Taboo language in translation

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Taboo language in translationEdoardo Crisafulli aa ItalyPublished online: 28 Apr 2010.

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237

TABOO LANGUAGE IN TRANSLATION

Edoardo Crisafulli, Italy

AbstractThis article discusses the notion of equivalence from a descriptive and target-oriented

perspective. The first part of the article deals with this notion from a theoretical pointof view and argues that equivalence has a heuristic value in Translation Studies providedone does not adopt a prescriptive and source-oriented perspective. In order to prove thisassertion, the analysis focuses on specimens of taboo and informal language in Dante'sInferno in the translation by Henry Francis Cary, who expurgates such language itemsin his Vision (1844). In order to shed light on this topic, the author of this articledescribes Cary's deviations from formal equivalence and does not condemn them a pri-ori However, a posteriori they are explained in terms of the norms affecting translationin the rewriter's historic context (the expurgation of coarse language was a commonstrategy among translators in Cary's time) and in terms of the constraints of the metreadopted, namely blank verse, which could not accommodate informal language (withoutflouting the expectations of the readership).

'Equivalence'Equivalence is becoming a dubious notion in some linguistic quarters: it

conjures up the old-fashioned image of a sacred original representing perfection,which implies that the translation is only a secondary text desperately trying toreach the heights of its source. In this view, the writer of the source text isregarded as being creative by definition, whereas the translator is only a humbledecoder of the essence of the original, which he has to reproduce as faithfully aspossible together with the outward form in which it is embodied.

From this perspective, 'equivalence' is a prescriptive tendency (the good trans-lation is the faithful one) and thus ideally consolidates the dominant status of thesource text No wonder that theorists of equivalence tend to be blamed for thisstate of affairs, as their position appear deeply to affect our perception of thesource text. But the fault lies with a preconceived view of the original as a prim-ary work overshadowing the target text, that is with the "primacy of the sourcetext" (Baker 1993: 235), which inevitably fosters an obsession with equivalenceconceived of "mainly as a semantic of formal category" (Baker 1993: 236).

Positing the original textual meaning as an absolute, a-historical entity thusimplies a narrow and static view in which the signified (that is the conceptual ordenotative meaning) is always coherent, fixed and independent of interpretation.Catford is the scholar with the most restrictive position. According to a famous

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238 Edoardo CrisafulH: Taboo language in translation

(or infamous) definition os his, translation is "the replacement of textual materialin one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL)."(Catford 1965:20) Catford, however, distinguishes between textual equivalence,which takes place when target language textual material "is observed on a parti-cular occasion ... to be equivalent to the SL" (Catford 1965:27), and formal cor-respondence, which occurs when the textual material occupies the "'same' placein the economy of the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL" (Catford1965: 27) (for instance a verb in the source language is replaced by a target lan-guage verb, a source language noun by a target language noun etc.).

Much water has passed under the bridge since these ideas were formulated:most scholars now favour a more flexible approach whereby "the question is nolonger how equivalence might be achieved but, increasingly, what kind of equi-valence can be achieved and in what contexts" (Baker 1993: 236). A typical ex-ponent of this approach is Nida, with his notion of dynamic equivalence, whichis much more flexible than Catford, since it takes into account "the SL communi-cative intention, TL stylistic norms and, last but not least, the decoding abilitiesof the TL reader" (Wilss 1982: 148).

Although the new perspective represents a "noticeable improvement", it is nota step in the right direction: the conception of equivalence itself is so flawed thatit should be discarded, because "it still assumes the primacy of the source textand it still implies that a translation is merely a text striving to meet the stan-dards of another text" (Baker 1993: 236).

It seems that Baker is so eager to do away with an all-powerful original thatshe banishes the notion of equivalence, leaving the relationship between sourceand target text indeterminate.1 A closer inspection of her views, however, revealsthat she only stresses that we need to redress the balance which for too long hasbeen biased towards the type of investigation focusing on the comparison ofsingle source and target texts: "the vast majority of research carried out in this,shall we say emerging discipline, is still concerned exclusively with the rela-tionship between specific source and target text, rather than with the nature oftranslated text as such" (Baker 1993:234). Clearly, if the relationship in questionis thought to be very important, equivalence is bound to attract the lion's shareof the researcher's attention, since it is the only widely known concept that isavailable to describe ways in which specific source texts and target texts relateto each other.D

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7997. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 5:2 239

Roller has summarised the argument as follows: "the concept of equivalence

postulates a relation between SL text (or text element) and TL text (or text ele-

ment). The concept as such does not say anything about the kind of relation: this

must be additionally defined: the mere requirement that a translation should be

"equivalent* to a given original is vacuous" (1989: 100). This conclusion may be

regarded as axiomatic. Toury (1980,1995) subscribes to a similar view to the one

expressed by Koller. More precisely, he talks of relationships, a plurality of

'contacts' between source text and target text No discussion of translation, he

says, can ignore the existence of a network of relations, which should therefore

be expected to be always present, as "a basic assumption" (Toury 1980: 45).

