Memes of Translation Revisited: From Translating Poetry to 'Poeming' Translation

Abstract

Despite different approaches, mainstream translation theorists and practitioners have always grappled with some notion of formal cultural and linguistic equivalence to translate literary works. Taking up the question of whether a faithful translation should maintain cultural heterogeneity and linguistic differences, the primary intent of this paper is to destabilize "safe" conceptions associated with literary translation and deconstruct the "comfortable fallacy" of conventional iron-clad rules such as equivalence and faithfulness. More specifically, the paper calls for a move from the mainstream cultural and linguistic discourse in translation studies towards an innovative translation model that goes beyond the limits of language and breaks cultural barriers. On the basis of this approach, the translator is a cultural and linguistic broker able to distinguish between the cultural and linguistic conditions of meaning and meaning itself—the one who 'poems' translation, re-creates or accommodates the ST and prefers beauty to faithfulness. This discussion is substantiated by examples of poems by Omani poets translated from Arabic into English and French by the present author.