TR 62 - 2translation.utdallas.edu/translation_reviews/TR62.pdf · 2015. 5. 21. · hand, we are experiencing a violent clash of lan- ... culture and how can I, the translator,

Translation ReviewNumber Sixty-Two • 2001

The University of Texas at Dallas

Translation ReviewThe University of Texas at Dallas

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TRANSLATION REVIEW No. 62, 2001

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Editorial: A National Center and Think Tank for Translation Rainer Schulte

3 Interview with Mabel Lee: Translating Nobel Prize Winner Gao Xingjian’s Soul MountainLily Liu

10 Make a Poem Out of ItHenry Taylor

17 Interview with Yang XianyiQian Duoxiu and E. S-P. Alberg

27 Some Pitfalls of Translating DramaPhilip Boehm

30 Translating for Film: Creating the Subtitles for Sylvio Back’s “Cruz e Sousa: The Banished Poet” or Desexílio em Inglês do Poeta do DesterroSteven F. White

35 Big Rat, Big Rat: Multiple Translations of a Chinese PoemJohn Balcom

43 Modern Arabic Poetry in English Translation: An Overview of Selected AnthologiesSalih J. Altoma

50 The Dhammapada: A Work in MotionPatrick Murphy

58 The Power of Translation: The Effects of a Fluency DiscourseÖzlem Sensoy

65 Writing and the Power of Words: Translating Sony Labou Tansi’s Les yeux du volcanKwaku A. Gyasi

BOOK REVIEWS:

73 Experiences in Translation by Umberto Eco, tr. Alastair McEwenGregory Conti, Reviewer

75 The Love You Promised Me by Silvia Molina, tr. David UngerPatricia Schoch, Reviewer

79 The Station Hill Blanchot Reader, trs. Lydia Davis, Paul Auster, and Robert LambertonJoanne Stroud, Reviewer

80 Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Source, tr. Anna SilvasPatricia Schoch, Reviewer

84 First Cause/Primera Causa by Tino Villanueva, tr. Lisa HorowitzJames Hoggard, Reviewer

Cover Art: Caparisoned Horse. China, Tang Dynasty, 8th centuryThe Trammell and Margaret CrowCollection of Asian ArtPhoto by Tom Jenkins

The events of September 11, 2001, have changedthe ways we look at the world. It is the first time

in the history of the United States that a majorcatastrophe has happened on American soil. Thus,we are confronted with problems that don’t seem tohave an immediate solution, and dark clouds of fearhave penetrated our thoughts and feelings.

On the one hand, we are witnessing the disas-trous consequences of the destructive ingenuity ofindividuals spread all over the globe; on the otherhand, we are experiencing a violent clash of lan-guages and cultures that forces us to rethink our atti-tudes toward the world view of other nations, andtherefore we must find ways to navigate through thediverse landscapes of languages and cultures, if theworld is to have a chance to survive into the nextcentury.

In times of violent disruptions in the communi-cation between cultures, our attention should imme-diately be focused on the translator as the mostimportant mediator in a global world. Yet, there arevery few signs that the consciousness of the mediahas been raised with respect to the essential role thattranslation and translation thinking must play in ourcontemporary society. Newspaper editors continueto decrease the number of reviews that deal withworks translated from foreign languages and arereluctant to dedicate space to topics that could fur-ther the understanding of foreign cultures seenthrough the eyes of the translator, and publishers shyaway from publishing translations, because a trans-lated work greatly increases the production price ofa book.

However, translators are the most qualified per-sons to build bridges between languages and cul-tures. By the very nature of the translators’ training,they live with one foot in their native language andwith the other in the foreign language, and thereforethey can articulate the differences that exist betweencultures. Above all, the translator starts with a sense

of openness and curiosity. The essential questionmust be: what is there that is different in the otherculture and how can I, the translator, illuminate thatdifference and transfer it into the possibilities of anew language? At all times, the translator will avoida somewhat unconscious attitude of assuming thatpeople in other cultures react the same way we do.They don’t, and most inhabitants of other nationsresent it when ideas and opinions are being imposedon them in total disregard of their own traditionsand habits. Translators change our perspectivetoward the “other” in foreign countries. They con-stantly make an effort to enter into the sensibility ofpeople living in other cultures. They come withoutprejudices and open themselves to the foreign. Theyembrace what is new and strange, and they try tobring their new insights back to their own country toenrich their daily lives. The translator becomes themaster of communication by building linkagesbetween people who walk in different languages andtherefore interpret the world in different ways. Thetranslator’s greatest contribution to furthering inter-action and understanding of people from diverselanguages is the ability to initiate and cultivate dia-logue. By its very nature, dialogue creates under-standing, and understanding reduces fear.

The American Literary Translators Association(ALTA) is entering its 25th year of existence.Throughout the years, the members of this organiza-tion, independent as well as academic translators,have built a community of translators who cometogether once a year to discuss all aspects of the cre-ative and critical process of literary translations.During the year, the ALTA members continue theirdialogue through the publication of the ALTANewsletter, and to a certain extent, through the pub-lication of Translation Review. Outside of the annualmeeting, however, there is no place in the UnitedStates that translators could consider their orienta-tion point. If we look around in the structure of our

EDITORIAL: A NATIONAL CENTER AND THINK TANK FOR TRANSLATION By Rainer Schulte

Translation Review 1

intellectual environment, we find that there are allkinds of centers and think tanks that dedicate theirefforts to solving political, social, and scientific sci-entific problems, to mention only a few. Nothingsimilar exists for translators. Outside of a few cen-ters at universities, no central “research center” hasbeen called into life.

In view of the extreme importance of the trans-lator as the most qualified mediator between peopleof different languages, we should focus our attentionon the creation of a national independent center orthink tank for translation. The blueprint for such aninstitution would include residencies for translatorsand writers, extended library research facilities,spaces for the performance of dramatic works intranslation, fellowships for translators and scholarsof translation to investigate specific topics and prob-lems of translation, workshops for translators, facili-ties for collaboration of translators and their respec-tive authors, meetings of national and internationaltranslator’s associations and organizations, and adatabase of foreign authors translated in book, jour-nal, and anthology format—a clearing house for allmatters related to the practice and theory of transla-tion. Very little is known about how translatorswork, how a translator proceeds from the first draftto the final version. Assisted by the possibilities ofthe electronic age, such a center could also becomethe depository of the working processes of transla-tors. All changes that a translator makes during thepreparation of a translation could be electronicallyrecorded and thus made available to future transla-tors, especially beginning translators. Such a data-base could become an invaluable resource to studythe process of translation and how translators havereflected their interpretive perspectives of foreigncultures through the craft of translation.

If, for a moment, we compare the situation ofthe writer with that of the translator, a conspicuousdifference emerges. We have established many cen-ters or retreats where poets and writers can workuninterruptedly on their respective manuscripts.Institutions like the “Poet’s House” in New YorkCity have contributed greatly to the presence andvisibility of poets and their works in this country.Nothing of this sort exists for translators in the

United States. Other countries have been more pro-gressive in that realm. One institution that immedi-ately comes to mind is the Europäisches Überset-zerkollegium in Straelen, Germany. I was present atthe founding of this Translators College in 1978 andam still a member of its board. Today, Straelenoffers translators short- and long-term residenciestogether with a comfortable living environment anda well-developed resource library. The publication ofnumerous translations both into German and fromGerman has been made possible through the facili-ties in Straelen.

The year 1978 was also the founding year ofthe American Literary Translators Association. Theorganization has certainly increased the visibility ofthe translator in the United States. The various activ-ities of ALTA are now in place and are being culti-vated from year to year. However, the time is nowripe for translators to take the next step by creating anational center for translation that will serve as athink tank for the promotion of intercultural com-munication. For an understanding of foreign culturesto be successful, an interdisciplinary research teamof translators, writers, critics, and scholars has to becalled to life in order to study the complex struc-tures that different civilizations have created throughthe possibilities of their respective languages. In thiscontext, it is appropriate to repeat Octavio Paz’swords: each language is a way of interpreting theworld.

2 Translation Review

The following is the edited transcript of an interviewwith Dr. Mabel Lee, who translated 2000 NobelPrize winner Gao Xingjian’s novel Soul Mountaininto English. The interview was conducted in April2001 by Lily Liu, who has translated the essays ofcontemporary Chinese women writers of theRepublic of China. She works as a writer/editor inWashington, D.C.

Dr. Mabel Lee is Honorary Associate Professor inChinese Studies at the University of Sydney in

Australia. Born in Australia of Chinese parents, shemajored in Chinese at the University of Sydney,where she obtained her B.A. with First ClassHonours in 1961 and her Ph.D. in 1966. She joinedthe University faculty in January 1966. She retiredfrom teaching in January 2000, but has continued tosupervise Ph.D. candidates.

Dr. Lee’s research has focused on late 19th- and20th-century Chinese intellectual history and litera-ture. She has published on Zhang Taiyan, Lu Xun,Gao Xingjian, Liu Zaifu, and Yang Lian. She speaksfluent Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese.

Q. How did you first meet Gao Xingjian?

A. I met Gao Xingjian in Paris on March 23, 1991. Iwas traveling to Berlin and on to Copenhagen withmy daughter and had arranged to meet Chinese poetYang Lian in Paris. At the time I had translated twovolumes of Yang Lian’s poetry, Masks and Crocodile(Wild Peony, Sydney, 1990) and The Dead in Exile(Tiananmen Publications, Canberra, 1990), and hadjust completed the manuscript of Yi (GreenInteger/Sun & Moon, Los Angeles, forthcoming2001).

Yang Lian at some point suggested, “Let’s goand see Gao Xingjian!” So, after a phone call, wearrived at his apartment in Bagnolet.