However, the fact that "being regarded as a translation" implies "the very

existence of such relationships", does not mean that a "certain TT-ST relation-

ship" (all Toury 1980: 45) is presupposed; the ways in which source and target

texts correlate cannot be established a priori: postulating that equivalence is the

only reliable concept we have at present for describing the connection between

specific source and target texts does not necessarily imply (as Mona Baker con-

tends) that the relationship between source and target text is, by definition, un-

equal, that the source is superior to the target text.

But how can we talk of equivalence without necessarily implying the primacy

of the original and a prescriptive attitude? I believe that, first and foremost, we

must reject the misguided assumption according to which:

translation is nothing but an attempt to reconstruct the original, or certain parts oraspects thereof, or the preservation of certain predetermined features of the original,which are (or are to be) unconditionally considered the 'invariant under transforma-tion,' in another sign system, as it is usually defined from the source's point of view.(Toury 1980: 17)

This quotation points out that the fault lies with the source-oriented approach,

which posits a 'certain' relationship implying the absolute, and thus a-historical,

idea of formal and semantic equivalence. This perspective is concerned with the

"potential translation" (Toury 1980: 35), hopelessly in the grip of an overpower-

ing source text and 'equivalence* in the "ST's hierarchy of relevance" (Toury

1980: 38). No wonder that this form of 'textual absolutism' implies prescription

on the theorist's part In order to adopt a descriptive, non-normative stance one

has to deal with the "actual translation" (Toury 1980: 35) and with the "actualDow

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240 Edoardo Crisafulli: Taboo language in translation

relationship between TT and ST", which entails considering equivalence from thepoint of view of the target text only where it is "an empirical fact". This is asignificant statement in favour of description: the 'actual relationship' isobservable and therefore open to empirical analysis (Toury 1980: 39) whereas"the required relationships postulated by the ST/SL-oriented theories oftranslation ... are merely speculative" (Toury 1980: 46).

Equivalence from the target-oriented point of view is a "functional concept".Instead of saying that "relationship X is translation equivalence", one says that"relationship X functions as translation equivalence" (all Toury 1980: 47). Inother words, we are dealing with a dynamic, historically variable entity, whichmakes sense only if it is examined in a specific context, that of the receiving tra-dition. In fact, translations acquire a life of their own, become totally independentof their sources, and are deeply affected by the host environment, a role whichis denied to the source text by definition (Toury 1980: 28). However, Toury'saxiom that "translations are facts of target cultures" (Toury 1995: 29) does notimply that translation scholars should ignore the source text altogether; the onlyimplication is that the researcher should have recourse to the target tradition(which in this article is the literary tradition) in order to account for the choicesmade by translators. By comparing specific source and target texts one may iden-tify the shifts, manipulations etc. occurring in the translation process; these inturn lay bare the metamorphosis undergone by the original text - which is alsoa meaningful and legitimate field of enquiry.

The target-oriented view may explain an avoidance policy such as that pursuedby Henry Francis Cary (1772-1844), a translator who does not carry over astylistic feature, taboo language in the original, in his rendering of Dante'sInferno. In this context a source-oriented approach has little, if any, explanatorypower it only lends itself to a judgement involving the proposition that Cary'savoidance of taboo language in the target text is simply a case of non-equivalen-ce (or mistranslation):

according to a ST-oriented theory of translation (i.e., from the point of view of STas textual entity) the solution of the problem of the gap between TT and ST seemsquite simple; the claim made will be (and actually is) as follows: if 'equivalence 2'- the actual relationship observed - is not compatible with 'equivalence 1', thetheoretical postulate, it is altogether non-equivalence (Toury 1980:40).It is a fact that source-oriented scholars tend to follow a "negative kind ofD

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reasoning" (Toury 1995: 84) when it comes to assessing the shifts occurring inthe translation process: the assumption being that, whenever the target text differsfrom its source, irreparable semantic losses are likely to occur. I contend that thereal danger does not lie in the historically-determined notion of equivalence, butrather in this negative idea of 'loss'. In actual fact, translation is characterised bylosses as well as by gains - both of which should be described in positive terms;moreover, the search for "explanatory hypotheses" (Toury 1995: 85) ought to bebias-free. The scholars who are conditioned by an a priori concept of translationtend to dismiss the target text by reference to the source text and, eventually, arelikely to argue in favour of prescription.2 Conversely, a descriptive study con-siders axiomatic that equivalence exists between an original text and its rewriting.Given this axiom, "what remains to be uncovered is only the way this postulatewas actually realised, for instance in terms of the balance between what was keptinvariant and what was transformed" (Toury 1995: 86).

The analysis: forewordIn this article I shall adopt Toury's approach; I shall assume that equivalence

does not represent a claim that "a translation is merely a text striving to meet thestandards of another text" (Baker 1993: 236). I shall be concerned exclusivelywith the actual relationship(s) observed. For the sake of the argument, however,I shall also apply a static, source-oriented idea of equivalence to the data in theanalysis: equivalence, together with the near-synonyms such as faithfulness andfidelity, will be employed in the sense put forward by Newmark (1988: 46) asbeing concerned with reproducing "the precise contextual meaning of the originalwithin the constraints of the TL grammatical structures ..." where the ultimateaim is to be "completely faithful to the intentions and text realisation of the SLwriter". Newmark here seems to posit the source text as a yardstick; the only re-strictions to perfect equivalence are of a linguistic nature, and consequently stemfrom the target language.3 Clearly, in poetry there are constraints of a specialkind - such as metre and rhyme - which go beyond grammar, these will also bedealt with.

