I am trying to translate the last stanza of the poem 'The Mask' for a book I am writing;however, the words 'shuffle' and 'stepped 'n fetched' are giving me problems. These words are so embedded in the 'American Experience' that they seem particularly difficult to 'extract from the flesh'. Any suggestions?
Can you post the stanza in its entirety? I think I may be able to help, but some context is needed.
It also would help to know into which language you're planning to translate the poem, that way speakers of that language would/could be able to give suggestions of translations.
He means this last stanza (Angelou adapted it from Paul Laurence Dunbar's 1896 "We Wear the Mask"):
They laugh to conceal their crying,
They shuffle through their dreams
They stepped ’n fetched a country
And wrote the blues in screams.
I understand their meaning,
It could an did derive
From living on the edge of death
They kept my race alive
By wearing the mask! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Break down of the first four lines:
They concealed their crying with laughter
they staggered1 through what they aspired for (hopes and dreams),
they were at the servitude of a country
and created the genre of blues as an outlet (Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. (source))
I agree with your interpretation of the stanza--honestly, it's way better than what I could have come up with.
They shuffle through their dreams
Shuffle, swing, and groove are the essentials of jazz. So I understand this line as "They spoke of their dreams/realized their dreams through jazz"
They stepped ’n fetched a country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit
The line says I guess that every Afro-American was stereotyped as "The Laziest Man in the Country" so they all were stereotyped as the laziest people in the country.
Hmm, I like that interpretation. They shuffle (the act of swinging and grooving) the way they would to music they do for their dreams.
Second line sounded pretty straight forward = to step and fetch something - to do something for someone. To be on their feet and go do/fetch something. But is 'step' used like that?
Well, Ellen, I think it may be both - to run errands for someone and having to live down the stereotype as the song speaks of wearing a mask.
