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  3. Poetry & Literature

la sourde violence

English translation: the muted/suppressed violence

17:11 Apr 25, 2015
French to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / Nouvelles
French term or phrase: la sourde violence
This is from a famous short story by Marguerite Yourcenar, Le sourir de Marko.

I don't have access to the original English translation. Actually I'm translating it in a local language. I would like to know what "Sourd" implies here.
If you can give me some translations in English, I may try to grasp its nuance and render it in local languge.

Here is the line :
Déjà, les formes humbles et ramassées des maisons, la franchise salubre du paysage étaient slaves, mais la sourde violence des couleurs, la fierté nue du ciel faisaient encore songer à l’Orient et à l’Islam. -- M. Y.
Captain Haddock
India
Local time: 18:51
English translation:the muted/suppressed violence
Explanation:
it's hard to know exactly what is meant here, but my feeling is that it is along these lines
Selected response from:

Carol Gullidge
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:21
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
3 +6the muted/suppressed violence
Carol Gullidge
3 +2The hidden/underlying violence
Estelle Demontrond-Box
4mindless ravage/brutality/rage/barbarity
Katarina Peters
4the smothered violence
Charlotte Lomax
3the subdued/muted violence
Verginia Ophof
3secret violence
kashew
4 -1unsounding violence
YorickJenkins
Summary of reference entries provided
In a book title:
kashew
More context in case it's useful
writeaway

Discussion entries: 4





  

Answers


24 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +6
the muted/suppressed violence


Explanation:
it's hard to know exactly what is meant here, but my feeling is that it is along these lines

Carol Gullidge
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:21
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 80
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  philgoddard
25 mins
  -> thanks Phil!
agree  Ben Lenthall
2 hrs
  -> thanks telletubby!
agree  BrigitteHilgner
12 hrs
  -> thanks Brigitte!
agree  Nikki Scott-Despaigne: muted, surpressed is potentially more politically charged, unless that is the intention.
15 hrs
  -> I agree with you, it is, and that's what I'm not sure about. Yourcenar's writing is very compressed, economical…, so could be squeezing in quite a lot of meaning/s
agree  B D Finch
17 hrs
  -> thanks Barbara!
disagree  YorickJenkins: Supressed/muted implies an agency doing the supressing or muting but there is nothing in the French to indicate such an agency.
22 hrs
  -> colours are muted or subdued without having to be quashed by an outside agency; they just are that way
agree  Wendy Streitparth: Definitely - with a slight preference for muted.
22 hrs
  -> thanks Wendy :)
agree  Florentina Constantin
4 days
  -> thanks Florentina!
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38 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
the subdued/muted violence


Explanation:
suggestion

Verginia Ophof
Belize
Local time: 07:21
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 16

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Marian Vieyra: Either sounds good.
12 hrs
  -> Thank you Marian !
disagree  YorickJenkins: I disagree-if it is muted or supressed who or what is doing the muting or supressing?
22 hrs
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41 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
mindless ravage/brutality/rage/barbarity


Explanation:
other possibilities

Katarina Peters
Canada
Local time: 09:21
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in HungarianHungarian, Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 14
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2 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
secret violence


Explanation:
hidden

kashew
France
Local time: 15:21
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 8
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2 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +2
The hidden/underlying violence


Explanation:
Une suggestion


Estelle Demontrond-Box
Australia
Local time: 23:21
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: French
PRO pts in category: 12

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Marian Vieyra: Both are also good choices. Lots of options, really.
10 hrs
  -> Thank you Marian!
agree  katsy
14 hrs
  -> Thank you Katsy!
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22 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): -1
unsounding violence


Explanation:
The style and tone of the French is poetical, hence my suggestion.

YorickJenkins
Local time: 15:21
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
disagree  Carol Gullidge: Poetic or otherwise (and I suggest it's the latter), this sounds as though the violence is being "unsounded" (whatever that might mean); cf sounding the horn, blowing your own trumpet//Not Chambers, etc, and Robert gives douteux and mal fondé for unsound
8 mins
  -> Dictionary definition:not uttered, pronounced, or made to sound.
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11 days   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
the smothered violence


Explanation:
In the immediate context you give, the use of the word 'sourde' almost seems to give an impression of sound insulation, and this fits in with the concept of ambivalence that you describe later on: the insulating wall buffering society from allowing anything to move it. 'Smothered' can imply ambient insulation as well as the transitivity of the verb suggesting the presence of human agency.

Charlotte Lomax
France
Local time: 14:21
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
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Reference comments


2 hrs
Reference: In a book title:

Reference information:
La sourde violence des rêves
K. Sello Duiker

Elsewhere I got to:
Le violet, lui, était une couleur plus inquiétante, fermée, sourde. Il y a de la violence dans le violet, de la menace.

kashew
France
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 8
Note to reference poster
Asker: Merci merci M.

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20 hrs
Reference: More context in case it's useful

Reference information:
La mer, si bleue le matin au large, prenait des teintes sombres à l'intérieur de ce long fjord sinueux bizarrement situé aux abords des Balkans. Déjà, les formes humbles et ramassées des maisons, la franchise salubre du paysage, étaient slaves, mais la sourde violence des couleurs, la fierté nue du ciel, faisaient encore songer à l'Orient et à l'Islam (11).

...

Le lecteur affronte l'ambivalence, celle des situations (Achille déguisé en
femme) et celle du style (<<Le sang collait, comme du fard, aux joues
méconnaissables des cadavres; Hélène peignait sa bouche de vampire
d'un fard qui faisait penser à du sang»). Tout donne à penser que le contact avec le crucifiant soleil de la Grèce, avec un univers d'ombres et de lumières tranchées, de police secrète et de plage, a conféré au livre tout ce qu'il a de sourde violence.

1 - de l'Université libre de Bruxelles
digistore.bib.ulb.ac.be/2011/DL2503255_1988_3_4_000.pdf
conféré au livre tout ce qu'il a de sourde violence. Avant d'aborder la ...... 848-859. * «Le sourire de Marko», Les Nouvelles Littéraires, nov. 1936, pp. 1-2.

writeaway
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 34
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