During the night, Gao spoke about some of thereal incidents that occurred following the ban on theperformance of his play “Bus Stop” in 1983 and hisflight from Beijing in order to avoid having to writeself-criticisms and possibly being sent to a prisonfarm. He’s a great storyteller.

He also brought out a copy of Lingshan, whichhad been published in Taipei the year before. Afterleafing through the pages, to my own surprise and tohis, I asked if he had a translator and if he would likeme to work on the translation of Lingshan. He said,“I’d be delighted if you would.” No other detailswere discussed, but a verbal agreement had beenmade on the spot.

Q. Why did you want to translate this book?

A. I liked the idea of Gao’s experimentation withnarrative techniques, and the poetic feel of his lan-guage had enormous appeal. I somehow sensed thatLingshan was an important work, and after I hadundertaken to translate it, it took on the nature of amission. I completed the manuscript of SoulMountain in 1998 and then sought a publisherthrough a literary agent.


INTERVIEW WITH MABEL LEE: TRANSLATING NOBELPRIZE WINNER GAO XINGJIAN’S SOUL MOUNTAINBy Lily Liu

Dr. Mabel Lee with Nobel Laureate 2000 Gao Xingjian, taken inFebruary 2001 at Seattle.

Q. Was it easy for the literary agent to find a pub-lisher? Why or why not?

A. Translations generally do not sell well inAustralia. Despite an excellent reader’s report fromHarperCollins (Australia), it took them well over sixmonths before a contract was signed.

Q. What is Soul Mountain about?

A. I have called Soul Mountain “autobiographicalfiction.” Much of serious fictional writing has vary-ing degrees of autobiography. Soul Mountain (writ-ten 1982-1989) essentially tells about the narrator’sfive-month journey in the Chinese hinterland afterfleeing Beijing. These are the “I” chapters.

The “you and she” chapters relate things thatpassed through his mind during that time (memoriesof childhood, reflections, observations, old stories,new stories, thoughts about people he knows andabout himself). Significantly, the work is a grandexperiment and is a realization of Gao’s thinking(theories) about what constitutes a modern novel.

Q. Because Gao was not well known to readers inEnglish, you wrote an introduction for the Englishedition. What key points did you wish to convey inyour introduction?

A. The ability of literature to transcend language andcultural barriers. I wanted readers to appreciate Gao’sconsiderable reading in European literature as well ashis wide reading in China’s rich literary heritage, histranslation of European writers such as Beckett,Ionesco, and Prévert into Chinese, and the fact thathe wrote about recent and contemporary develop-ments in European literature.

Q. After Lingshan was published in Taipei in 1990,who did the first translation and into what lan-guage?

A. The Swedish translation of Lingshan by GoranMalmqvist was published in 1992. The French trans-lation was published in 1996. My translation intoEnglish was published in 2000.

Q. As you were translating his writings, did Gaoever suggest that you contact his other translators(Prof. Malmqvist [Swedish] or Noel and LilianeDutrait [French] or Gilbert C.F. Fong [English])?Or did you seek them out yourself to discuss thetranslation of his writings?

A. He did not suggest this nor did I feel the need tocontact them. I know Goran Malmqvist, but I did notcontact him regarding the translation. I did not meetthe Dutraits or Gilbert Fong until recently inStockholm.

Q. Have you talked with them about translatingGao’s writings? What comments have they madethat resonate with you?

A. We talked about other things, but never abouttranslation. We all greatly admire Gao’s writings.That was why we wanted to translate his works.

Q. Which work by Gao did you first come into con-tact with (in Chinese or in translation)?

A. I knew of Gao and had read in translationabstracts of his plays Absolute Signal and Bus Stop. Ilater read these and other of his plays in Chinese.

Q. Please use three adjectives to describe Gao.

A. Not so easy in single words. He is a gentle per-son, committed (to literary and artistic creation), aconnoisseur.

Q.You said that Gao is a great storyteller. How isthat apparent in his writing?

A. Soul Mountain is in large part undisguised story-telling and, as a whole, it is a conglomeration of avariety of storytelling modes superimposed one uponthe other. He has creatively adapted traditionalChinese storytelling techniques to suit himself (amodern writer, reader, and critic with a high degreeof artistic sensitivity). It should be noted that hestarted to design the structure of the novel in 1982and took the almost-completed manuscript of the


novel with him when he left China in 1987; he firm-ly believed that it was a work he could not hope topublish in China.

Q. Gao has also written plays, literary criticism, etc.Did you consult these other writings as you weretranslating Soul Mountain? If so, how did exposureto the other genres he writes in help you as youtranslated Soul Mountain?

A. I read Gao’s other writings for the purpose ofwriting academic research papers on his work. Theygave me a good understanding of him, but did nothave a direct impact on the translation of SoulMountain.

Q.You have written about Gao’s writings in aca-demic papers. How has your study of his writingshelped you in translating his book?

A. His theoretical essays and other writings con-vinced me of the great responsibility I had to thetranslation of Soul Mountain. It convinced me of theimportant place he holds in Chinese literary history.

Q.You worked on the translation of Soul Mountainfor several years. Please tell us how you handledthis translation project.

A. In 1991, I was appointed Head of the School ofAsian Studies, an amalgamation of several depart-ments of Asian languages and studies. I found itimpossible to work on the translation until 1993,after my appointment as Head of the School ended.As a senior member of staff in Chinese Studies, Itaught on average nine hours per week plus supervis-ing Ph.D. students. I also co-edited two University ofSydney Series: The East Asian Series, and the WorldLiterature Series as well as the Journal of theOriental Society of Australia (JOSA). I would workon translating Soul Mountain whenever I could findtime, mostly during weekends. I finished in 1998.

Q. What was the most difficult aspect about trans-lating Soul Mountain?

A. The botanical terms and names of animals.

Q. How did you find the right translations? Did youconsult some special resource?

A. Dictionaries were, of course, invaluable through-out, and I have a few colleagues and friends that Icould turn to if there were specific problems I couldnot resolve.

Q. What did you like best about translating thisbook?

A. I found working through the book an aestheticexperience of many dimensions. I could hear themany voices of the storyteller coming through to meand I could share the many experiences of the pro-noun characters of the novel. It was fun to translateSoul Mountain because Gao writes well and is agood storyteller.

Q.You teach at the University of Sydney.You arenot a professional translator. What special qualitiesare needed to be a good literary translator?

A. I think it is important for a translator to like everyaspect of a work she/he is translating. I can say that Ilike every aspect of Gao’s writings. I also respecthim as a person. I could not dedicate myself to trans-lating the work of a writer I did not like/respect. Theability to commit to translating something is impor-tant. There are writings that I would not and couldnot translate.

Q. Such as?

A. I am not a professional translator and am, there-fore, self-indulgent in what I choose to translate. Ionly translate writings that for me resound with poet-ry, i.e., that for me have linguistic appeal and, there-fore, provide me with enjoyment as I translate them.Soul Mountain is the first work of fiction that I havetranslated. Prior to that I had only translated poetry(Lu Xun and Yang Lian). In my view, Soul Mountaincan be considered a very long poem.


Also, for me what Gao says is interesting. The writ-ings of some authors do not interest me and I simplywould not and could not translate something that Idid not find interesting as well as being beautifullywritten.

Q. What do you think is “lost” in translation fromone language into another?

A. The original language is “lost,” but an equivalentlanguage can be found. This is why I think it isessential for the translator to like and to have a closeaffinity for the work being translated. It is essentialto tap in on what the Chinese call “qi” (or internalspirit) in a work to successfully translate it. Gao’slanguage is like poetry and I translate it as poetry.

Q. What do you mean his language is “like poetry”?

A. His language has auditory appeal. Importantly, hehas something interesting to say and he says it verybeautifully in language.

Q. Gao has said that his first draft of his writings isalways his recorded voice. Did you read his writingaloud as you were translating?

A. I was immediately aware of the poetic feel (theauditory element is important) of Soul Mountain andin all of Gao’s writing. I consciously attempted tofind words that would give a similar feel.

Q. The Chinese have a saying, “There is painting inhis poetry; there is poetry in his painting.” Whatdoes Gao “paint” in the poetic language of SoulMountain?

A. I found many descriptions in Soul Mountain ofpeople, natural scenery, and buildings to be likepaintings and at times cinematic. Gao is a talentedartist, and this artistic sensitivity infuses the whole ofthe work Soul Mountain. It is most conspicuous indescriptions, of course.

Q. What do you think is “gained” in translating lit-erary works from one language into another?

A. I suppose some badly written work could—in thehands of a good translator—be made better, but whybother translating something that’s badly written? Ifthe translator is such a good writer, why not be awriter herself/himself? My academic training predis-poses me to stick rigidly to the text.

Q. Was there any place in Soul Mountain whereyou could not stick rigidly to the text? Why andwhat did you do?

A. Repetition of the same noun is fine in Chinese.This looks clumsy in English and can easily beremedied by the use of “it” or some other word. InChinese, the subject and object of a sentence are notused because the context alone is adequate. Whentranslating, sometimes it is necessary to add the sub-ject or object.

Q. Were there any places where there was a need toadd something (a footnote, etc.) to help readers inEnglish better understand Chinese culture or some-thing else? What was it and how did you resolve theneed to explain the text?

A. I do not use footnotes, unless they exist in theoriginal text I am translating. Chinese-language read-ers will read and understand the original text withdiffering levels of understanding. In about two placesI added a minimal number of words to describe itemsof food.

Q. Is the act of translating an act of “creating” or“re-writing”?

A. For me, translation is “re-writing” a text in anoth-er language. As it is my practice to adhere as closelyas possible to the text, translating is probably less“creating” for me than for translators whose practiceit is to make a translation more easily digestible for atarget readership. Different texts are more difficultthan others to translate. I would not attempt to trans-late a text for which I had no affinity.


