ground in three important domains:
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- This anthology marks the first time that an English translation is available to introduce Rosenmann-Taub’s work to the American audience.
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- The book gives in-depth interpretations of a substantial number of poems that attempt the greatest possible fidelity to the poet’s expressive intention. Employing the hermeneutics of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur and the contemporary translation theory of translational hermeneutics as his approach to interpreting and expressing the poet’s work, Gorfkle first translates the poems word for word, then paraphrases them for the reader’s comprehension. Professional and lay readers alike are now able to access the meaning of a substantial number of Rosenmann-Taub’s poems, in both English and Spanish.
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- Gorfkle translates and comments on poems that address different aspects of the human condition: life and death, knowledge and self-knowledge, God and nature, development and regression, eroticism, familial and social relationships, and consciousness and unconsciousness. In doing so, he illuminates Rosenmann-Taub’s worldview in these domains for the first time.
