Translating Poetry The Art of the (Im)Possible (original) (raw)
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A Poem in Translation is a Poem in Transition...!
Abstract: A poem in translation goes through various changes! The article tries to explain and analyze the factors, which affect the process of translation. Bringing poem from a source language to target language is influenced by key factors like Tradition and History of the Literature, Poet, Medium (Language) and Translator. How each factor plays an important role while a poem is being conceived and later on expressed is also explained in the article. Similarly, when the process of translation initiates how these factors become a challenge for the translator is emphasized followed by the analysis of the role of the translator. The „uniqueness‟ of the poem created due to these factors is also discussed in the article which subsequently emerge as fundamental questions for the translator with an expectation for an answer. However, the product of translation is not discussed much in the article, as the focus of the article is the process of translation of a poem. Keywords:
Translating Poetry. Contemporary Theories and Hypotheses
2008
Few writers depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as the poet, for whom each word is often essential. We can find examples of fine poetry in all cultures, poetry rich in the demeanour and presence of language, filled with the richness that makes a language unique and interesting. Some would argue that without the variance found in· dissimilar languages poetry, would fail us as a comprehensive art; could we have the peculiar grammar of Emily Dickinson beside the lyricism of Baudelaire if both poets were constrained to use the same language? Great poetry cannot survive the process of translation, namely it cannot preserve alf its initial qualities after having been translated. Surprisingly enough, this is not due to the difficulty of translating the metrical pattern, but to the nature of poetry itself. The usefulness of the debate on translating is that it compels us to look more critically at the task of the poet and the function of poetry. Poetry is neither just w...
Translating Poetry: Possibility or Impossibility?
Journal of College of Education for Women, 2019
Translating poetry is considered one of the most complicated types of translations. It encounters many difficulties, the most important of which is the question of possibility or impossibility of translating poetry. So, it is better to start by asking the following question: is the translation of poetry possible? Or is it impossible? It is definitely a rhetorical question because translation is as old as the presence of translated texts, which fills the shelves of libraries. One can ask despite these difficulties, who would discourage people of the world from translating poetry merely because it is fundamentally impossible? (Mann, 1970: 211) The present paper will elaborate, in more detail, upon the necessary traits of translation and poetry, and will seek the intellectual attitudes that deal with the issue of the possibility or impossibility of translating poetry by representing the views with or against the translation of poetry, as well as shedding some light on the problematic i...
Poetry – Challenges of Untranslatability
2014
Translating a literary work is a very difficult task because of its relevant aesthetic and expressive values. The aesthetic values reflect the beauty of the writer’s figurative language. The expressive values reflect the writer’s thoughts and emotions. Hence, the translator must focus on transferring such values from the source language into the target language. As a separate genre of literature, poetry has something that makes it different from the others. Thus, the beauty of a poem does not result from diction, as is the case with novels and short stories, but also from rhythm, rhyme, meter, and particular expressions and structures, which may not match with those of the daily language user. In a word, translating of poetry much more attention and hard work than translating other literary genres. Through this paper, we aim to present some brief considerations about poetry translation, and offer certain considerations related to the procedure stages of translating a poem.
Translators' Dilemmas in Translating Poetry
Studies in Linguistics, Culture and FLT, 2021
Abstract: Poetry translation is considered the most challenging type of translation. Translators are faced with many dilemmas as they work on several different levels simultaneously in an attempt to preserve in the target language as many features of a particular poem as possible. This is not an easily achievable aim, especially, if the poems are products of a poetic mastermind who skilfully juggled with a range of poetic features. The study at hand aims to analyse the treatment that the poetry of one such poetic genius, Gane Todorovski, received when rendered from Macedonian into English. More precisely, given the profound differences between Macedonian and English, the study investigates how specific poetic features such as rhyme, rhythm, sound, tropes, word choice and word order have been handled in the translation. It also tries to provide answers to several common translators’ dilemmas that obligatorily emerge in the process of poetry translation. The study shows that the translators of Gane Todorovski’s poetry have been fully aware of the poetic qualities of the original poems and have made every effort to preserve them in the translation, although some losses were practically unavoidable.
Problems in Translating Poetry
Retrieved December, 2003
Basically, poetry translation should be semantic translation for a poem is typically rich with aesthetic and expressive values. The translator may face the linguistic, literary and aesthetic, and socio-cultural problems in translating it. The linguistic problems include the collocation and obscured syntactic structure. The aesthetic and literary problems are related with poetic structure, metaphorical expressions, and sounds. While the sociocultural problems arise when the translator translates expressions containing the four major cultural categories: ideas, ecology, behavior, and products. This article shows some basic considerations on how to solve them.
Theory and practice in poetry translation
2019
The main purpose of this paper is to explore how much knowing the literary translation theories affects the final translations of the translators. Therefore, a group of 100 students of translation studies in Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman were selected for this study, half of them were sophomore students who do not know anything about the literary translation theories and the second half were the senior students who have already passed the literary course and were familiar with the related theories. Furthermore, the English general knowledge of participants were assessed by a placement test, their poetic talents have also been assessed for close investigation of the outcomes, then they were asked to translate two poems namely A red red rose by Robert Burns and Poverty by Ahmad Shamlou translate from English to Persian and vice versa Also, Lefevere's seven strategies of poetry translation have been applied in this study. One of the findings of the research revealed the direct relationship existing between poetic attitude of the participants and their translations. Another finding of this study represents the fact that those participants who were familiar with the poetry translation strategies created better poetic translations than those who were not.
Among translation issues, poetry translation is the most problematic area challenging both translators and authorities in the field of translation studies. Translation of poetry as a yet unanalyzed 'black box' (Francis 2006) has been a much debated issue since olden times, with many pros and cons and dichotomist reasoning as to its possibility or impossibility. This is due to the high cultural prestige of poetry which requires time, effort and ingenuity to translate traditional rhyme, rhythm structures and the figurative language involved. In the present study, a Persian piece of poetry by the contemporary Iranian poet, Musavi Garmaroodi, A. (1984) and its English translation by Vahid, D. H. (2006) will be focused upon and descriptively analyzed at both linguistic and extra linguistic levels.