Some Aspects of the Translation of Poetry

Abstract

A principal element of poetic language is its "otherness" - its lexical, morphological, syntactic, & stylistic divergence from prose lang. Failure to reproduce this deliberate otherness of the source language (SL) text in the target language (TL) text is the most common cause of inadequate poetry translation. Such failure may be due to: (1) the translator's unawareness of the options existing in the SL, or (2) the nonavailability of such options in the TL. Case (1) is illustrated by passages from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets & the German version by N. Wydenbruck. Case (2) is illustrated by lines from Goethe & Rilke, where effects of V-N inversion cannot be directly reproduced in Eng, & by a passage from Pushkin - Tatyana's letter in Evgeniy Onegin - where the psychologically significant forward & backward switch between formal & familiar form of the second person singular cannot be matched in Eng. Case (2) requires compensatory strategies on the lexical & stylistic levels. Translation of metaphor - which evolves from a new & startling comparison into a weakened & expected cliche - calls for a similar translation judgment of the measure of otherness contained in it at a particular time, to ensure equivalence of effect in the TL. AA