Q. Could you have translated the title any other way(“Spirit Mountain,” etc.), and why did you choosethe words “Soul Mountain”?

A. For me, the word “spirit” lacks the dynamic thrustof “soul.” Taking into consideration the whole of thenovel Lingshan, I prefer the word “soul.”

Q. Are you currently at work translating any otherwriting by Gao?

A. I am translating One Man’s Bible, his secondnovel, and expect to submit it to HarperCollins(USA) about July. It was published in Chinese inTaipei in 1999, in French in early 2000, and inSwedish at the end of 2000. I cannot rush the transla-tion. I am intent on savoring and enjoying the trans-lation of One Man’s Bible as I had the translation ofSoul Mountain.

I also have other commitments. I am on theBoard of the Sydney Writers’ Festival and haveplayed a key part in arranging for a team of Chinesewriters and translators to participate in this year’sevents on May 14-20. The team consists of theShandong novelist Mo Yan (Red Sorghum, Republicof Wine, and Big Breasts and Wide Hips) and hisAmerican translator Howard Goldblatt, Yunnan poetYu Jian and his Australian translator Simon Patton,and the U.S.-based Taiwan writer and translatorSylvia Li-chun Lin, who co-translated with HowardGoldblatt the Taiwan writer Chu T’ien-wen’s Notes ofa Desolate Man.

Q. How does One Man’s Bible differ from SoulMountain?

A. One Man’s Bible is a study of the insidious psy-chological manipulation of individuals to effectivelybring about social and political conformity duringthe Cultural Revolution in China. Gao sees himselfas complicit in those tragic events, and it is his ownthinking and behavior that are held up for scrupulousexamination in this novel. In One Man’s Bible, theextent of psychological self-analysis of a person liv-ing through the Cultural Revolution, to the best ofmy knowledge, has not been attempted with such

unrelenting honesty in any other work of literature.

Q. What do you like best about translating Gao’ssecond novel?

A. The work allows one to comprehend preciselyhow the irrational events of the Cultural Revolutionwere able to take place.

Q. What are some issues or problems confrontingtranslators of contemporary Chinese literature?

A. Translation does not count as “research” for aca-demics, and it generally doesn’t help in applicationsfor promotion, etc. Also, finding publishers for trans-lations is a problem. As far as I know, the generalpractice is that publishers will commission a transla-tion. I think my experience is significantly different.I had completed the translation and then sought apublisher, and Gao and I share the royalties, 60 per-cent - 40 percent.

Q.You are based in Australia. Did you have to makedecisions re: what kind of “English”(British/Australian/American English) to use inyour translation?

A. I live in Australia, but I think it is a more “neu-tral” type of English. I cannot use words that are notnatural to my own style.

Q. There was talk after Gao won the Nobel Prizethat he won on more than the literary merit of hiswritings (e.g., the fact that his Swedish translator,Goran Malmqvist, is a member of the SwedishAcademy, which decides the recipient of the NobelPrize for Literature). What is your reaction to thesecomments?

A. All of Gao’s major writings (including his secondnovel One Man’s Bible) were available in Frenchprior to the Nobel Prize announcement. I expect allof the Nobel Prize Committee would have read Gao’swritings in French; most Scandinavians read Frenchand English as well as Swedish. Goran Malmqvisthas translated many Chinese writers apart from Gao.


In France, as early as 1992, Gao received the awardof Chevalier for his contributions to literature. Hisplays have been performed internationally since herelocated to Paris in 1987. His two novels were sell-ing well in France before the Nobel Prize announce-ment. Gilbert Fong’s English translation of six ofGao’s plays was published in 1999, and my transla-tion of Soul Mountain was published in English inmid-2000.

Q. Does translating literary works into Englishmake them more “accessible” for consideration forinternational literary prizes?

A. The Nobel Prize demonstrated that Gao’s majorwritings work in three languages, and I think thiswas an important consideration. With other prizes,one of the criteria may be that a work also be avail-able in English translation.

Q. Lingshan was published first in Chinese inTaipei, but it did not receive the public acclaim(selling fewer than 1,000 copies) that it has sincereceived after Gao won the Nobel Prize. What doyou think about the criticism some have made thatChinese readers did not value his writings untilthere was Western critical acclaim?

A. This is the case with most serious writing....Interestingly, in Australia, before the Nobel Prizeannouncement, Soul Mountain had sold over 4,000copies, which is not bad for the size of the popula-tion!

Q. Why is translation of literature important?

A. Serious literature represents the thinking of reflec-tive minds in one culture. Translation allows accessto different perspectives on the same topic: humanbeings with all their flaws and imperfections.

Q. Will you continue to do literary translations?

A. I am kept quite busy with working on Gao’s fic-tion, but I am also translating a bit of poetry occa-sionally.

Q. Whose poems?

A. Poems by Yang Lian and Hong Ying. My transla-tions of Hong Ying’s poems have been published inAustralian literary journals such as Meanjin,Southerly, and Otherland and in the American jour-nal Talisman. A poem by Yang Lian will be pub-lished in the Australian e-poetry journal Jacket.

Q. Why did you choose these poets’ works to trans-late?

A. I have translated and published Yang Lian’s poemsin the past. I like his poetry. I also like Hong Ying’spoems.

Q. For you, what is the most difficult thing abouttranslating Chinese poetry into English?

A. As with all translation, making the translationsound as good and read as well in English as theoriginal, grasping that vital essence that makes itpoetry and reproducing it.

Q. How do you feel about your accomplishment ofhaving made available the English translation ofSoul Mountain?

A. I feel great, and I have had e-mails from all partsof the world to thank me for making it possible forthem to read it. The translator always puts her or hishead on the chopping block, and to have translatedthe major novel of the controversial Nobel Prize win-ner Gao Xingjian singles out the translator for attackas well. But like Gao, I am pretty tough and haveconfidence in my work.

Q. What are you proudest of with regard to yourtranslation of Soul Mountain?

A. The fact that I completed the translation. The tim-ing of the first publication in Australia was perfect.Gao Xingjian came to launch the Australian publica-tion of Soul Mountain in early July 2000, and onOctober 12 he was declared the winner of the NobelPrize for Literature.


Q. Gao is the first Chinese writer to win the NobelPrize for Literature. How do you feel about the rolethat you have played as the translator of SoulMountain?

A. I naturally feel great about making the work avail-able to English readers. Gao has won gold and I feelI have been sprinkled with gold dust.



The following was presented as the keynote addressat the ALTA Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina inOctober 2001.

Iwill begin with a poem of mine that, although it isnot a translation, would probably have come out

quite differently, if at all, if I had not done quite a bitof translation. It’s called “I Thought She Said.”

“I have to finish one more parrot bath.”My mind stalled out on water, dusty wings,green feathers floating in a soapy tub.That time, I’m glad to say, I didn’t speakbefore I knew that she meant “paragraph.” That “paragraph,” I mean, is what she’d said.

My mind slipped into gear and drifted bya bird I actually met one afternoonwhile I was waiting for a wheel alignment.Beyond the crackling Naugahyde I sat on,out in the service bay, I heard the ring,sharp as the first bite of a winter apple,

of a tire iron on concrete. Did Gary Snyder,maybe, say poetry should sound like that?Six more times in thirty minutes. FinallyI made a smart remark about slippery tools,and the woman working behind the counter

said,“It’s the bird.” Was that really what she’d said?

She glanced over her shoulder as if to sayI could get up and go see for myself.I looked in a back room, and there he was,pacing his dowel perch: a myna bird.“He learned to make that noise last month,” she

said,“and we can’t hardly tell the difference.” 1

I am grateful to John Balaban and to my oldfriend Lucinda MacKethan for the compliment they

have paid me in asking that I address you. It is dan-gerously flattering to hear that I might say somethingof interest to a room full of people who know morethan I do about what may be the most frustrating ofthe literary arts. It is also daunting to stand here at amoment when our hearts are heavy, partly because ofinsufficient and inadequate translation, and to knowthat I have little more to say about that than thosewho urge us to go on with our lives as best we can.

Finally, it is usefully humbling to be remindedthat I have translated at least as many lines of verse asI have written for or as myself, and that it has onlybeen in the past dozen years or so that I haveacknowledged the art’s large place in my life. Foryears, I am sorry and ashamed to confess, I thoughtof translation as secondary, something I did instead ofwhat I was pleased to refer to as my "real work" ormy “own work.” I’ve run into this attitude from timeto time among other writers; the notion is that whenone is unable to do original work, because of writer’sblock or ordinary dryness of the well, translation is anice way to keep one’s hand in. And I suppose it maybe, if conditions are right, but I think it is outrageous-ly arrogant to believe that, when my writing resourcesare depleted, I can rise to the challenge of doing jus-tice to a writer who is infinitely my superior:Sophocles, for one of the thousands of possible exam-ples. If I’m not up to writing real poetry, then I’m notup to making a translation of even a short passagefrom one of his plays.

Especially given certain of my biases as a trans-lator. I have worked and thought in this field for longenough that I no longer feel apologetic about it, but Irecognize that honorable people can be found whodisapprove of the approach that I, by no meansuniquely, take to some translation projects. Though Ihave made translations from languages I know prettywell, I have also done a lot of work that has requiredoutside aid of various kinds, because of my relativeignorance of the original language. The extremeexample in my case would be Hebrew, of which I

MAKE A POEM OUT OF IT

By Henry Taylor

know not a syllable. Yet in collaboration with theIsraeli poet and journalist Moshe Dor, I have madeversions of poems by him and some of his contempo-raries, based on literal renderings he has provided,and on follow-up conversations with him, in which Ican find out some of the things he may have forgottento tell me. (“It’s funny right here. Is it supposed tobe?”) His English is entirely adequate to complicateddiscussion; indeed I think it is mostly modesty thatkeeps him from experiments with writing in it, so ifwhat I come up with is okay with him, it’s okay withme. But there would be no use in my sitting downwith a copy of the original and an oral examiner whowants me to defend my choices. “You know what todo," he likes to say. “Make a poem out of it.”Translating poetry requires the ability to write poetry,if the final result is at least partly intended to per-suade readers that the original is poetry.

