Web Translation Projects/Translation of Poetry

The aim of this project is to provide learners with some insight into the theory and practice of translation of poetry. This project is descriptive rather than prescriptive. This project is meant to be an introduction. I encourage you to do your own research as well.

The Polyphonic Character of Language
Before delving into a more systematized enumeration of more overt obstacles that a translator might — and most likely will — encounter whilst "having a go" at translating poetry, we must take account of a bigger, more overarching aspect of the language of poetry that might cause some trouble to the inexperienced translator. This aspect could be defined as the polyphonic character of language.

Linguistic polyphony is an utterance act theory, and in its principle, it is a part of the more extensive study of pragmatic studies and linguistics. Linguistic polyphony as a theory has its roots in many systematic studies of 'various voices' that we can detect - be it in music or literature. Most notable of grandfathers of linguistic polyphony is Mikhail Bakhtin, with his in-depth study of dialogism and polyphony of voices in literature (his main focus being Dostoyevsky). Further elaboration on dialogism and Bakhtin's work is way beyond the scope of this project, however, if you wish to learn more, basic information about Bakhtin you can find here, and about the Bakhtin circle ("a 20th century school of Russian thought which centered on the work ") here.

Literary language by itself is polyphonic - unlike the language of e.g. law, literature encourages the appearance of the multiplicity of meanings and allows for the polyphony of not only voices, but also meanings and interpretations. Poetry is a form of literature that embraces the polyphonic aspect of utterances to its fullest - it is precisely the multiplicity of striking and yet logical meanings that seems to characterize poetry. It is the polyphonic aspect of language that allows for multiple readings of poems.

A translator must remember this feature of language - poetic language. It most likely is impossible to render the polyphony of meanings and interpretative fields of the orginal in translation. Nevertheless, one must acknowledge the polyphony of meanings in language in order to be able to properly interpret the poem they are translating.

With that in mind, we can go on to a more systematic enumeration of possible issues — linguistic, literary and cultural — that one certainly will encounter while dealing with the translation of poetry.

Difficulties of Poetry Translation
In and of itself, the translation of poetry is alike and completely unlike the translation process of prose or functional texts. While the translation of functional texts does entail numerous difficulties, the issues one may encounter while translating poetry are quite different in nature. Those obstacles could be identified as:

Strategies of Poetry Translation
"The translation of poetry is the field where most emphasis is normally put on the creation of a new independent poem, and where literal translation is usually condemned." - Peter Newmark

There are several approaches to how to translate poetry - some more theoretical, some more practical. Following Andre Lefevere's research on the topic, we can distinguish seven (7) differenet strategies of poetry translation that are in use, with varying popularity.

=== Strategies of Translation of Poetry by A. Lefevere (as in S. Bassnett, 2002, p. 87) ===

In the table above are presented examples of translations strategies based on the practice of poetry translation. We must note that the translation strategy will change depending on the skopos (aim, goal) of the translation and the theoretical approach that we deem appropriate.

Stanisław Barańczak's approach to translation of poetry
Stanisław Barańczak in his work on translation of poetry (both "for children" as well as "for adults") explicates the following important points about translation of poetry:


 * First, while translating poetry, one ought to be ambitious and aim to render as much as possible of the original.


 * Second, translation of poetry, at some level, will always be an act of interpretation.


 * Third, one cannot definitively separate the form from the meaning of the poem - often times, those two rely on each other.


 * Fourth, a translation should be faithful to the poetics of the era of the original. In other words, a translation should not be anachronistic to the original.
 * Fifth - a translator should pay attention to the semantic dominant and the stylistic dominant of a poem. The former means the main, core meaning of the poem (which can be realized by many means, from linguistic to, e.g. rymes in the poem, which could be essential to its meaning); the latter means the main formal characteristics of a poem. (Barańczak notes, that the "type" of poetry a translator is dealing with will suggest on what dominant they should focus. In the case of translation of poetry "for adults" (if there even is a thing that could be called that) - semantic dominant takes precedent. In the case of translation of children's verse, in general stylistic dominant would take precedent, however, this always depends on the skopos of the poem. Before translating, one must evaluate what the poem is "doing" and what do we want to "do" in translation.)
 * Six (which actually should be the first one) - never translate a poem into prose. Barańczak makes it clear that rewriting a poem into prose is the worst thing one could do to it.
 * Seven - do not translate good poetry into bad poetry, i.e. do not translate poetry badly, or at least do not publish it in such form. It's an act of disservice to the original to do that.
 * Eight - a translation, in and of itself, irrespective of the original, should be a work of art. If a translation judged by itself, without knowing the original, has no artistic merit, then it is a bad translation - and should not exist.
 * Nine (although Barańczak does not explicate this as a separate point) - if you aim to stylize the language of translation, then do it either well and accordingly to the times of the original, or do not do it at all.
 * Ten - children's poetry should not be too foreign in translation, because that would make it incomprehensible to a child reader, thus distorting the point of the poem - if the original aims to be "familiar" culturally - some poems should be domesticated.
 * Eleven - children's verse is even more poetic than that aimed for an adult reader - thus, a translator ought to take note of the sonorous, linguistic aspect of an original.