In particular, I propose to investigate how H. F. Cary's translation of Dante'sInferno deviates from lexical faithfulness in a crucial area of the source text, thatof taboo language; then I shall elaborate on the axiom that Cary, despite his for-mal infidelity, achieves equivalence from the target-oriented point of view. I amD

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going to demonstrate the validity of a descriptive approach by analysing authenticdata, that is some extracts from the target text

Cary's work, The Vision* has been chosen for two important reasons: firstly,it embodies some of the typical strategies, such as expurgation and euphemism,enacted in mainstream Anglo-American translation practice from the eighteenthto the nineteenth century. Secondly, The Vision was for a long time the most in-fluential version of the Comedy in English; Wordsworth, for instance, consideredit to be "a great national work" (Cunningham 1965: 18). More importantly, thisrewriting was seen by Cary's contemporaries as being faithful to the source text,despite its deviations from formal equivalence. It therefore provides an ideal con-text for a discussion of the concept of equivalence in a historical perspective.Most reviewers in Cary's time - such as, for example. The Monthly Review(1808: 438), The British Critic (1819: 594), The Eclectic Review (1819: 556) -judged The Vision favourably on account of its faithfulness. Moreover, Coleridgewas so impressed by Cary's rendering of Dante that he praised it in his courseon European Literature in February 1818. Shortly afterwards the Italian poet UgoFoscolo published an article in the Edinburgh Review eulogising Cary's transla-tion: Foscolo found that it was "executed with a fidelity almost without example"(1818: 469). Foscolo's enthusiastic review was re-echoed by Macaulay (1824:223) who, in referring to The Vision, claimed that "there is no other version inthe world, as far as I know, so faithful".

Despite Tinkler-Villani's (1989: 197) heavy criticism, the prestige of TheVision is still great today. Steve Ellis, who translated Dante's Inferno in the1990s, writes that Cary's 1844 and Sayers's 1949 translations are the only oneshe enjoys reading (Ellis 1994a: xi). Moreover, a contemporary critic, Wallace,(1993: 245-246) expresses himself thus: "H. F. Cary, an Anglican clergyman,brought the English-speaking world face to face with a powerful, accurate, andpoetically moving translation of Dante". 'Accurate' here seems to be anotherword for faithful. This is confirmed by the fact that, further on, Wallace stresses"the revolutionary importance of Cary's-astringent, disciplined verse", the qualityof which appears to lie in the fact that it closely follows the original: "Caryencourages us to keep abreast of the Italian text, line by line (nine lines for threeterzine [= rhyming tercets])".

Interestingly, Wallace establishes the hierarchy of relevance or validity ofthe translation by having recourse to a source text feature: the number of lines.D

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The analysis: taboo language in Inferno

I have selected taboo language because it has an important expressive/stylistic

function in the Comedy. Literary critics have often described Dante's diction

from the perspective of traditional rhetoric, according to which the Comedy is

characterised by two basic linguistic styles: high or tragic (grand style in Leech's

formulation 1969: 16), that is the higher form or formal register (featuring Latin

expressions, latinisms, poeticisms etc.), which is considered to be appropriate for

the subjects of war, love, virtue (Ascoli 1993: 62), and comic style (or plain

style, according to Leech 1969: 16), a lower form, characterised by the use of

grotesque realism/imagery, highly idiomatic and occasionally even informal

speech (Petrocchi 1978: 118-19).

In Dante's time, the comic style was not deemed appropriate to express lofty

concepts, although it occurred in some literary texts. Despite the fact that Dante

has recourse to both styles in the Comedy, the high style is used more extensively

than the comic style.5 It is moreover significant that taboo expressions occur

only a few times in the source text; hence they appear to be foregrounded (and

therefore they are highly meaningful from a literary/linguistic point of view); in

this analysis all the original informal expressions will be examined.

In the Comedy Dante stretches his linguistic resources almost to breaking

point: it must be stressed that the gamut of experiences portrayed, from the de-

gradation of the sinners in Inferno to the beatitude of the souls in Paradiso, vir-

tually demands a mixture of different styles. Our analysis will only be concerned

with Inferno, where the source text reader faces a constant 'code-switching' from

formality-literariness to the demotic dimension (Petrocchi 1978: 119). Obviously

enough, the distribution of styles in the source text mirrors the dramatic situation

of Dante's journey through the afterlife: Inferno is the natural context for the

comic style (Petrocchi 1978: 118).