This occasion has prompted me to think back alittle and try to recall pivotal moments that led meinto the translation of poetry. I will not wax autobio-graphical for too long, I hope. To begin with, I musthere acknowledge three old debts, two of which Ihave written about before. My secondary-schoolLatin and French teachers, Julius B. Laramore andEugénie Vickery, taught me not only the languagesbut also what poetry in them sounded like. I havesince met many language teachers who, like manyanother person, do not especially care for poetry, butMr. Laramore and Madame Vickery did care about itand deepened my passion for it in their ways. But Imade no literary translations under their direct tute-lage.

(Incidentally, as I learned languages other thanmy own, there came moments when anything writtenin them was interesting, because of the intellectualthrill of merely understanding it. I only graduallycame to realize that an indicator of one’s understand-ing of a language is the ability to spot tedium or fool-ishness expressed in it.)

I continued to study French in college throughmy third year, but also in my third year I took upItalian, under Edoardo Lèbano, then a young profes-sor who had come into a situation whose effectsplagued him for at least a year.

At the University of Virginia in the 1950s and

1960s, Professor Oreste Rinetti had sole responsibili-ty for Italian. Fairly or not, he developed a reputationas a soft touch, and Italian came to be known, amongthose whose talents in that line were limited, as theway to fulfill the undergraduate language require-ment. Then, halfway through a year, Professor Rinettidied. The second semester was picked up by theItalian wife of a distinguished English professor.Signora Langbaum flunked a bunch of guys. The fol-lowing fall, Signor Lèbano inherited them. Amongthese dazed and wounded men, many of them ath-letes, I came to the study of the first language fromwhich I made translations of poetry.

Signor Lèbano was one of those rare individualswith a deep gift for teaching beginning languagecourses. He had boundless energy, enthusiasm fordrill, a good sense of humor, and a passion for thelanguage itself. He was of something less than middlestature, and several of the students, basketball players,greatly exceeded it. He would send us to the board towrite sentences, which we tended to do at the level ofour own eyes. After we sat down, Signor Lèbanowould go at our efforts with a pointer. Then he woulderase them, sometimes having to leap into the air andtake quick reaching swipes at lines near the top of theboard. You will know what I mean by powerful teach-ing when I say that these balletic moments did notdiminish our respect for Signor Lèbano.

A year later I had my first experience with man-aged outcomes in literary contests. Signor Lèbanosaw me on the street near Mincer’s Pipe Shop, hailedme, and said he had a problem he thought I couldhelp him with. His department sponsored an essaycontest in Italian literature and civilization; if mymemory does not betray me, Professor Rinetti mayhave established it; in any case, after his death it hadbeen named for him. It had been won two years in arow by a student who seemed prepared to win itagain. Signor Lèbano thought that this would be toobad. English professors had told him that I wrotepoetry tolerably well for a student, and so maybe Iwould like to assemble a group of translations andwrite an introduction for it. The essay did not have tobe in the Italian language. It would be best if thetranslations themselves were, well, poetry, not justtranslation, if I took his meaning.


Those were the first words directly addressed tome about what my aims as a literary translator oughtto be. I do not believe I have acknowledged thatbefore. It is an immense debt, and I rejoice in havingincurred it. Over the next several weeks I clawed outfirst-draft versions of poems by Ungaretti, Penna,Sereni, Pasolini, Saba, and others, and did what Icould to turn those into poems. In those days I wasstill intimidated by the originals and sought a kind offaithfulness to them that probably can’t be achieved,although in the case at least of a short poem ofSandro Penna’s I retained the stanza form, and somust have had to take liberties, as the saying goes. Asif any of us did not.

The Rinetti award can be found among the veryearly entries on my curriculum vitae, although I havealways thought I would not have had a chance at it ifan abler man had not earlier worn out his welcome.Does that sound falsely modest? I speak of one whois now Professor Walter Korte, Director of FilmStudies at the University of Virginia, widely acknowl-edged as an important critic especially of the films ofLuchino Visconti.

The following year I had the astounding goodfortune to be in a very small graduate creative writingprogram—I had two classmates, strictly speaking,though Lucinda MacKethan, Lee Smith, AnnieDillard, Ann Jones, Ann Bradford Warner, and otherswere all in the junior class at Hollins at that time, andMargaret Gibson was a senior—where I was able towork very closely with William Jay Smith, as well asLouis D. Rubin, Jr. Bill Smith taught a course inFrench Symbolist poets, and while taking it I beganto make translations of Baudelaire and Verlaine.Smith took me a long way toward understanding whattranslation is and invited me into a couple of antholo-gies he was editing of French and Italian poems.

The year after that, during my first teachingappointment, I heard from William Arrowsmith, whowondered if I wanted to try translating a Greektragedy in collaboration with a classicist. I was tooyoung—twenty-five—and ignorant to be anything butpleased and flattered, and I signed on to do TheChildren of Herakles, which finally appeared in 1981with Robert A. Brooks as my collaborator. Let me bebrief: it was a valuable and deeply troubling experi-

ence. I ended up studying Greek for a while, becauseI finally decided that at that time, for me, the collabo-ration Arrowsmith visualized was impossible. I need-ed to know something more about what I was doingthan what a good classicist said I was doing. I won’tlinger over the forces that have conspired to keep thatseries from being completed, though it has been inprocess for thirty-five years. Arrowsmith was in someways unreasonable, but I learned more from him thanfrom anyone else about how to think about whattranslation can be—as well as what it can’t be. It wasArrowsmith from whom I first heard this, about threebasic levels of diction in classical translation: pinionhim, seize him, grab him.

Enough autobiography.We know now—no. We have long known, and

now more widely acknowledge, that the convergenceof a text and one reader’s consciousness will beunique. Sometimes this uniqueness involves error thatcan be traced, and sometimes not. A pertinent passageoccurs in Proust’s essay “Sur la lecture,” translated byJean Autret and William Burford as "On Reading." Itappeared first in a journal, then as the Preface toProust’s translation of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies. Init, Proust recalls some of the pleasures of readingThéophile Gautier’s le Capitaine Fracasse. I willimpose a somewhat lengthy quotation upon you, fromthe translation:

In it I liked, above all, two or three sen-tences which seemed to me the most originaland beautiful in the book. I did not imaginethat another author might ever have writtenany comparable to them. But I had the feelingthat their beauty corresponded to a reality ofwhich Théophile Gautier would let us catchbut a glimpse, once or twice in a book. Andsince I thought he assuredly knew it in itsentirety, I would have liked to read other booksby him where all the sentences would be asbeautiful as those, and would be about thingson which I would have wished to have hisopinion. “Laughing is not cruel by nature; itdistinguishes man from beast, and it is, as itappears in the Odyssey of Homer, poet ofGreek fire, the property of the immortal and


happy gods, who laugh Olympianly to theirheart’s content in the leisure of eternity.” Thissentence truly intoxicated me. I thought I per-ceived a marvelous antiquity through thatMiddle Ages which only Gautier could revealto me.2

Proust annotates the sentence thus, in the translation:

Actually, this sentence is not found, atleast in this form, in le Capitaine Fracasse.Instead of “as it appears in the Odyssey ofHomer, poet of Greek fire,” there is simply“according to Homer.” But since the expres-sions “it appears from Homer,” “it appearsfrom the Odyssey,” which are found elsewherein the same book, gave me a pleasure of thesame quality, I have taken the liberty so thatthe example might be more striking for thereader, of fusing all these beauties into one,now that, strictly speaking, I no longer have areligious respect for them. Elsewhere in leCapitaine Fracasse Homer is qualified as poetof Greek fire, and I have no doubt that this tooenchanted me. However, I am no longer able tobring back accurately enough those forgottenjoys to be assured I have not exaggerated andgone too far in accumulating so many wondersin one single sentence! Yet I do not believe so.And I think with regret that the exaltation withwhich I repeated the sentence from leCapitaine Fracasse to the irises and periwin-kles leaning at the river’s edge, while I tram-pled underfoot the stones of the path, wouldhave been still more delicious had I been ableto find in a single sentence by Gautier so manycharms which my own artifice gathers togethertoday without, alas, succeeding in giving meany pleasure.3

Those of you familiar with this remarkable essaymay recall that it lavishes perhaps four of its thirtypages on Ruskin. But it is fairly straightforward in itssuggestion that one of the things we do in translating,or even in recalling an original text, is to try to makeit what we want it to be. As I am fond of saying to my

translation students, most of whom are also pursuingthe MFA in creative writing, “You know how you canread something and wish with an unusually strongand deep pang that you had written it yourself? Well,if it’s in a language other than yours, maybe you can.”I am not trying to be cavalier or provocative. I do notmean that even creative writers often have good rea-sons for appropriating, colonizing, or otherwise steal-ing work from other languages for the gratification oftheir own particular voices. But I do believe thattranslation is best done by those who understand,respect, and even rejoice in its impossibilities.Pope may have said it better, in the preface to hisIliad:

I know no Liberties one ought to take, butthose which are necessary for transfusing theSpirit of the Original, and supporting thePoetical Style of the Translation: and I willventure to say, there have not been more Menmisled in former times by servile dullAdherence to the Letter, than have been delud-ed in ours by a chimerical insolent Hope ofraising and improving their Author.4

I have committed my share of chimerical inso-lences. Some I have excused by noting their thumpingobtrusiveness: there is clearly no way the originalcould have done or said exactly what I have decidedto have the translation do or say, for the sake of somegesture I can’t duplicate but would like to suggest.One tiny example, which comes to mind partlybecause we are where we are: In Plautus’ Curculio—The Weevil—the main character, a clown and parasite,is briefly pretending to be the representative of amiles gloriosus who is absent because, the parasitesays, he is supervising the construction of a seven-foot gold monument to his latest exploits. He is askedwhat those were, and Curculio replies, in my rendi-tion:

Monumental! The Persians,Paphlagonians, Sinopians, Arabs, Carians,Cretans, Syrians, Rhodes and Lycia, Upper

Devouriaand Lower Bibula, Centauromachia


and Unomammaria, the Libyan coast,all of Hangoveria, half the nationsof the world, to say nothing of Albaniaand the Duke University English Department,have fallen to him, fighting alone, in three

weeks.5

There are times, I think, when the best we canhope for is a certain grace in demonstration of theoriginal’s intractability. There is Hadrian’s little soundmachine, for instance:

Animula vagula blandulaHospes comesque corporisQuae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula rigida nudulaNec ut soles, dabis iocos?

