Ard Posthuma translated Nietzsche’s poems: ‘You don’t ask what the Mona Lisa is about’

What did 80-year-old Ard Posthuma translate? Dutch poets such as Cees Nooteboom to German; Chrétien de Troyes, Goethe, Kafka – just to name a few – and now Nietzsche in Dutch. “Maybe this is my last trick,” he says.

Last April, Posthuma (Haarlem, 1942) suffered a cerebral haemorrhage that led to a form of aphasia. “Everything is clear inside, but if you try to put something into words, it is more difficult.” He searches for the words and finds them every now and then, but sometimes not. A conversation in fits and starts. Frustrating for someone who has devoted his entire life to language? ,,I am not angry. That’s just the way it is.”

Rejected poems by Annie MG Schmidt

In addition, there are several projects in the pipeline. Like a new translation of Castle Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky. The first half of the book was already finished and he translated the second half together with his wife Ursula. What matters to him is that the heirs have rejected his translation of poems by Annie MG Schmidt into German. “While those verses turned out very well, also because they contain an extra layer for adults.”

Why did Nietzsche’s poems have to be translated? “Because it hadn’t happened yet. I submitted it myself to the Historical Publisher. Individual poems had been translated, often as part of the prose texts such as The happy science but the whole was not there yet.”

That’s all I am is a bilingual edition. The translation contains notes that provide background information about the poem. “I still held back. The literature on Nietzsche’s work is immense.” The erudition splashes off the pages. “I couldn’t have translated this so well if I hadn’t translated Goethe before. Forty years ago I could not have done this.”

On the same toilet bowl as the great thinker

Nietzsche has long played a role in Posthuma’s life. He studied in Basel at the university where Nietzsche once taught. One of his heart’s desires was to get a room in the house once occupied by Nietzsche just behind the university.

‘It was poorly maintained and, judging by the laundry hanging outside, was inhabited at the time by Italian seasonal workers. Unfortunately, no room ever became available and my dream of being able to sit on the same toilet bowl as the great thinker was not fulfilled,’ Posthuma writes in his introduction.

The translator goes upstairs and returns a moment later with the recently recovered lecture notes from his student days. Not to show learned quotes about Thus spake Zarathustra but to show a drawing in which a bird and a sun can be recognized and a human being balancing on a tightrope.

A game, but not a game

Posthuma finds the question of whether Nietzsche is a real poet difficult to answer. “The philosopher sneaks into the poet and vice versa: the poet into philosophy.” Nietzsche sometimes introduces himself as a jester within his poems. “It’s a game for him, but not a game.”

The poem rhyme remedy ends with the lines ‘Whoever doesn’t manage to rhyme now, / – I bet, I bet – / he must pay for it!’ That may say something about every human being, but it also shows how seriously Nietzsche takes poetry. His illness is pessimism and poetry may be medicine for him.”

Everything is possible in a poem

Finally, Posthuma has included a prose text with unmistakable poetic qualities. Today it would be called a prose poem. “After all, everything is possible in a poem, including this genre change. Composer Alphons Diepenbrock used this text for a score.” The text is titled In great silence . The interviewer need not see this symbolically. “The translation was already completed before the cerebral infarction.”

Whoever reads Posthuma’s translations knows that he is not a boring, literal translator and that the reader will be surprised by brilliant and sometimes controversial finds. In the Dionysian dithyrambs , completed before Nietzsche became ill, the poet is writing extremely freely and the translation also takes on the same panache (see box). Suddenly it says ‘Howl-howl!’ for.

Postuma with visible pleasure: ,,It had to be there. The publisher wanted to change it. The expression may have been too closely linked to Geert Wilders at first, but nowadays it is Standard Dutch.” His wife Ursula adds: ,,We checked whether ‘Snikkerdesnik sob’ was better.” Postuma: ,,But that was not the case.”

No clear answers

The cycle Dionysian dithyrambs are not easy to understand poems. Posthuma asked some connoisseurs what the poems are about, but did not receive any clear answers. Hoon was rather his share. “You don’t ask what the Mona Lisa is about.”

“Yes”, Posthuma answers resolutely when asked if he is proud of the end result. The book will be presented on Friday 10 March in the Lutherse Kerk in Groningen. He hasn’t touched the book yet. This collection opens the door to Nietzsche’s philosophy. They are intense poems, but I also hopefully show that they are occasionally witty. It would be wrong to only emphasize the gravity.”

Title That’s all I am. Author Friedrich Nietzsche. Translation by Ard Posthuma. With essays by Piet Gerbrandy, Martine Prange and Mariëtte Willemsen. Publisher Historical Publisher. Price 40 euros (312 pages)