For example, in Inferno, the Florentine poet projects a vivid image of the

sinners' punishment by frequently repeating key lexical items relating to filth and

smell; there are also references to excrement. Which brings me to example one:

EXAMPLE 1

Dante: vidi gente attuffata in uno stereoche da U umani privadi parea mosso. (.Inferno, XVIII. 113-14)vidi un col capo si di merda lordo {.Inferno XVIII. 116)

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244 Edoardo Crisafidli: Taboo language in translation

Cary: I saw...A crowd immersed in ordure, that appear'dDraff of the human body (Cary 1844: 92)I mark'dOne with his head so grimed (Cary 1844: 92)

In this canto Dante deals with flatterers, one of his fourteen groups represent-ing varieties of fraud; he wants to convey a strong feeling of disgust (the furtherthe descent progresses, the greater the sins and the worse the punishments de-vised): the flatterers are immersed in 'stereo', namely dung. A word which doesnot occur in Cary's rendering. We read 'ordure', which is a more formal ex-pression for excrement (Sinclair 1987: 1014). The target text's deviation fromequivalence is even greater when we come to the point in the source text wherethe dung appears to be coming from 'human latrines" ('umani privadi'). Thissuggests that there is a flux, a torrent of filth submerging everything. Cary in-stead says that the ordure looks like 'draff of the human body' (draff = dregs,refuse, sediment OED 1990: 353). The original image is thus watered down.

The last item in this example is highly significant: it is one of the threeoccurrences of the word 'merda* (= shit) in Dante's Inferno. Cary avoids theequivalent lexical item and only translates 'lordo* with 'grimed'. It must bestressed that 'shit' is an Anglo-Saxon word traced as far back as the earlyeleventh century. In English there is a "different impact of contrasting registers"between "shit and turd as opposed to dung, ordure and excrement... since theAnglo-Saxon element of the language provides much more emotional force thandoes the Norman French or the Latin" (Hughes 1991: 22).

Alternative rewriting:I propose to rewrite the target text lines in which the taboo expressions are

avoided in order to test the possibility that their omission was determined by themetrical pattern adopted. I only aim at producing a faithful rendering, within theconstraints of the target text's verse structure:

My own eye marked one head with shit so grimed+ / + / + / + / + /

My rewriting does not subvert the regular iambic pentameter, which ischaracterised by ten syllables and a pattern whereby an unstressed syllable (+)

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is followed by a stressed one (/) (Leech 1969: 121). Cary's avoidance of the

taboo word, 'shit', has nothing to do with metre.

EXAMPLE 2

Dante: di quella sozza e scapigliata fanteche la si graffia con l'unghie merdose {Inferno XVIII. 130-1)

Cary: Of that besotted, sluttish courtezan,Who there doth rend her with defiled nails (1844: 93)

This second example confirms Cary's avoidance strategy: 'merdose' (=shitty)

is rendered as 'defiled* (to defile = to desecrate, Sinclair 1987: 370).

Alternative rewriting:

Who there doth rend herself with shitty nails

Here again lexical fidelity is achieved while preserving the metrical pattern of

the target text.

EXAMPLE 3

Dante: vidi si torta, che il pianto de Ii occhile natiche bagnava per lo fesso (Inferno, XX. 23-4)

Cary: That on the hinder parts fallen from the faceThe tears down-streaming roll'd (1844: 100)

The items employed by Dante, 'le natiche' (= the buttocks) is not taboo,

strictly speaking. Rather, the image is effectively realistic: Dante says that the

sinner's tears wet the area ('fesso') between the buttocks ('natiche'). Cary prefers

the vague and somewhat more neutral 'hinder parts'. The translator does not

name the thing directly; a periphrasis is deemed more appropriate.

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246 Edoardo Crisafldli: Taboo language in translation


did wet between her buttocks in the cleft+ 1+1 + / + / + /

Here again the most important feature of iambic pentameter - five stressed syl-lables - is preserved, and the lexical equivalent of 'natiche', buttocks, alsoappears.

EXAMPLE 4

Dante: per cenno;ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta (Inferno XXI. 138-39)

Cary: for a signal looking,Which he with sound obscene triumphant gave (1844: 109)

This is another example of Dante's recourse to informal language in order tocreate a vivid scene: a devil uses his 'cul' (= arse) as a trumpet, in order to catchthe attention of his fellows. The rendering is quite distant from the source text:here again the thing is not named directly since there is no reference to that partof the body, 'cul', or to the use to which it is put by the devil. Cary prefers thevague 'sound obscene'. There is an addition, 'triumphant', which may be requiredby the metre.


and he has made a trumpet of his arse

Here I did not have to compensate between the requirements of metre andthose of fidelity: the shock-effect on the reader is, I think, preserved. The targetlanguage item employed, 'arse*, is Anglo-Saxon in origin and its use dates backto around the year 1250. (Hughes 1991: 25)

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EXAMPLE 5

Dante: rotto dal mento infin dove si trulla. (Inferno, XXVIII. 24)la corata pareva e '1 triste saccoche merda fa di quel che si trangugia (Inferno, XXVIII. 26-7)

Cary: torn from the chin throughoutDown to the hinder passage (1844: 142)the midriff lay

Open to view, and wretched ventricle,That turns the englutted aliment to dross (1844: 142)

In the source text the punishment of the sinner is portrayed partly by means

of an informal expression: 'dove si trulla' (= where one farts) is a periphrasis

indicating the anus. Cary again prefers a less harsh, more neutral rendering:

'hinder passage'. In the source text, moreover, the intestines are mentioned so

that the word 'merda' (= shit) occurs again. Cary is consistent with his avoidance

policy and settles for 'dross' (= waste material, Sinclair 1987: 435), which is far

from being a target language equivalent lexical item.