Here is a version made by Lord Byron:

Ah! Gentle, fleeting, wav’ring sprite,Friend and associate of this clay!To what unknown region borneWilt thou now wing thy distant flight?No more with wonted humor gay,But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.6

And this, by Stevie Smith:

Little soul so sleek and smilingFlesh’s friend and guest alsoWhere departing will you wanderGrowing paler now and languidAnd not joking as you used to?7

Weird, isn’t it? One rarely encounters trochaic tetram-eter outside of Longfellow (or his source, theKalevala, where I have not yet sought to encounter it),but there it is. Let me share with you, though it hasnothing to do with translation, a short passage fromone of the most extraordinarily unfortunate uses ofthis meter, a long Victorian didactic piece by EdwardNewman called “The Insect Hunters”:

First of walkers come the Earwigs,Earwigs or FORFICULINA.

At the tail we find a weaponVery like a pair of pincers,And with this ’tis said the earwigsOpen and fold up the hind wings.You may watch them and observe it;I have never had that pleasure.

My favorite Anglophone rendition of Hadrian’spoem is J. V. Cunningham’s:

My little soul, my vagrant charmer,The friend and houseguest of this matter,Where will you now be visitorIn naked pallor, little soul,And not so witty as you were?8

Hearing the range of dictions in those three transla-tions, I return to Pope’s Homer and Maynard Mack’sdiscussion of it in the Twickenham Edition. In a foot-note he recalls Matthew Arnold’s failure to notice oneof the chief impossibilities of translation. Arnold isquoted thus: “Chapman translates his object intoElizabethan, as Pope translates it into the Augustan ofQueen Anne.” Mack says that Arnold “reaches thecuriously obtuse conclusion that it could (and ofcourse should) have been otherwise” (TE VII xlix-l).But to refine this a little, we have DouglasMcKnight’s opinion that “Of English translators, onlyPope has consistently rejected both the irresponsibili-ty of a wholly personal idiom and the rigor mortis ofa bogus one” (TE VII cxciii). There, I think, is how tosay why Cunningham’s Hadrian is more convincing tome than Smith’s or Byron’s.

This is one of those occasional successes thatbecome more admirable the more closely we comparethem with the originals. That’s a dubious kind of tri-umph in certain ways, and not hard to mistake, or tocounterfeit. It is extremely tempting sometimes, andrisky, to make translational witticisms that can onlybe appreciated when compared with the original.Such parochial triumphs should be avoided, I think.We so rarely know what we are saying to one another,after all, that even graceful mistranslation can some-times seem a miracle.

I opened in my verse voice, and would like toend by going back out of prose. This time, though,


I’ve brought along the Big Guy, by whom this time Imean Sophocles; he’ll be doing most of the work.

You may recall that his Electra opens with aconference between Orestes and his old tutor andguardian, the Paidagogus, as they stand before thehouse formerly Agamemnon’s, now that ofClytemnestra and Aegisthus. They plan to assistElectra in avenging Agamemnon’s death and agreethat it will be best if people here believe Orestes to bedead. Orestes instructs the Paedagogus to announceOrestes’ death in a chariot race during some athleticcelebration. “Fill in the details as best you can,”Orestes says (in one view; there is argument for areading that would mean “swear to it” instead of “fillit out”), and the Paidagogus rises to the challenge. Itis either the best or the second-best chariot race inclassical literature; the other is in the Iliad, among thefuneral games for Patroclus. The striking thing here,though, is that this race is entirely fictional, inventedin order to deceive; nevertheless, the Paidagogus hada fine time with it:

Paedagogus

I’ll tell you everything; that is why I came.Orestes made his way to the Delphic shrineto enter those games that are the pride of Greece.The herald first called runners to the footrace,and he came on the course, his splendid bodyadmired by everyone. He took the leadright at the start and held it all the way.To say it all as quickly as I can,I do not know a man who has matched himin triumphant acts of strength and skill,but this is clear: in all announced results,his name came first, and people envied himeach time they heard the herald call him Argive,Orestes by name, and Agamemnon’s son—son of the man who led that host of Greeks.So, for a while, things went that way for him.But human strength is nothing to the gods;a day came when at sunrise race-horseswere hitched to chariots and took the course;he was there along with all the others.One was an Achaean, and one was Spartan;there were two drivers from Libya, and fifth

came Orestes, driving mares from Thessaly.Sixth was an Aetolian with chestnut colts;a Magnesian was the seventh, and the eighthwas an Aenian with white horses. Ninth,a man from Athens, city of the gods;the tenth and final driver was Boeotian.They put their chariots under starter’s ordersand took positions given them by lot.When the bronze trumpet sounded, they were off.They shouted at their horses, shook the reins,and a rumbling dust-cloud lifted from the courseand pulsed with the rattling of the chariots—a crowded, tight-packed charge of men with

whipstrying to break from the tangled hubs and horses.Behind them and beside their wheels the breathand lathered foam of horses wheezed and

spattered.Orestes drove to hug the turning-post, almostgrazing it every time with his inside wheel,checking his inside horse, letting the other run.So far all chariots were still up and rolling.But then the Aenian’s hard-mouthed colts,coming out of the turn into the seventh lap,got out of his control and crashed head firstinto the Libyan—the one from Barca. Thisstarted a pileup, chariots crashing oneafter the other, until the whole race-courseof Crisa churned with chariot-wreckage.The Athenian driver was alert enoughto see all this and make a clever move:he pulled aside and let the flood go by.Orestes, too, had stayed just off the pace,trusting the last lap to bring him home in front.But when he saw the race was down to himand the Athenian, he gave a shout that ranghis horses’ ears, and took out after him.Yoke to yoke they raced, one pulling aheadfor a few strides, then the other. Up to nowOrestes had driven safely through each lapand kept his chariot’s wheels on the ground.Then he slipped and let the left rein go slackhalfway through a turn, and hit the pillar,cracked the axle box in two, and spilled outover the chariot-rail, tangled in the long reins,and his horses dragged him all over the


course.The whole crowd screamed, watching this young

manwho had won so much and then had such bad

luck,bouncing over the hard ground until charioteersreined in his charging horses and cut him loose,so mangled that his friends would not have known

him.They made a pyre and burned him right away,and Phocian men appointed to the tasknow bring this lowly dust, once a mighty man,in a small bronze urn for burial at home.That was it—horrible just to hear, but for uswho saw it, the greatest sorrow I have seen.9

They believed him.

Notes

1 Alaska Quarterly Review, Vol. 18, No. 1 & 2 (Spring& Summer 2000), p. 263.

2 On Reading, Translated and Edited by Jean Autretand William Burford (New York: The MacmillanCompany, 1971), p. 33.

3 On Reading, 75.4 The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander

Pope, ed. John Butt et al., 11 vols. in 12 (London:Methuen; New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1939-69). Vol. 7, The Iliad of Homer, Books I-IX, ed.Maynard Mack (1967), p. 17. Hereafter cited asTE VII.

5 Plautus: The Comedies, Volume 1, in The CompleteRoman Drama in Translation, Ed. David R.Slavitt and Palmer Bovie (Baltimore: JohnsHopkins Unversity Press, 1995), p. 353.

6 Hours of Idleness, 1807.7 Stevie Smith, The Collected Poems (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 472.8 The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, Edited with an intro-

duction and commentary by Timothy Steele.(Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press,1997), p 113.

9 Sophocles, 1, in the Penn Greek Drama Series, Ed.David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie (Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 164-166.


Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang have been regardedas two master translators for approximately 60

years on the Chinese Mainland. From their publishedtranslations, we find that Xianyi has produced about10 Chinese translations from different foreign lan-guages, including Greek, Latin, English andMedieval French. Xianyi and Gladys have done morethan 50 English translations of Chinese works, mostof them literary in nature, and Gladys alone has donemore than 20 English translations of modern Chinesenovels. Their translations have been acclaimed inboth quantity and quality and thus are a great contri-bution to the introduction of Chinese literature andculture to the West.

However, although it is believed that some prin-ciples and guidelines may support their work, theyhave not expressed much about the background totheir translating activity. It is a pity that Gladyspassed away in 1999. Yang Xianyi is now 87 yearsold. To gain some clear ideas about their philosophyof translation, we prepared some questions and tookadvantage of an interview to get his answers to thesequestions last May. In our opinion, Yang Xianyi isquite modest, open-minded, affable, and unassuming.We marvel at his quickness of mind, the profoundknowledge he expressed in simple language, and hissagacity. Judging from his words, we cannot imaginethat he is almost 90! During the interview, heanswered to some major questions concerning trans-lation practice and theory. This interview, which wasconducted in Chinese, is the first one, and more willcome. Nonetheless, we thought it would be a goodidea to share our initial experiences and findingswith our colleagues. The following is the Englishtranslation of the interview.

