Cruellest Month #25: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Dom provides something special for Day 25 of National Poetry Month Audio:

Already during the first celebration of National Poetry Month here on Need Coffee, I wanted to do this: Reading the original German version of Goethe’s “Der Zauberlehrling” (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”), which inspired a lot of music and most famously among popculturists: Disney‘s “Fantasia” (and somehow a Nicolas Cage movie) then offer an English reading as well.

Sadly though, the available translations are covered by a newer copyright than the long-in-the-public domain original. Since we don’t like to steal, I tried translating the poem myself, dreading the task since translating poetry will never ever truly work. The result, after the invaluable correction and polish by Dindrane, is a translation that is very close to the original’s content. The rhyme and meter have not been emulated, which does not sadden me, since this is a narrative poem.

Widge back again. So this is a single audio file. Dom leads off reading the original German, and he asked me to tackle the new English translation. His performance is much cooler, I’ll just go ahead and warn you of that.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.needcoffee.com/podcasts/sorcerers-apprentice-goethe.mp3]

You can download it directly here and a unique feed is here. Enjoy.

Last year at this time we were listening to an original.
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