Right down to where one farts: betwixt the legs

Here my alternative achieves equivalence without disrupting the metrical

pattern.

Discussion: equivalence, non-equivalence and the translation of poetry

My alternative rewritings confirm the assumption that Cary's departures from

lexical faithfulness do not depend on the constraints of iambic pentameter (which,

at any rate, are not so powerful as the constraints which would have ensued had

he adopted Dante's terza rima? Cary, by doing away with the original metre,

achieves considerable freedom in terms of lexical selection). Moreover, Cary's

choices cannot be explained on purely linguistic grounds either: all the source

language items under scrutiny have close equivalents in the target language with

almost identical expressive characteristics as the original ones. Translators usually

resort to some form of compensation for items they lack in the target language.

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(Lefevere: 1992: 109) Cary had no need for compensation since he could haveexpressed in English the same effect as that produced by the source text.Accordingly, there must be factors other than language that come into play.7

It must be stressed that informal language, slang etc., as in this case, may haveboth a prepositional meaning (relating to the message conveyed) and an ex-pressive one (which reveals the attitude of the speaker/writer). Poetry is a domainin which the expressive and the propositional dimensions are bound in a tighterunity than in other types of discourse: as Newmark puts it, in poetry "content andform are on the whole equally and indissolubly important" (1988: 162). There-fore, if the expressive connotation of a poem is lost in the process of translatingit, this is not merely a case of losing its effectiveness or forcefulness: it wouldseem that the original poetic message as such vanishes. Even a scholar pursuingthe target-oriented approach like Lefevere stresses that "whenever languagemoves on the illocutionary, rather than the locutionary level, the level of theeffect rather than that of communication, it threatens to become an aporia fortranslators" (1992: 58).

I contend that the only way out of this impasse is to regard the text's rhetori-cal strength (that is its forcefulness) as being historically variable; only a histori-cal perspective may harmonise the equivalence postulate with Cary's strategiesof expurgation and euphemism. In fact, as I have argued so far it does not matterwhether features of the target text deviate from the source text: the target textstill remains equivalent to its source (although Cary's blank verse is not formallyequivalent to the source text's terza rima, it does function as an equivalent metrefrom the point of view of the receiving tradition). The question is why thedeviation occurs or, in other words, how relations that are formally non-equivalent appear equivalent in a given context. This is precisely what I shall doin the following section, in order to establish whether the target-orientedapproach may suggest an interpretation of Cary's behaviour.

Verse form and register in the target textThe allegedly non-equivalent relationship (from a source-oriented point of

view) between source and target text may be expressed in the following (simplis-tic) opposition: the source text's informal-demotic language vs the target text'sformal-literary language. Why is it that a rewriting considered to be faithfuldeparts radically from the register of the source text? A source-oriented perspec-D

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tive cannot provide an answer since it simply categorises the target text as un-faithful. There are, I think, two main reasons for Cary's strategy.

Firstly, there was a general cultural tendency whereby taboo expressions wereexcluded from mainstream literary texts in the receiving tradition. In fact, al-though "the beginning of pre-Victorian prudery is hard to date", it seems that"fastidiousness in language became increasingly common from about 1750"(Rawson 1981: 6). The Augustan age already showed a marked tendency to up-hold the principle of decorum and "a strict separation of registers" (Hughes 1991:142), which was later to become more radical during the Victorian age. In Cary'stime, Johnson's dictionary was the most authoritative and it followed a puristpolicy; it does not feature "the most taboo" expressions since these were thoughtof as being "unworthy of preservation" (Hughes 1991: 157).

As we have seen, a translator dealing with Dante's swear words has to drawon the Anglo-Saxon elements of the English language. Had Cary followed thiscourse of action consistently, he would have recovered the rhetorical strength ofDante's original. The fact however is that the values, canons etc., which weredominant in the target system at the time the target text came into being, mili-tated against such an option. Consistently, the Anglo-Saxon elements were con-sidered to be unsuitable for epic poetry in the British poetic tradition (Tillotson1940: 74-75). In the eighteenth century that part of the vocabulary of the Englishlanguage "was rendered temporarily unusable in 'serious' poetry" (Tillotson 1940:76). This generalisation also applies to the early nineteenth century (and evenafter, at least as far as informal speech is concerned).