Q: How did you get started in your translationwork?

A: Gladys and I returned to China in the late sum-mer of 1940. After we were back, we taught in dif-ferent universities in the interior during the war

years. In the first year, we taught in the CentralUniversity sponsored by the Kuomintang governmentin Chongqing, the capital at that time. But we foundwe were being spied upon by the University authori-ty, and that made us very uncomfortable. So we wentto teach in a new college in Guiyang. However,Gladys became pregnant and had to go back toChengdu to her mother to get better care in child-birth. I followed her to Chengdu and taught there forhalf a year. But the experience there was again verydisappointing. So we decided not to go on teachingin the universities. Just then, a friend introduced meto Prof. Liang Shiqiu, a very influential scholar whowas heading the Translation Committee of theInstitute of Translation and Compilation. Liang want-ed us to head a section translating Chinese classicsinto English. They suggested that because Chineseclassics in history were unknown to the West, weshould translate Zizhi Tongjian (an historical guide toassist in the governance of the empire). This was aSong dynasty classic compiled by the scholar SimaGuang. Because we were rather disappointed withour teaching experience in the universities, weaccepted this invitation gladly. Thus, we began ourtranslation career.

Q: From all your translations, we can see that mostof your work is on Chinese-English translation.Why not the other way around?

A: As I mentioned just now, Gladys and I decided towork in the Institute of Translation and Compilationin order to be together. I prepared the manuscriptswith a typewriter and then Gladys made some cor-rections. Without her, I could not have rendered theminto good English. We found this kind of life enjoy-able.

Q:Your translations cover a lot of topics and lan-guages, including translation from Latin, Greek,and English into Chinese, from Medieval Frenchinto Chinese, and, most of all, from Chinese into

INTERVIEW WITH YANG XIANYIBy Qian Duoxiu and E. S-P. Almberg


English. How would you describe your proficiencyin these languages?

A: I have never thought about this. When I was inmiddle school, my Chinese was better than most ofmy classmates. I could write essays in both classicChinese and the vernacular. Then when I was in highschool, I would go to the bookstore nearby to buyEnglish books and read them. This may have helpedto improve my English. Through such reading, Ibecame interested in Greek literature and wanted tolearn Greek. Later, when I was in London, I learnedGreek and Latin through private tutors for more thantwo years.

My knowledge of French is not very good. Mostof the time, I read English translations of French lit-erature. When I was in Oxford, I studied French forthree months and became very interested in LaChanson de Roland, written in Medieval French.Later, I translated this into Chinese. Anyway, myFrench is not very good.

Q:You have received many awards and have heldvarious positions. This is undoubtedly a recognitionof your achievements. Do they have any implica-tions for the cause of Chinese-English translation?

A: Our culture at present is not as advanced as thatof the West. But back in the Tang and SongDynasties, we enjoyed a much more advanced cul-ture than that of the West. There are a lot of merits inour ancient culture, which can be introduced to theWest. Translation of these may help the Westernworld to better understand our culture.

Q:You and Gladys have translated both classicaland modern Chinese literary works. Which do youprefer?

A: I like the classics better. But Gladys liked totranslate contemporary stories, especially those writ-ten by women writers.

She made very quick progress in Chinese andshe found she could understand modern Chinese bet-ter than classical Chinese. She was also very consci-entious and willing to do more. So when some con-

temporary writers wanted to have their works trans-lated into English, Gladys helped them and shebecame good friends with many of these womenwriters.

Q: Could you have your own choices in transla-tion?

A: We both liked Lu Xun very much. When we firstbegan our work in the Foreign Languages Press, wewere asked to translate Lu Xun’s works. At that time,the Press had a comprehensive plan of translationthat was drawn up by the editors. Translators had lit-tle say in such matters. When I was asked to translatesomething that I didn’t like, I would try not to takepart in it. But when I was on good terms with theeditor in charge of a certain translation, I might try toput forward some suggestions.

Q: Have you ever been under pressure to do sometranslations?

A: Of course, yes. After liberation, there have been alot of political tasks that one has to finish. Massmovements have become a part of Chinese life eversince the late 1950s. I remember once ChairmanMao Zedong said that we should not be afraid ofghosts (imperialists), then we were asked to translatea series of such stories.

Q: Are there any books you would like to translatemost but have not been able to do so? What are thereasons?

A: Yes. For example, we like stories written by ShenCongwen in his early years very much. But you canonly read some stories by him (The Border Town andOther Stories) in Chinese literature. ThenRecollections of West Hunan was published in the1980s only when I was the editor in chief. Later,Shanghai Translation Publishing House invited us totranslate his early writings, but Gladys’ health wasfailing at that time, so we had to give it up. Ofcourse, there are a lot of other classics that I wouldlike to have translated, but now this is beyond me.


Q: Have you had any difficulties in your transla-tion?

A: Yes. Chinese and English are two different lan-guages and they reflect two different cultures. That’swhy it is very difficult to convey the meaning faith-fully from one language into another. Once you canget the target readers to understand what you trans-late, you are successful.

Q: Nowadays, a lot more books are translated fromEnglish into Chinese than from Chinese intoEnglish. How would you comment on this?

A: This is nothing surprising. We are backward andhave to learn from the West. And owing to the lackof government support and funds, we are not in aposition to translate and publish many Chineseworks. This cannot be done by a translator on hisown.

Q: When people talk about your translations fromChinese into English, most probably,Hongloumeng will be first to be mentioned. Weknow that before you translated Hongloumeng (ADream of the Red Mansions), you consulted withWu Shichang. Can you say a few words aboutthat?

A: Well, this is a long story and I can’t finish it inonly a few words. It was quite accidental for me totranslate A Dream of the Red Mansions. At thattime, in 1960, I wanted to translate some classics,but the leader of the Foreign Languages Press didn’twant me to do so. Zhou Yang was a very powerfulwriter and head of the Ministry of Culture. He heardthat I knew Greek and Latin. So he said Homer wasvery important and there should be a good Chinesetranslation of Homer’s works, including the Odysseyand the Iliad. I was then holding a position as seniorresearch fellow in the Institute of Foreign Literatureat the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, so theInstitute invited me to work there for some time onHomer. The Press, although quite unhappy, darednot refuse this request. I finished the Odyssey in ayear and was going to work on the Iliad when the

Press thought out an idea of getting me back towork in the Press. They said that I should begin towork on the translation of a Chinese classical novel,and that novel was Hongloumeng.

As a matter of fact, none of the so-called fourclassical novels—A Dream of the Red Mansions,Outlaws of the Marsh, The Three Kingdoms, and APilgrimage to the West— had a good English trans-lation. I myself preferred to translate The ThreeKingdoms. But there was no bargain for me. So Istarted to translate Hongloumeng and finished arough draft of about a hundred chapters by 1964.

Q: There are many versions of Hongloumeng.Which version did you base your translation on?Why?

A: Wu Shichang helped to decide on the Chineseversion because he was an authority onHongloumeng. According to him, I should translateonly the first 80 chapters. But then, Jiang Qing,Chairman Mao’s wife, interfered and said all the 120chapters should be translated. We had to agree. Sowe chose the first 80 chapters of Hongloumengannotated by Yu Pingbo and the next 40 chapters inthe popular version published by the People’sLiterature Press.

If you ask why we chose this and that, I don’tthink I can give you a satisfactory answer. Up to thisday, the arguments about Hongloumeng have not yetall been solved.

Q: In your translation of A Dream of the RedMansions, you chose to translate the names of theupper class by means of transliteration and thoseof the lower class by means of free translation.What was your reason in doing so?

A: There are two ways in translating Chinese names,transliteration or free translation. It would be verygood if one can translate the meaning of a name.But the names in the novel are quite numerous anddifficult to remember when translated freely intoEnglish. Besides, it is very difficult to translate thenames of those people of the upper class. So wecame to a compromise and decided to transliterate


the upper-class names and translate the lower-classnames freely.

Q: Were there any difficulties in the subsequentpublication?

A: There was little difficulty in publishing Homer.When we were translating Hongloumeng, I wasalready under suspicion. So I was not very happythen.

I finished the draft of the first 100 chapters, andGladys helped to make corrections for the first 30 to40 chapters. But then we were told to stop. Thework resumed only in 1972, after we were releasedfrom jail, with the whole translation finished in1974. If we had not been stopped, we could havefinished it in two more years. But as things turnedout, we spent about 10 years on it. When we finallyfinished it in 1974, we had little difficulty in pub-lishing it because my name was politically cleared.

Q: When you translate classical and modern works,do you have different approaches?

A: Classical works are more grammatical than mod-ern works. Lu Xun’s works are relatively grammati-cal and easier to deal with. Gladys felt more at easewhen she was translating Lu Xun than the modernworks because many modern works are not so gram-matical and often very circuitous. So when we trans-lated them, we usually had to delete some of thesentences as long as we could keep the originalmeaning. This does not go against our first principleof translation.

Q: In Lu Xun’s works, there are many sentences orpassages that are simple and concise in form butprofound in meaning. How did you translate theseparts?

A: If there really is something implied in the origi-nal, we would try to make it clear in our translationthrough various methods.

Q: In order to let the target reader better under-stand the translation, sometimes it is necessary to

have footnotes or endnotes. Is this the case?

A: Yes. This is especially so in translating classicalChinese. For example, in The Songs of the South, wehave “ .” Youmay translate these two sentences freely into Englishby replacing the “ willows and poplars” with“roses.” But this cannot reflect the particular mean-ing associated with “willows and poplars” inChinese. Such meanings are culturally bound andspecific. So we have to keep the original image andadd a footnote or an endnote when necessary.

Q: Before you translated Lu Xun’s works, youconsulted with Feng Xuefeng. What did you talkabout?