Ezra Pound's approach to translation of poetry
As an interesting example, that strays from the typical practice of poetry translation, it is worth mentioning Ezra Pound's translations of Chinese poetry. Those translations are atypical in the sense that Pound did not know the Chinese language (in any of its dialects) and, while translating classical Chinese poetry, he used glossaries. What is exceptional is despite his lack of competence when it comes to the practical use of the Chinese language, his translations are regarded to be particularly good, if not excellent - some scholars deem them to be one of the best translations of classical Chinese poetry.

In the collection of his poetry Ezra Pound: Translations (1963), published by New Directions, his collection of translations from Chinese is introduced as: "Cathay. For the most part from the Chinese of Rihaku, from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the professors Mori and Ariga. (1915) "

As Bassnett says, Ezra Pound's "purpose in writing the poem, he claimed, was to bring a dead man to life." The phrase "bring a dead man to life" is of utmost importance here - it hints at what Pound's methodology in poetry translation - if we can ever call such practice as that - is. Pound does not claim to be translating a poem literally - his goal is to resurrect the author, to make him speak anew, to paraphrase and rewrite.

In other words, we could say that Ezra Pound's approach to translation is quite evocative of that of the people like John Dryden and Alexander Tytler - he focuses on the spirit of the original, and to him the meaning and the essence of the original are more important than technical linguistic obstacles.

Practical Examples of Poetry Translation
In the following section we will discuss the different practical examples of how a different translation strategy changes the final translatum.

Adam Mickiewicz and Pan Tadeusz
If you wish to read more extensively about the author, you can do so here. Similarly, if you wish to learn more about the poem itself, I invite you to take a look at its Wikipedia page.To showcase diffrenet strategies of translation I provide an excerpt from Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem Pan Tadeusz and chosen translations.

1) Maude Ashurst Biggs, Master Thaddeus or the Last Foray in Lithuania, London 1885 (blank verse)

2) George Rapall Noyes, Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania. A Story of Life among Polish Gentlefolk, London & Toronto, New York 1917 (prose)

3) Marcel Weyland, Pan Tadeusz or the Last Foray in Lithuania, a Tale of the Gentry During 1811 – 1812, Blackheath, NSW 2004 (verse)

4) Leonard Kress, Pan Tadeusz or the Last Foray in Lithuania: a History of the Nobility in the Years 1811 and 1812 in Twelve Books of Verse, Philadelphia 2006 (10 syllables with 5 stresses, with alternating rhymes)

(the above data comes from here, where you can also find a complete list of all existing English translations of the poem - here are displayed just chosen examples)

Excerpts shown above all showcase different strategies of poetry translation - with different results. Biggs's translation, which coincidentally is the oldest one, evokes the epic character of the original through Miltonian blank verse, taking from Milton's role in English poetry and attempting to evoke some of the spirit of his epic poems, such as Paradise Lost. He also takes from the tradition and the role of blank verse in general in English poetry. Here Baraczak most likely would argue that this is too much of the "artistic" liberty of the translator - because Milton is not Mickiewicz's contemporary, and thus this translation can be seen as anachronistic. Weyland's translation is in verse, in rhyming couplets, which is an attempt to be faithful to the rhyming pattern of the original, however one could argue that Weyland's translation loses some of the spirit of the original - the original is an epic poem in its genre, but also the story and the form are epic - whilst the translation is just composed of mere rhyming couplets. Kress' s translation is a notable one - and one Branczak would describe as ambitious. Kress attempts to evoke the rigid formal aspects of the original (written in Polish alexandrines) through the strict formal constraint of 10 syllables with 5 stresses per line. Finally, Noyes translates the epic original into prose, and consequently strips the original off of its epic layer - the poem becomes a quite enjoyable novel with not that innovative plot. In other words, we can say that through such a drastic act, Noyes strips Mickiewicz off of his Mickiewiczness. On the other hand, Noyes makes Mickiewicz's work more approachable.

All of those strategies produce different results that filter the original though a different lense. Ultimately, it is up to the translator to choose the strategy and choose what they deem fit for a particular translation. We could hark back to Baranczak and his ideas about translation of poetry here and say that if a translation holds up on its own, then, we can say that it is a successful one, irregardless of translation strategy applied by the translator.

Questions to the reader
If you wish to expand this project (e.g. provide diffrent examples of interestaing cases of poetry translation), feel free to do so - after contacting the project designer. Thank you!
 * 1) Should poetry be translated?
 * 2) As a translator, would you be more for literal translation or more for rewriting?
 * 3) Which of Lefevere's strategies you do not agree with? Why?
 * 4) Do you think that Barańczak is right, when he calls a translator who gives up on a certain apect of the original lazy? Why?
 * 5) What is your opinion about Ezra Pound's approach to poetry translation? Do you think that a translator should be fluent in the language from which they are transating or not necessarily?
 * 6) Can you think of any examples of poems that significantly change in translation (in terms of their form, meaning or both)?