Cary, as a rewriter, is linked to contemporary practice in poetry. Clearly, theexpectation that a poet or a translator should enforce a strict separation of registerpre-empts the possibility of reproducing Dante's mingling of styles. Althoughlittle may be said about Cary's notion of literary language on the basis of theevidence presented here, one generalisation may now be put forward: as far asCary is concerned, poetry and informal register are mutually exclusive; in otherwords, there is a relation of "mutual dependence" between literature and formallanguage (Crystal and Davy 1969: 89). This seems to account for Cary'savoidance strategy on a general (cultural) level: the style favoured by Englishliterary circles imposed restrictions which loom large as the translator dealt withtaboo language: the alternative renderings suggested in this article achievesatisfactory lexical equivalence and do not disrupt the metrical pattern, but wouldD

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doubtless have sounded inappropriate to an ear attuned to the poetry produced (ortranslated) in that historical period.

There is a powerful restriction imposed by the verse form adopted by Cary,namely blank verse. According to Bradford, "colloquial patterns" could not be fit-ted "into forms such as the Horatian ode, blank verse or the closed couplet, notbecause the abstract regulations of these structures could not accommodate them- they maintain a regular iambic pentameter - ", but simply because the expec-tations were that these forms represented 'high culture*. In other words, everyverse form has a definite "socio-cultural status" which cannot be flouted (unlessone wants or is allowed to be subversive), because it carries strong "culturalexpectations" (Bradford 1993: 101).

Now, let us also briefly consider the attitude to informal language holdingsway in the Anglo-American tradition of translating, since this has a direct bear-ing on the policies pursued by Cary. Alexander Tytler's influential Essay on thePrinciples of Translation (1791) reveals a "squeamishness about physical refer-ences" (Venuti 1995: 71), let alone taboo language. For example, Tytler praisedPope's rewriting of Homer because it 'improved* the original by expurgating itscoarse language. Tytler's view allowed great latitude to the translator in amend-ing the original of its (alleged) stylistic/linguistic 'faults'. In many cases, Anglo-American translators consciously took on the role of censors: consider forexample John Hookham Frere's translation of Aristophanes in 1820 and GeorgeLamb's rewriting of Catullus in 1821 (Venuti 1995: 85-6). It would seem there-fore that in the nineteenth-century world of translation euphemism and expurga-tion were unmarked (that is common) strategies.8

The foregoing discussion underscores the great importance and heuristic valueof polysystem theory, which conceives of a translated text as a system in its ownright operating within the target literary polysystem. (Even-Zohar 1987: 107) Inthis perspective, the fact that Cary adhered to the dominant poetic conventionsindicates that translation occupied a peripheral position in the receiving tradition,so that no innovations could take place: "periods of great change in the homesystem are in fact the only ones when a translator is prepared to go far beyondthe options offered to him by his established repertoire and is willing to attempta different treatment of text making". Certain items (in our case taboo expres-sions) "may remain untransferable if the state of the polysystem does not allowinnovations" (Even-Zohar 1987: 113)D

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Moreover, the Comedy and The Vision originate from two radically differentcontexts in terms of the nature and function of literary language. The source texthas more than an ordinary cultural-artistic significance: it represents a search fora literary means of expression in Italian (or the vernacular), as opposed to Latin(used by the clergy and intellectuals in Medieval Italy). In this sense Dante'sComedy is a meta-linguistic enterprise: the Florentine poet, by the very act ofwriting in the vernacular, demonstrated that Latin was not the only means ofexpressing lofty concepts. Dante is a subversive, highly creative writer in that hebreathes a literary quality into the language spoken by ordinary people. This isthe context in which the source text appeared: the source language was in a fluidstate (Dante selected carefully from a wide range of dialects spoken in Italy, butFlorentine predominates) and the source text's literary tradition was still in its in-fancy. Cary, on the other hand, drew inspiration from an already codified variety,the language of epic poetry, and contributed to a literary tradition that hadachieved full maturity. There is often, then, a "powerful mutual predictability be-tween language and situation" (Crystal and Davy 1969: 65). The context the re-writer lives in exerts an enormous 'conditioning influence' on the textualoutcome. More precisely, my discussion clearly bears out Toury's assertion that"literary translation is a product of a complex procedure, inevitably involving twolanguages and two literary traditions, that is, two sets of norm-systems" (1980:53).

ConclusionsMy analysis has ascertained the following points:(a) that 'equivalence' is a heuristically valid notion provided one undertakes

research within a descriptive and target-oriented perspective. The major problemslie with the formulation of equivalence according to a source-oriented point ofview. It is true that in source-oriented approaches extra-linguistic factors (for in-stance the translator's theory of poetry, and the gap between the source text's andtarget text's cultures) have sometimes been considered in order to account for thedifferences between original and translation, but this perspective cannot get ridof the idea of non-equivalence (whenever the target text departs consistently fromformal correspondence) - an idea which is conducive to prescription. Whereas Iassumed at the outset that The Vision functions as (and was perceived by thenineteenth-century reviewers as being) an equivalent text to its source, theD

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Comedy, despite the formal unfaithfulness in a key area of the original lexis, in-formal language, and the watering down of its images.

