Can Poetry Be Translated?

Larry - and all participants to this Interaction - my sincere apologies for the foregoing interruption.

Possibly, I should have sent dlowan a pm. My only hope is that others can use those character maps and pass them along.

The subject of literature/poetry in translation is of great interest to me. I was privileged to participate in a similar interchange on Café Utne a few weeks ago. Many works were quoted. One of particular interest was the translation of Neruda's "The Poet's Obligation": "To . . . whoever is cooped up in house or office factory or woman (mujer)." Surely, the word woman - mujer - should be translated to mean "marriage." However, it has not been done so in any works I've been able to find.

There are comparison charts on the Internet of the various translations of "Omar Khayyam." Finally, Fitzgerald has been declared "the winner." As far as, Homer translators, the latest ones by the Princeton Professor (sorry, I don't have his name at hand) have won high acclaim.

In my humble opinion, we should read for enjoyment after ascertaining to the best of our ability that this is the most accurate translation available. And cheers to those who can read the "original"!

My "apologies" were wipe out ...
Larry and all, I just wrote an apology for my digression to your interaction, hit the "submit," and it was wiped out! I'll try to come back tonight. Good wishes, Charli

0ops! Maybe now it's here?

Don't apologize, digressions are welcome. If the subject is good, then we'll get back to it.

Meanwhile, I am going to add those links to our Helpful Links Section. Thanks!

might work in the reply box the same way it does in the word processor. if i do alt+u then the letter to be umlauted...

üäïö


und back to poesies...

Nonesense, the point is that if one does not know the original language, one is taking the translation on good faith, whether it is prose or poetry. You're picking nits here, Boss.

Correct!

This is one reason why there are SO MANY translations of the Torah.
If the Torah is not translated in the original language , it seems that an exact and precise translation is unlikely.

agree with Larry about the difference between poetry and prose. It's easier to capture the tempo and sense of a language when translating prose.
In both cases, an understanding of the other culture is needed, but I think there is a need of rythm some special mastery in both languages (not only the one you translate into) for poetry translations.
I have professionaly translated Sciascia and Buzzati into Spanish. I dared to translate a couple of poems by Pasolini as a part of an essay (giving both versions), but wouldn't dare to translate a poetry book.

Gah, I cannot remember the translator's names, but I read a lot of translated French Symbolist poetry which was quite well done...Baudelaire and Rimbaud in particular.

I was wondering if New Haven has the Marcia Falk translation of the Song of Songs....I found it to be quite good.

Thanks to cavfancier I have found this topic.

It is my opinion that a "translated" poem is another poem with inspiration from the "original."
The translation and the original have totally different rhymes, sounds of words, and images.

Good point, Satt!

G'morning all... just getting up, hot water on the stove.

Isn't every reader (heck every reading) an interpretation
and therefore a translation? ... This is art!




TRANS, PLANS, AND WORDAMOBILES

Your language is not mine, and my thoughts are not yours,
a work is a piece but what you do with it soars.
The flights of imagination, that catch elucidation,
are merely hung on the words that one scores.
Don't blame the word, or even the meaning
when your own mind flocked to such sky with a gleaning
that even the author squinted or ignored.

Discovery. Travel. Experience spreads like a fire!
Every notion and thought, on the map just a dot,
is but translated from the world of desire.
And could you say a poem is the same or is not
when the first author was perhaps just a liar, sent to inspire?

Heck not to mention the time-travel, hardly rare,
transposing our being into another place.
"Ooh, I felt like I was really there,
and even had a different face!"
Almost everyone leaves their dictionary at home
when they really want to get somewhere, through space.

Translate, translate, please!
Another page, just in time.





Coffee's on, gotta go! But for those more literal, just
consider Rumi without a view.
(Rumi thread here).

Well said! (Good poem, too. I love the second line.)

A grasping is not an interpretation.

I don't know what you mean, Satt. Two people can look at something, read something, for example, and each "grasp" a different view, a different interpretation from the reading. Who is to say which is correct? In the same way we can hear a piece of music, or play a piece of music in different ways, or see some work of art and have it remind one person of something that is outside the experience of another.

There is a poem. Then there is the reading of it by a person, Reading 1. The same words, read by a second person in Reading 2 may look at something else within the poem, emphasize something else because that person brings something of his/her own experience into the reading.

