I don’t know how you got here, but a warm welcome to you. We’re on, with lots of enthusiasm and few certainties.
I should start by introducing myself. So, without further ado: Giuseppe Manuel Brescia. Born in Savona, Italy. Living in West End, Brisbane, Australia. High-flying literary translator. An obsession with words and languages whose roots go back where my memory can’t chase them. I think that might be enough for now.
Why, out of the blue, did I decide to add yet another drop to the blogging ocean? Besides passion, narcissism and interest, the driving force of this adventure is my will to contribute my two cents towards a more appropriate recognition of the precious work of translators. Because – we’ll see this in details in the coming posts – it is not an overstatement to say that translation has been of pivotal importance in human history.
So we’ll talk about translation, here, in particular literary translation, my speciality. The hope is to be able to do so with fellow translators as well as with readers or curious passers-by. With the former, I would like to exchange ideas, going beyond mere technicalities but without losing ourselves in theories, either. As for everyone else, it would be great if their visit could be an opportunity to consider that every time we enjoy a foreign book, or movie, it means that someone, in a room, in front of a computer, spent months inside that work to give us the opportunity to be effortlessly transported elsewhere. And of course it’s not just about entertainment.
Countless similes and metaphors have been coined to describe our work. Algerian writer Amara Lakhous came up with a gem that, in my modest opinion, surpasses many theorists:
“Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the borders of languages with a booty of words, ideas, images and metaphors.”
And that’s exactly what it feels like. Under the reassuring surface of linguistic familiarity, the translated work contains precisely this: smuggled ideas, images, metaphors, elements and principles that originate on the other side of the linguistic border. Alien stories that, once immersed in the accessibility of translation, are transplanted on the other side of the border, literally generating new ways of perceiving, organising, conceiving reality itself.
Stop for a moment, and consider the vital role of translation in the history of human progress. The examples are literally countless. Let’s think about how the Roman Empire could have evolved if the influx of Greek ideas, smuggled through translations, hadn’t progressively modified the mores maiorum.
How would Europe look and sound like if the ideas put forward by French and German, English and Spanish, Russian and Italian thinkers hadn’t cross-pollinated through translation?
Imagine never having read Garcia Marquez, Pennac, Kundera, Nietzsche, or any other foreign author might have opened your mind. It’s impossible to imagine how we would think, but there is no doubt that our brains would function in a very different way.
I think the general idea is clear. That – that and much more, of course – is what we’ll be talking about, with analyses, reflections, case studies, translations, interviews, news. If you’re interested, you’ll find me here. Please drop by, have a read, ruminate, post comments, criticisms, anything that could spark an interesting debate.
See you soon.
Hi Beppe,
It’s a pleasure to encounter you in the sphere of blogging. And I can honestly say that you have nothing to worry about in the way of narcissism, nor should you doubt your literary project in any way. I for one am looking forward to seeing how your project unfolds!
‘Smuggling’ is an interesting choice of word to describe translation. It suggests some illicit activity, fraught with danger, certainly exciting. It’s also nice to picture words smuggled in holds like treasure chests and caskets of rum, waiting to unlock their riches in some foreign port. But, illegality suggests its opposite, and I wonder what Lakhous had in mind to represent the forces of law, order, and literary propriety.
Being an incorrigible monoglot, perhaps I can risk the naive question: at what point do you think translation becomes translation, and not merely literal transcription? At what point with a text do you feel you must dare to be metaphorical and not literal – and, at that point, what are the allegiances that pull you this way and that, that make translation creative?
In general, do you have criteria that you aspire to as a translator – like a poet or musician has criteria that their nature leads them towards?
Regards,
Iian
Hey Iian, thank you so much for your feedback. You were the first to comment, by the way.
The use of the word “smuggling” here refers basically to the innovative quality of “imported” words and ideas, which allows us to challenge not only literary propriety and vocabulary, but most importantly the way of thinking that goes with them. I hinted to it in the post, referring to a linguistic border beyond which the translation introduces new, subversive elements. I will focus on the details in some of the upcoming posts.
As for the monoglot question, in my opinion you can’t really draw that line, as ‘literal transcription’ as you put is a product of incompetence rather than a choice, it rarely makes sense (I’ll address automatic translation, including Google, in a future post, with examples, in order to explain this better to monoglots). The bottom line is that the creative aspect of translation is the language switch itself. Combining the elements of the target language in order to replicate the dynamics and the effect of the original. Sure, I might have to re-word an entire joke or figure of speech, but I won’t add, embellish or correct, besides compensating for something lost in order to preserve the overall balance. But the ‘metaphorical vs. literal’ question is really not one a decent translator faces. I hope this makes sense.
As for the criteria, the main aim is replicating the dynamics of the original in the translation, and the effect, both emotional and intellectual, that the original produced in its readers in the source language. As for the how, I’ll explain it in my future posts with examples and case studies,especially considering that I’m apparently an aural learner, and an intuitive jungian type. 😉
Keep following the blog and posting comments, my friend. Many thanks.