(b) If one is exclusively concerned with the relationship(s) between singlesource and target texts the receiving tradition appears to be the only dimensionin which the translator's choices make sense: ultimately, all the relevant (his-torically determined) factors affecting the target text are rooted in the host trad-ition. My discussion has suggested that the lack of correspondence in terms oftaboo language depends on the different characteristics of the source and targetliterary polysystems, and the different demands they put on the writer and the re-writer. These, together with the expectations of the reading public, would seemto affect, if not actually determine, the type of register adopted in the rewriting.This entails that the notion of rhetorical strength (or equivalence, for that matter)is historically variable and has to be considered diachronically: there is no suchthing as 'total or absolute equivalence', unless of course one adopts a strictlyformal (and static) standpoint (thereby hypostatizing the source text or some as-pects thereof). Even if a twentieth-century translator - who would not be con-strained in the same way as Cary was - might feel freer to render informal ex-pressions and the mixing of styles typical of the Comedy, he might be 'unfaith-ful' from other points of view, such as verse form or metre. But then again, hemight not ...9

(c) At any rate, whatever one's conception of equivalence, both the source andtarget text writers move between two poles, freedom and restriction, which arenot absolute, but indissolubly correlated to each other Dante imposes on hiswriting the powerful restriction of terza rima, but he allows himself great free-dom in terms of mingling styles and registers. Cary reverses this situation: hefrees himself from the constraint of rhyme, but submits to the limitation (in rhe-torical strength) ensuing from the use of an exclusively formal register. In bothcases, the final (literary) textual product represents a compromise between con-flicting exigencies. Its peculiar character arises from the large-scale choices madein relation to verse form, metre, level of- diction and style (for instance linguisticmodernisation versus archaisation).

(d) Last but not least: a major bone of contention in Translation Studies todayis whether the association between source and target text is still meaningful froma target-oriented point of view, or whether it should be discarded in order to ac-commodate a more adequate conceptual framework. However, assuming that theD

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'equivalence postulate' (that is that the very idea of translation implies the notion

of equivalence) is tenable, the next question would be: whether bringing the re-

lationship between specific source and target texts to the fore is, in itself,

sufficient to reach a full understanding of the translation phenomenon or whether

one needs an eclectic approach in order to account for a variety of different

aspects - some of which are independent of single translations or languages, as

is the case with Baker's universal of translation (1993), or with Toury's laws of

translational behaviour (1995). Although I regard research based on the evidence

yielded by computer-held collections of texts - in keeping with Sinclair's lin-

guistic theory (1991) - as perfectly legitimate, I want to stress that the ways in

which single source and target texts relate to each other can be the object of

serious research; and that, if it is reassessed, equivalence can still have a useful

function.

No single perspective should be allowed to dominate the field: an individual

researcher may well place emphasis on the historical dimension if he is con-

cerned with a case study (as in this article); another researcher might wish to

address more general issues (universals of translation such as clarification and

explicitation; the question of compensation etc.) relating to translation as a

phenomenon and carry out, for example, a corpus-based linguistic investigation.

The only final word in this matter should be that Translation Studies necessitates

eclecticism in order to accommodate these different (and only apparently con-

trasting) lines of enquiry.

Acknowledgement: I wish to thank Professor John Barnes (Italian Department,University College Dublin) for his kindness in discussing the first draft of this articlewith me.An earlier version of this article was presented at the International Conference onLiterary Translation, held at the University of Warwick, U. K. 16-18 December 1994.

Notes

1. Baker is not concerned with equivalence, but there is little doubt that the points sheputs forward in her extremely interesting article (1993) dealing with corpus linguisticsand translation break new ground.2. Let us consider the case of a scholar adopting a source-oriented approach. Tinkler-Vil-lani, who criticises The Vision - a "faulty translation" (1989:197) in her opinion - mainlybecause it distorts or fails to capture Dante's realistic and forceful imagery. Tinkler-Vil-lani is right in observing that Cary's strategies create "a formality which is not in theoriginal" (1989:226-27). I contend, however, that Tinkler-Villani makes a methodologi-

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254 Edoardo Crisafitlli: Taboo language in translation