Even the poet writing a poem is inspired but may not always see every nuance that can be extracted. At least, that is what I think!

Piffka..
I must admit that one may grasp contents of a poem through a good translation. But it is not an interpretation but an appreciation. What is a good translation of a poem is very difficult to judge, and it is safe to think a translated poem is a different poem than the original. At least rhymes are newly given with original ones lost.

Oh, I see what you are saying. I admit, I'd gotten away from the original focus of a translated vs an original poem.

Definitely, a translated poem can never be anything but different from the original -- if it gets the rhythm and rhyme right, the meaning may be lost, if the meaning stays close to the original, how can the rhyme & rhythm be right. I guess we'd have to say sadly that the translated poem will never be as good as the original, either. Nevertheless, it is nice to have at least part of the vision of whatever the poet wanted to say, which is better than nothing.

I am certainly pleased to be able to read the poems of ancient China even though I know I'm reading them in faulty translations. The glass for me is half-full.

Is there correctness in art?

"I just don't understand that work..."
"Oh, now I understand it . It means THIS."
"No wait, I misunderstood that piece. I was completely wrong."

Is it possible to say these things?!? This is a new idea for me. How would you know what is correct, that you have it right?

Even if an artist comes straight out and explains what he meant,
most art does not actually say the intended thing.
It's impossible! ... unless you chop off the artists mind and stick it into your own.

Can any understanding ever be the same between two people,
so that the audience is finally "correct"?

I agree with Satt ... the translation is another expression of a poem,
similar but not the same.

As far as I know, translated ancient chinese poems you have posted in other threads are excellent ones. I find new aspects or nuances of images in them which I would not notice on cursory reading of the original. I think it is great.

CodeBorg -- Of course, it is true there is no real "right" in art... though there are certainly "wrongs" IMO. And no, I have never stood in front of a painting and said, "I understand" nor read a poem and believed I "got" it all. I have played or sung music and wondered if I would ever do so as the composer intended, even if every note was true.

In the translation of poetry it seems to me that there is a "right" or correct way to translate a word or phrase into another language. Unfortunately the nuances of the word or phrase are hard to recreate. Its origins (maybe it's part of a well-known quote, for example) or its rhythm and rhyme may be lost. Surely you agree with that?

The originator of an idea put into poetic language meant something and said it in a way that was beautiful. To recreate that meaning and also all of the beauty of rhythm, sound, clarity, etc. is impossible. That is what I meant by right. There are words in many languages that cannot be immediately translated into English -- you need long explanations which lose the original appeal of a deft turn of phrase.

We've been looking at some Chinese poems that had only a few Chinese ideograms but to explain the meaning, it would take as many stanzas. The clear brevity, the rhythm if you will, was lost. There were also underlying meanings behind words -- and I just am scratching the surface here, being unschooled in this -- that a word may mean two or three different things, if pronounced with a slight difference. The word or phrase may be part of some significant piece of literature, or be common knowledge to the ancients. There are just a lot of layers which add to the poem's beauty and original appeal. It would be impossible to recreate that. The translation while good and maybe beautiful, is faulty.

Still and even for me, a common person of this century, in the translation of an ancient and revered poem I can find a lot to love. A lot of the beauty and meaning of the best translations remain... may even have been recreated. If I were one of these ancient poets and could look ahead to the next millenium, I would surely be pleased that someone was still interested in what I had to say. It is interesting, too, that some poems which were well-loved back then do not have nearly the appeal. Their references are so far outside our sphere... they just don't make sense anymore without a lot of extraneous explanation.

Satt - I would like to return to reading some of the Chinese poetry you pointed me towards. I'm glad you were pleased with the few translations I found. I liked them, too.

Codeburg said:



Yes, Codeburg... it is an interpretation of their OWN. To know exactly what was on the Artist's mind, when writing the prose, poem, or painting, etc... I believe you would have to have the ORIGINATOR come clean and be brutally frank.

Some how, I doubt artists would even do that. For they chose the form to be subtle, mysterious or cryptic-- and it is lovely, the diversities people see in different things.
As they share their interpretations, understanding EXPANDS.

That-- being the beauty of all ART- we would not want to diminish it, would we?

(thanks for such a thoughtful topic, I am enjoying different views.)