Research into poetry translation dominates translation studies (Jones, 2011:181), due to the genre’s high status (Bassnett, 2002:114) and the “rich variety of problems” (Jones, 2011:182) it poses translators. This essay will discuss the challenges faced by poetry translators - both those which all literary translators encounter and those specifically relevant to poetry. I will illustrate my points by referring to Roy Campbell’s translation (Fleurs du mal, 2014) of Baudelaire’s 1861 poem L’Albatros and James Kirkup’s translation (University of Pennsylvania, 2014) of Apollinaire’s 1912 poem Le pont Mirabeau (see Appendix). Due to space constraints, I will focus solely on issues associated with the translation process itself, rather than those relating to the wider concern of earning a living from translating poetry (e.g. securing funding and dealing with publishers).
According to Holmes (1988:9), poetry is the “most complex of all linguistic structures, [in which] a whole range of significations, and not simply the signification most obvious or most logical, fuse to create the total ‘meaning’ and the total effect.” The use of ambiguity and polysemy (which according to Landers (2001:97) is “one of the hallmarks of literature”) is less of a concern for translators working with prose texts (Holmes, 1988:9), as context usually clarifies which specific signification is intended. However, if the source text (whether poetry or prose) is ambiguous or polysemous, this should be replicated in the target text so that it too is open to a variety of interpretations (Boase-Beier, 2009:195) and does not “reduce the dynamic role of the reader” (Hatim and Mason, 1990:11).
One of the most important issues for any literary translator, not only p...
... middle of paper ...
...Literature Context. Modern Language Association of America.
Osers, E. (1993) Some aspects of the translation of poetry. In H. Schulte and G. Teuscher (eds.) The Art of Literary Translation. University Press of America, 159-173.
Paul, G. (2009) Translation in Practice: a Symposium. Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press.
Preminger, Alex Brogan, T. V. Brogan & V. F. Terry (1993) The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 3rd edition. London: Princeton University Press/Macmillan.
Sorrell, M. (2000) Rhyme’s wrongs: dealing with Verlaine’s rhymes in English. In M. Salama-Carr (ed.) On Translating French Literature and Film. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 73-88.
University of Pennsylvania (2014) Apollinaire, le pont Mirabeau. Webpage, on website Penn: University of Pennsylvania. Available at http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Apollinaire_Mirabeau.html, accessed 18 May 2014.
Poetry and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9nd ed. New York: Longman, 2005. Pgs 389-392
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Strand, Mark and Evan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New
69. Print. Strand, Mark, and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of Poetic
Raffel, Burton. and Alexandra H. Olsen Poems and Prose from the Old English, (Yale University Press)Robert Bjork and John Niles,
...us 75.1 (Jan. 1991): 150-159. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 58. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 2001. 123-154.
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
Translating a poem is no easy task and requires a new style of thinking, but exploring a poem in a foreign language compels a higher level of engagement within poetry. When I first began scanning this foreign poem a feeling of being overwhelmed came over me. I had so much to do and it seemed I had so far to go. In “an ABC of Translating Poetry”, Willis Barnstone exclaims, “the translator plays with nothingness, with la nada, and from nothing comes everything” (Barnstone). Thus, when I began to explore my poem I decided I needed to first get a clear grasp on my poem and its structure. “Hagamos
Thomas." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. 101-10. Print.
M.H. Abrams, et al; ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume I. W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London, 1993.
Abrams, M.H., et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. 2 Vols. New York: Norton, 1993.
Ellmann, Richard and Robert O’Clair. Modern Poems. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1989.
Abrams, M. H., et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1986.