cal error when she dismisses the target text by reference to the linguistic make-up of thesource text: her purely synchronic, non-historicist (and prescriptive) stance does notfurther our understanding of either the historical (norms, canons) or the universal factors(universals of translation) affecting translation in real life.3. In fairness to Newmark, it must be stressed that, although he is critical of the target-oriented approach, which he sees as neglecting the original and being limited to the"sociology of translating" (1988: 172), he is also aware that more than 'the value of theoriginal' is involved in literary translation: "whether a translator gives priority to contentor manner, and, within manner, what aspect - metre, rhyme, sound, structure - is to havepriority, must depend not only on the values of the particular poem, but also on thetranslator's theory of poetry" (Newmark 1988: 165-66).4. Cary published his rendering of Inferno in 1805-6. The first complete edition ofCary's translation of the Comedy (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise) appeared in 1814. Thelast revised edition, which has only minor alterations, came out in 1844, the year ofCary's death. As regards the use of informal language, there is no difference between the1814 and the 1844 texts. The only available edition which is still in print is Cary (1994),which is based on the 1814 edition.5. In actual fact, no hard-and-fast distinction between comic and tragic style is possible;this could be an alternative definition of Dante's style: the Comedy features one stylewhich is characterised by a constant 'code-switching'.6. Terza rima is a powerful scheme of interlocking rhymes propelling the reader on untilthe end of each canto: the first and third lines of each terzina (three-line segment) rhymewith each other, while the central one rhymes with the first line of the following terzina,and so on.7. The question of compensation is far more complex than is hinted at here. Only if oneadopts Catford's theory that the main problems of translation are linguistic, can oneconclude that translators typically resort to compensating when they lack the linguisticmeans to be absolutely faithful. More often than not translators have the linguistic re-sources - as had Cary as regards taboo language - but they are fettered by powerful con-straints of an ideological or literary kind which tend to rule out a formally equivalentrendering. It is this situation that calls for (and justifies) various compensatory strategies(On compensation, see Harvey 1995. Cary's attitude to compensation is discussed indepth in Crisafulli 1996.)8. The tradition of rewriting Dante into English has been characterised by conservatismwell into the twentieth century. A cursory look at the major twentieth-century versionsof Inferno reveals that the most important translators in the 1940s and 1950s (with theexception of Ciardi 1954) were still upholding Cary's idea of decorum: Binyon (1947),Sayers (1949) and Bickersteth (1955) followed a strategy of expurgation or euphemismof the Comedy's taboo language. All the most significant versions of Dante from the1970s onwards eventually reproduce Dante's informal expressions: Musa (1971), Sisson(1981), Mandelbaum (1980), Ellis (1994b), Pinski (1994).9. Perhaps the only twentieth-century translation which goes some way towardsreproducing Dante's mingling of styles and linguistic creativity is Sayers (1949) (forinstance Sayers deals with the source text's grotesque realism so that she translatesDante's onomastic wordplay creatively) and yet even Sayers tones down the demotic/in-formal. On the other hand, the most revolutionary translation in terms of the representa-

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tion of the demotic (or vernacular) is Ellis (1994b), but Ellis does not reproduce theoriginal mingling of styles as Sayers does.

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4 vols. Milan: MondadoriAscoli, Russell Albert. 1993. The unfinished author: Dante's rhetoric of authority in

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Baker, Mona. 1993. Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies. Implications and App-lications. In: Baker, Mona & Gill Francis & Elena Tognini Bonelli. Text andTechnology: In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 233-250

Bickersteth, Geoffrey. 1955. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Aberdeen: AberdeenUniversity Press

Binyon, Laurence. 1947. The Divine Comedy. London: Agenda EditionsBradford, Richard. 1993. A Linguistic History of English Poetry. London: RoutledgeBritish Critic. 1819. Review of H. F. Cary's The Vision 12 (December). 584-97Cary, Henry Francis. 1844. The Vision or Hell. Purgatory and Paradise of Dante

Alighieri. London: George Bell and SonsCary, Henry Francis. 1994. The Divine Comedy. The Vision of Dante. Edited by Ralph

Pite. London: EverymanCatford, J. C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. An Essay in Applied Linguistics.

Oxford: Oxford University PressCiardi, John. 1954. The Divine Comedy. New York/London: NortonCrisafulli, Edoardo. 1996. Dante's Puns in English and the Question of Compensation.

The Translator 2. 259-276Crystal, David & Derek Davy. 1969. Investigating English Style. London: LongmanCunningham, Gilbert F. 1965. The Divine Comedy in English. A Critical Bibliography.

1782-1900. Edinburgh/London: Oliver and BoydEclectic Review. 1819. Review of H. F. Cary's The Vision. 9 (June). 556-72Ellis, Steve. 1994a. Introduction, in Steve Ellis. Hell, ix-xxiiEllis, Steve. 1994b. Hell. London: Chatto & WindusEven-Zohar, Itamar. 1987. The position of translated literature within the literary poly-

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Fame. London: RoutledgeMacaulay, Thomas Babington. 1824. Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers. Dante.

Knight's Quarterly. 2 (January-April). 207-223Mandelbaum, Allen. 1980. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. New York: Bantam

Books.Monthly Review. 1808. Review of Cary's Inferno. 55 (April). 438Newmark, Peter. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York/London: Prentice HallMusa, Mark. 1971. The Divine Comedy. Harmondsworth: Penguin BooksOED. 1990. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Clarendon PressPetrocchi, Giorgio. 1978. L'inferno di Dante. Milan: RizzoliPinski, Robert 1994. The Inferno of Dante. New York: Farrar, Strauss and GirouxRawson, Hugh. 1981. A Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk. London: Mac

Donald, quoted in Geoffrey Hughes. 1991. 151Sayers, Dorothy. 1949. The Divine Comedy. (The last 13 cantos of Paradiso translated

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CollinsSinclair, John. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford University PressSisson, C. H. 1981. The Divine Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University PressTillotson, Geoffrey. 1940. Eighteenth-Century Poetic Diction. In: Simpson, Percey (Ed).

Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association XXV. Oxford: ClarendonPress. 59-80

Tinkler-Villani, Valeria. 1989. Visions of Dante in English Poetry. Amsterdam:Rodopi

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Taboo language in translation