Hi Beppe,
Do you have any particular theory or opinion on the question of translating historical literature? In our conversations about contemporary translation you’ve mentioned the pains you take to capture an author’s idiomatic style, the subtle equivalences of cultural references, etc. But we haven’t really talked about historical prose. What are your thoughts on translating, say, prose works by Spenser, or Milton, or Francis Bacon? Would you aim, like John Addington Symonds did in his translation of Benvenuto Cellini’s ‘Life’, to recreate the text in an equivalent period style? Or would you tend to translate an Elizabethan writer into a modern Italian idiom? Or would you adopt some third way, of saying aiming for an elevated modern style, or by hinting at an archaic vernacular and syntax, without actually sticking rigidly to it?
Do you have a preference, yourself, when it comes to reading foreign historical prose translated into Italian?
Regards,
Iian
This is an interesting one. I’ve never translated historical literature myself, and people who do seem to specialise in that field, not surprisingly. As always, different schools of thought in Translation Studies will lean both ways. There are ‘modern’ translations of ancient Greek epic poems, so that people can understand what the fuss was about, but generally speaking, there seems to be a tendency towards replicating at least some of the ‘historical’ feel of the original. Of course, that’s harder than translating between modern languages, as there were many more differences in the socio-political and cultural situation of the different countries back then. Personally, I’d rule out the paraphrasing into modern idiom. The equivalent-period style might appear to be the most logical choice, but when one thinks about it, even using Boccaccio’s Tuscan vulgar to translate Chaucer would still not make it ‘exact’ enough, though it would be fun trying. In the end, as you said, a third way, an elevated modern italian, infused with archaisms and convoluted syntax might be the best choice.
Hi Beppe,
As the field of translation is vast, I thought I would throw a specific question about prose rhythm and melody at you. I am fascinated by the process a translator would go through in finding equivalences for vowel melody and consonantal rhythm from one language into another. I guess, first of all, the quest is: Is it really possible to do this? – Or is the result always ‘merely’ a suggestion? The marriage between sound and sense is impossible to untangle even in one tongue – so much greater the difficulty in organising another blessed union in a foreign country with a foreign bride and a foreign groom. Ideas are both behind words and in words – in their flesh, and in their DNA.
But to tackle a specific line – this one from ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Poe:
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country …”
The music of the line in English is both in the significance – images of isolation and bleakness – but also in the prose music. The funereal beating of the ‘d’ and ‘t’ – during, dull, dark, soundless, day, autumn, dreary – along with the oboe -like vowel tones – whole, dull, soundless, clouds, hung, low – contribute to make this sound like a very solemn and weary passage indeed. Can this kind of prose-musical experience be translated into another tongue? Would those short Saxon syllables find equivalents in Italian’s polysyllables? The line also has a kind of rambling gait, like a man wandering listlessly.
Do you have a process when you start translating a rich prose passage like this? Are there certain ‘hooks’ that give you an ‘in’ to the text, a place to start?
Regards,
Iian
Aren’t you a curious one? 🙂
The example you addressed ties into what I meant when I said that the creative part of translation is translation itself. It is sometimes possible to reproduce alliteration, consonance and assonance, but most of the times the words you need to use in translation will not share that first syllable or more generally won’t be able to reproduce that original pattern. In the case of poetry, it would be a choice between preserving style and meter vs. preserving the images. But poetry is widely regarded as the highest point of the untranslatable. In prose, sometimes I find myself losing that effect in a passage like the one you quote, but then, as I am translating another passage, suddenly the Italian words I’m using start clicking and creating a pattern that might be similar, and compensate for the previous loss. Of course writers often avoid too much alliteration in prose, as it’s hard to pull it off. But when an author is bold enough to use it, as it was the case, for example, in Dermaphoria, one of the books I translated, then there are many suitable moments in a work where it can fit in. Once again we go back to the concept of dynamic equivalence Nida formulated (more of that in later posts). The goal is for the translation to reproduce the effect of the original on the reader. And here I can answer another of your questions: the prose-musical experience can indeed be recreated, but in two different languages it’s likely that different sounds and patterns will be used to produce the same effect. And that sometimes the brilliance of a particularly musical passage might be diminished in translation but another, weaker passage
As for your last question, I have to repeat myself, but basically, a good translator would look at the original text, understand all of its elements and the relationship between them, then simply translate. Sometimes he’ll find the right words, sometimes he won’t, but words will make up for it when he least expects it.
I’m planning to publish a few posts with examples in order to explain all these subtleties without delving into theory too much. Stay tuned.
[…] couldn’t agree more. This notion of cross-fertilisation (I used the verb cross-pollination in one of my first posts) has always been one of my main arguments whenever translation comes up as a topic of discussion. […]