A: That was just after the Liberation. Feng was notthe director of the People’s Literature Press yet. Hewas a veteran communist cadre who was quite at hisleisure at that time. There was an editor in our presswho was very familiar with Feng. Feng mentionedto him that he would like to have someone translateLu Xun’s works. Then our Press agreed to let ustranslate Lu Xun’s works. The editor introduced usto Feng and we became friends. We decided it wasimpossible to translate all the works by Lu Xunbecause there are so many. Finally, we agreed totranslate four volumes altogether.

Q: In Lu Xun’s works, he often criticized LiangShiqiu, who was on the opposite side.You some-times add a note to the criticism or irony, but some-times, you don’t. Why?

A: My strategy is to add as few notes as possible. Ifthe readers have to stop every now and then to readthe notes, their flow of thought will be interrupted.That would be too bad.

Q: Why didn’t you translate his doggerels?

A: We didn’t think doggerels are a very importantpart of Lu Xun’s writings. We decided to focus onhis major works, including his short stories, essays,and satires. These are representative. I know that


later, an English translator named W. J. F. Jennertranslated his doggerels.

Q: Lu Xun was very good at satire and irony. Howdid you deal with these?

A: Well, when he was ironical, I would try to beironical in my translation. When he talked aboutsomething implicitly, I would try to put it in a vagueway.

Q: If the target readers don’t have the backgroundknowledge, do you try to explain it in a note?

A: As I mentioned earlier, I would try my best touse as few notes as possible. However, if I amtranslating something academic, then I will consideradding some notes.

Q: Lu Xun’s writings are noted for their simplicityand trenchancy. He preferred to use simple wordswith very few syllables. We see in your translation,you managed to keep it this way. How did you dothat?

A: When we translated his works, we tried tochoose, among several synonyms, the simplest word.Our style is like this. But some translators may liketo use big words with more syllables. Their stylecould be flowery.

Q: When you translate, what is your unit of trans-lation?

A: Well, we have seldom translated word-for-word.We think it is good to translate according to the unitof meaning without feeling bound by the originalsyntax.

Q: When people talk about discourse analysis,English seems to be more linear while Chineseseems to be more spiral. How do you solve this dif-ference in discourse?

A: It depends. If the original discourse structure isspiral intentionally, then we have to keep it that way.

But if the original is circuitous because of theauthor’s poor command of language, then we have todo away with those redundant parts.

Q: So you think that a translator has the right todo so?

A: It has to be so. Otherwise, the target readers willhave difficulty in understanding the translatedworks. In translating Gu Hua’s A Small Town CalledHibiscus, we cut out about one fourth to one third ofthe original.

Q: When you plan to delete some parts in the origi-nal, do you have to consult with the author?

A: Yes. Usually, the author will agree on our doingso because they want their works to have more read-ers. All a translator wants is let the target readersunderstand clearly and fully.

Q: When it comes to style, what are your ideas?Can style be translated?

A: Works can be flowery, elegant, circuitous, sim-ple, plain, etc. A good translator will try to keep theoriginal style as best as he can. But this can only beachieved to some extent. Style cannot be fully trans-lated.

Q: Do you think it is necessary to keep the rhymein translating poetry?

A: Keeping the rhyme is secondary to keeping themeaning. We are dealing with a different culturewhen translating from one language into another.There are some translators in China today who thinkthat Chinese poetry is very good and so everything,including the rhyme, should be kept when theytranslate these poems. It is impossible to do so. Forexample, when translating into Chinese “To be ornot to be, that is the question” in Shakespeare’sHamlet, a translator once tried very hard to keep theoriginal iambic in Chinese. Finally, he failed. Thesame is true when translating Tang poems and SongCi. So keeping the rhyme is not as important as


keeping the meaning. If you are translating Chinese ballads that are

strikingly rhymed, then you may try to make yourtranslation partly rhymed.

Q: How do you bring across figures of speech fromChinese?

A: Our strategy is to try to find a correspondingexpression in English. First of all, translation is onlyan art. For example, we have an idiom “a ”in Chinese. In English, there is a similar expression,“To kill two birds with one stone.” When translatingthis idiom, we first make sure whether this is usedin isolation from “ .” and “ .” If this is used inisolation, then we can replace it with “ To kill twobirds with one stone.” If, however, we find that “ .” and “ ” are mentioned in the context, thenwe will try to keep the original image (and translateit as “To kill two hawks with one arrow”).

Q: Have you had any difficulties in expressingyourselves?

A: Of course, yes. Yan Fu, a great translator, oncesaid, “I have to consider 10 to 30 days for the trans-lation of one term or name.” When we come acrosssuch problems, we have to rack our brains to solvethem. For example, when we translated Liang Bin’s

, we knew this title means “Keeping theTradition of Revolution.” That will do for theEnglish title. But we also wanted to keep the imageof (the Red Flag) and the meaning of (fam-ily record). So after much deliberation, we decidedthat the English version should be entitled “Keep theRed Flag Flying.” We thought we had reached acompromise by keeping some balance between thetwo parts. Otherwise, the target readers would find itpuzzling if it had been translated as “Red Banner,Family Record.”

Q: Then can you say something about the princi-ples that a translator should abide by?

A: First, he should be faithful to the original andmake a distinction between what is his own and

what is copied from other people’s work. No over-statement and no self-importance should be allowed.Translation is only an art. Q: It is said that a good translator should be bothbilingual and bicultural. Do you think so? In youropinion, what is required of a good translator?

A: Yes. A good translator should be proficient in atleast two different languages and cultures.

Q: Is it better to translate on one’s own or to workin a team?

A: Generally, people would prefer to work alone.But Gladys and I are a couple and we both knowtwo different languages. We have cooperated quitewell. If you want to work in a team, you must beteam-spirited. Otherwise, there will be arguments.For example, Lin Shu didn’t know foreign languagesat all but managed to translate so many foreign nov-els. He was successful because he could cooperatewith his good friends who knew these foreign lan-guages.

Q: When you translated with Gladys, there couldbe differences in understanding because of yourdifferent backgrounds. Then who usually won inthe arguments?

A: There were many times when we didn’t see eyeto eye. But we often negotiated until we could reachan agreement. Usually, she would listen to mebecause I could understand Chinese better, especial-ly classical Chinese.

Q: When you were Chief Editor of ChineseLiterature, how did you manage the contributionsand their quality?

A: Well, the Foreign Languages Press was cooperat-ing with the Chinese Writers’ Union then. Contri-butions were based on their recommendations. Forexample, Ding Ling’s The Sun Shines over theSanggan River, He Jingzhi’s The White-Haired Girl,and Zhou Li-bo’s The Hurricane were all recom-mended. Later, although the cooperation was not


that close, we had to consult with the ChineseWriters’ Union and the National Association ofWriters and Artists. Except for the classics, we didn’thave any say in the contributions. Even when I wastranslating the classics, I had to listen to the editors.But when I became the editor, I could have my sayand enjoyed more freedom.

Q: What are your responsibilities as Chief Editor?

A: Well, I had to take full responsibility for theissues. If there was any trouble, I would have to dealwith it and take the blame.

Q: Do you think translation theories can guidepractice?

A: Perhaps so. But to me, to put it in a simple way,faithfulness and expressiveness are enough. Whenwe talk about elegance, I think everyone should tryto be elegant in his writing, not necessarily in trans-lation.

Q:You also have some creative writings. Do youthink there is some connection between your writ-ing and translation?

A: No. I have miscellaneous interests and have takenup many things, such as editing and publishing news-papers and magazines, and writing doggerels, arti-cles, and novels. I don’t see any connection betweenmy writing and translations. Maybe to others, thereis.

Q: What advice can you give, from your own expe-rience, to those who want to devote themselves toliterary translation?

A: All they have to do is be faithful. Never exagger-ate.

Q: In the Foreign Languages Press, for oneChinese novel, sometimes there might be transla-tions in several languages. Did those translators ofother foreign languages refer to your Englishtranslation?

A: Yes. The reason is that translators of other for-eign languages in the Press were usually not good atChinese. But most of them knew English. At thattime, the English version was generally the first oneto get published. Then they would base their transla-tions on the English version. For example, after ADream of Red Mansions was published, the Spanishand Burmese translations were published, based onthe English version.

Q: What is your attitude to the original and itsauthor?

A: Most of my translations are classics. There is noway for me to know what kind of people theirauthors were. But I like Lu Xun very much.

Q: What is your attitude toward the target readers?Your aim in translation is to let them understandthe novel and have some ideas of the Chinese cul-ture. Is this the case?

A: Yes.

Q: How do you know what kind of translations thereaders of English would like?

A: As an editor, I have to think about this. When Iwas in charge of the Panda Books, I chose BeijingLegends by a very old writer. I did that because Iknew Beijing is very attractive to many foreignreaders.

Q: How have social, political, and economic forcesinfluenced your translation?

A: Well, I should say that they have had a very greatinfluence on my work.

Q: Will there be differences when a translatortranslates the same novel at different times?

A: The language may be different. But the contentshould be the same.

Q: Will there be differences when different transla-


tors translate the same novel at the same time?

A: Yes. A good translator should not plagiarize, andhe should have his own style. For example, whenasked to write a poem on the subject“Chrysanthemum,” a group of people will producedifferent poems.

Q: Do you think there could be a standard transla-tion?

A: No, such a translation could hardly exist. Theremight be several translations for one novel, each withits own merits. But there have been very few transla-tions of Chinese literary works, so it is hard to say.

Q: What are your most satisfactory translations?

A: A Dream of the Red Mansions, The Scholars,The Courtesan’s Jewel Box, etc. Altogether, aboutseven to eight of them.

Q: Do you think it necessary to make improvementsto your translations?

