***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 07:56:42 -0500
   [From]: "Juan Jose Diaz Infante" <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@herz.kbx.de>
[Subject]: The decoders


Hello everyone

It seems that the text of Philadelpho Menezes posted by me yesterday stroke
the chord the essay was talking about.    I even received a private mail --
which I think should be extended to the list, it is a very important
complement to my mail --of the Altavista Translator of portuguese into
english.

The mail that I wrote yesterday was exactly about that, there is no decoder
from a complex system into a simpler system or for a text like that, either
as language or sense of content. It is like applying the altavista
translator to the Miguel Hernandez poem "Elegia". You just can not, it
becomes another thing.

In Spanish you have the verb "ser" which is different from "estar", in
English you only have "to be" which translate "ser o estar", but
unfortunately are not the same thing. When Shakespeare writes "to be or not
to be" (estar o no estar...) en espa–ol takes a totally different dimension
when the "interpretation" becomes "ser o no ser, " Poetry, emotional
narrative and art esa es la cuesti—n...

Juan Jose