










































Preface

This volume 32 of Delos, the second of the revived annual 
issues after the thirteen-year hiatus 2003-2016, continues to 
improve. 

  First, the three rubrics of the contents, (a) analytical/critical 
essays, (b) actual translations, and (c) reviews of already pub-
lished works on or of translations, are in a much better propor-
tional balance. In the first category, we are delighted to feature 
the work of the dean of American Kafka translators, Stanley 
Corngold. Translations, however, particularly verse translations 
presented in bilingual format, predominate and are welcome to 
continue to dominate in years to come. 

Secondly, we are continuing to draw on the larger national 
pool of translators and scholars in the field of translation for the 
new Editorial Board, including the distinguished scholar and 
translator Elizabeth Lowe, and, from Classics at the University 
of Florida, Gonda van Steen. On the executive side—involving 
the actual hard work—are two new positions, the Managing Edi-
tor, Dr. Judy Shoaf, and the Review Editor, Professor Alexander 
Burak. We are grateful to the College of Liberal Arts and Sci-
ences of the University of Florida in support of Delos by lending 
Judy to us, with her long experience as the Managing Editor of 
Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance 
Studies. 

Another aspect of improvements is the addition of contri-
butions by talented young translators and advanced graduate 
students—although this inclusiveness means countermanding 
one of my own erstwhile professorial ironic transmogrification 
and adaptation for literary translation of a political slogan from 
the late 1960s: “Never trust anyone under the age of thirty.”

Finally, after a year of intermittent efforts, Delos is ready for 
launch on the Florida Online Journal System. Both the 2016 is-
sue and the current issue will be available at http://journals.fcla.
edu/delos. We will not, however, use this interface for editorial 
purposes; submissions should still be emailed to the editors.

http://journals.fcla.edu/delos
http://journals.fcla.edu/delos


One of the things that gives a note of distinctiveness to the 
new and revived issues of Delos is the addition of an annual 
theme. For volume 31 in 2016 it was “Literature and Music,” 
and for volume 32 in 2017 it is “Literature and Image.” We are 
pleased to have attracted such submissions as the translations 
of Augusto de Campos’s concrete poetry and of Marina Co-
lasanti’s illustrated modern fairy tales, as well as more subtle 
evocations of images of smoke, light, and towery cities. We 
propose the theme of “Literature and History” for the 2018 is-
sue, with a deadline for manuscript submissions of October 31, 
2017. In the case of Delos, history begins, arguably, just prior 
to the birth of any living contemporary, in other words, in the 
years around World War I, and thus 2018 is a convenient point 
for a hundred-year commemoration. At the same time, we hope 
to find translations of works looking at history in other parts of 
the world. And although there is a significant and very welcome 
expansion of Russian and Brazilian-Portuguese contributions in 
the 2017 Delos, I call specifically for expansion of translations 
from the source languages, literatures and cultures of Africa, 
Asia, and India for possible publication in Delos 2018 ff. 

2017 also happens to be an important anniversary year, the 
commemoration of the Reformation, five hundred years ago in 
1517. Is it too much of a stretch to revisit and reflect on religious 
toleration and the role of religion today in literature in general 
and literary translation specifically? I do not think so. Limiting 
myself to my own narrow specialty in comparative literature and 
German Studies I nevertheless will give here and now the brief-
est of brief answers to that timely question. Who is the modern 
European poet who has given voice to religious toleration in the 
form of a god-seeker? Arguably, Rainer Maria Rilke. At the high 
point of interest in Rilke in the post-World War II era in 1962, 
reflected in countless translations into English, it was Walter 
Kaufmann who perceptively included the lyric celebrations of re-
ligious diversity by including the following poems by Rilke in his 
translations in the Modern Library Collection/Random House: 
“Rabbi Loew,” “Buddha,” “Buddha in his Glory,” and “Archaic 
Torso of Apollo.” The poem dedicated to the Greek god Apollo 
closes with the famous half-line, challenging the contemplative 
viewer or reader: “…you must change your life.”



I’m concluding these comments on the aims and aspirations 
of Delos with a note of affection for Harold P. Hanson, editor of 
Delos from 1991 through 2003, who died last year, April 7, 2016, 
in Gainesville.  One of his last public appearances also turned 
out to be a high point in this Physics professor’s moonlighting 
occupation as an editor and literary translator. On April 21, 
2010, the hundredth anniversary of the original publication of 
Norwegian Nobellist Sigrid Undset’s poetry collection Ungdom 
(Youth), Harold Hanson and his son Steve were special guests 
at an event co-sponsored by the Royal Norwegian Embassy 
and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Harold was the 
first translator of Ungdom into English, and at this celebration he 
presented a published book of the original poems and his trans-
lations, with beautifully curated illustrations. This issue of Delos 
is dedicated to Harold P. Hanson.

H. H. R.

February 9, 2017


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