A: Yes, I think it is necessary to make some correc-tions to my translation of Lu Xun’s A Brief Historyof Chinese Fiction. It was during the Great LeapForward when we translated this. We were requiredto translate a certain number of words every day. Ididn’t have the time to type, so I had to dictate andGladys typed, because she could do it faster. Thus,,we finished it in 10 days and had it published. This istoo hasty. I think there is much room for improve-ment. One has to study the original very closelybefore translating.

Q: After you retired in 1982, what have you done intranslation?

A: After I retired, I still acted as Chief Editor ofChinese Literature for several years. Then from 1989on, I have not translated any works.

Q: In China today, there has been an argument asto whether there is an independent discipline called

Translatology or Translation Studies. What is youropinion?A: In my opinion, I think translation is only an art.But of course, you can call it a “science.” A “sci-ence” can be further divided, either broadly or not,into many subdisciplines. For example, “physics” cannow easily be divided into a lot of disciplines. Whenyou have studied something for some time, you willhave some ideas. If you summarize these ideas, youcan call it a “science.” It depends on you whether tocall it a “science” or not. Everything can become a“science.” For example, in jade-carving and cloison-né manufacturing, you may come up with manystrategies and approaches, the sum of which can becalled a “science.”

Q: Before you, some other people had translatedLiaozhai and Hongloumeng. Did you read andrefer to them when you translated these novels?

A: I read them, but that was only for fun and longbefore I decided to translate these books.

Q: How many awards have you received?

A: I don’t remember.

Q: Compared with your work from Chinese intoEnglish, how do you think about your work fromforeign languages into Chinese?

A: I should say that I am satisfied with my work inthis respect.

Q: We can see you are an adviser of many organiza-tions and publications. What do you think of that?

A: I don’t mind my name being used by others. Butit is not very appropriate for them to use my namewhen I have not done anything for them. However, Iam happy to be an adviser for the Chinese Writers’Union, the Central Committee of the KuomintangRevolutionary Committee, etc., because I have donesomething for such organizations. They elected meas an adviser to express their thanks for my work. Itis not very honest for some organizations to claim


that they have me as their adviser. But I don’t havethe time and energy to correct this.

Q: Just now, you mentioned that a translator shouldbe faithful to the original. But when you translatedTang and Song poetry, you didn’t try to make yourtranslation rhymed. Why?

A: That is because of the differences in the two cul-tures. Not all English poems are rhymed. For exam-ple, poems of the Anglo-Saxon era do not rhyme,such as Beowulf. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales arerhymed. Different genres may have different patternsof rhyme. For example, the patterns of rhyme in son-nets could be this way or that way. Each line in aTang poem may be composed of 5 or 7 characters.But you cannot translate it into an English line of 5or 7 words. The prosody of different languages is dif-ferent. If you strive for rhyme for rhyme’s sake, theEnglish translation would sound very ridiculous. Theoriginal Chinese poem may be about something seri-ous, but if your translation turns it into somethinglike doggerel and loses some of the original flavor,then that translation is a failure.

Q: So some theorists in translation are talkingabout whether the author of the original shouldmove toward the target reader or the target readershould move toward the original.

A: In my opinion, the original work should go closeto the target reader. It is impossible and unnecessaryto ask all the target readers to learn and masterChinese. In fact, the aim of translation is to let thoseforeigners who don’t know Chinese read and learnsomething about the Chinese literature and culture.So there is no need to talk about the target readersmoving toward the original. If there were such aneed, then teach them Chinese and ask them to readthe original. In this case, translation is no long neces-sary.

Q: And then readership will be greatly restricted.

A: Yes.



Murasaki Shikibu

THE TALE OF GENJINewly Translated by Royall TylerThe first complete new translation in 25 years of the Japanese master-piece—beautifully packaged in a two-volume set with a slipcase.Viking 1,200 pp. 0-670-03020-1 $60.00

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Miguel de Cervantes

DON QUIXOTENewly Translated with an Introductionby Roberto Gonzalez Echevarriá“This new translation...is extremelygood. It makes Don Quixote funny and readable without obtrusivelymodernizing it.”—The Times Literary Supplement.Penguin Classic 948 pp. 0-14-044804-7 $13.00

Giacomo Casanova

THE STORY OF MY LIFENewly Translated by Stephen Sartarelli and Sophie HawkesEdited with an Introduction by Gilberto PizzamiglioPenguin Classic 576 pp. 0-14-043915-3 $15.00

Theodor Fontane

EFFI BRIESTNewly Translated by Hugh Rorrison and Helen ChambersPenguin Classic 256 pp. 0-14-044766-0 $13.00

André Gide

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BEOWULFA Verse TranslationTranslated with a New Introduction and Fully Revised Text by Michael AlexanderPenguin Classic 192 pp. 0-14-044788-1 $10.00

Robert Musil

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Lao Tzu

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Hildegard of Bingen

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Also of Interest:Harry Mulisch

THE PROCEDURETranslated by Paul VincentViking 240 pp. 0-670-91024-4 $24.95

P E N G U I N P U T N A M I N C .ACA D E M I C M A R K E T I N G D E PA RT M E N T • 3 7 5 H U D S O N S T R E E T • N E W YO R K , N E W YO R K 1 0 0 1 4 - 3 6 5 7 • w w w. p e n g u i n p u t n a m . c o m

G R O U N D - B R E A K I N G T R A N S L A T I O N S F R O M

The adage “traduttore traditore” addressed gener-ally to translation applies in extremis to plays,

because translators of drama frequently feel driven tocommit instances of petty or high treason against theoriginal text. In reality, these are not so much acts ofsedition as crimes of passion: after all, translatingplays is unquestionably a labor of love.

Like much true love, it is also frequently unre-quited or taken for granted, and its devotions usuallyescape notice by everyone except the occasional mal-content who saw Le bourgeois gentilhomme last sea-son in Paris and, now that was Molière, sans doute,whereas what we saw last night, well, obviously, a lotwas lost in the translation!

Of course any Shakespeare-in-the-Park is equal-ly likely to provoke the same disgruntlement: twoseasons ago upon-the-Avon,the same curmudgeonundoubtedly saw a splendid Midsummer and nowthat was Shakespeare! In this case, however, sincethe usual suspects aren’t around, the blame devolvesonto the director, actors, designers, or the overallwaywardness of American theater.

Obviously both productions involve acts ofinterpretation, a point not lost on Robert Wechsler,whose recent book on translation is entitledPerforming Without a Stage, but whereasShakespeare’s words had “merely” to travel frompage to stage, Molière’s had to move from tongue totongue as well. Such long voyages require a verytight ship, which is why more of the original is typi-cally jettisoned as translators resort to increasinglydrastic measures to keep afloat between the Scylla offidelity and the Charybdis of stageworthy English.The lines need to speak as well as be spoken; theyshould ring true both within the context of the playand in the ears of the receivers.

In case the translator proves less than resolute indeciding what should stay and what should go, thedirector or even the actors will likely show no suchhesitation and modify as they deem fit. This is notsimply callous or cavalier disdain toward intellectualproperty; it is the presenters’ duty to convey their

concept as clearly as possible and to keep the audi-ence on the edge of their seats while so doing. Editsand amendments that would be unthinkable withpoetry or prose are frequently necessary with drama.No matter what the original language, whole lines,scenes, and characters are often cut and dialoguesreshaped to fit the production, unless the author orthe author’s agent intervenes, as has famously hap-pened with works by Samuel Beckett.

Plays in translation require still more reshaping,because the potential discrepancies between originaltext and final recipient are generally greater than inother writing. Translators and presenters alike mustcope with a shifting cultural context, which appliesto the style of the performance as well as the sub-stance of the play: what passes for passion inKrakow may read as schmaltz in San Francisco, anda play that runs an hour in Cincinnati will likely last90 minutes in Berlin and twice that in Moscow. AnAfternoon in Creve Coeur sounds very concrete inSt. Louis but somewhat more abstract in Kyoto.Local traditions of acting and directing, the socialstatus of the theater, the presence of state or marketcensorship, the length of rehearsals, and the clout ofvarious agents all affect what gets said on stage andhow it is received.

How it gets said, though, is the translator’s spe-cial art.

All translation requires first hearing a voice inone language and then impersonating it in another.Of course, most stage works have several voices,each revealing aspects of character, social back-ground, and class. There may be genuine regionalspeech, as in plays by de Filippo or Kroetz, or elseinvented dialects as in Brecht’s Mother Courage.Rojas’ La Celestina is rife with forms now consid-ered archaic, and works by Mayakovsky or Witkacysparkle with futuristic neologisms.

The problem of translating social class and therelated issue of conveying formal versus informalspeech are extremely difficult to solve usingAmerican English, although this is a tribute to our

SOME PITFALLS OF TRANSLATING DRAMABy Philip Boehm


democracy. The British have an easier time produc-ing Chekhov, in large part because their Englishremains so heavily class-coded. Meanwhile, on thisside of the Atlantic, theater companies frequentlyattempt to convey class by using faux aristocraticaccents based on a generic stage British, a ploy morelikely to backfire than hit the mark. Regionalisms,too, work better in England because Britain has somany true dialects, whereas having Woyzeck speakGullah will likely raise more issues than it solves.

A further difficulty stems from the intrinsicallyephemeral nature of performance. Sitting in thehouse, the audience has just one chance to registerwhat’s going on: no pages to flip, no rewind, noinstant replay. And that beautiful phrase you so toiledto achieve can vanish in a cough or be cut by onemissed cue.

Finally, the translator should resist the tempta-tion (which has proven the bane even of some dra-maturgs and literary managers who should know bet-ter) of reading playscripts as final texts rather thanscores for performance. In so doing, he or she mayavoid the literariness that impairs so many transla-tions.

Such are the pitfalls lying in wait for theunwary. As if these weren’t deterrents enough to dis-suade all but the most intrepid, the pay’s not greateither, with royalties usually derived from the origi-nal author’s share of the take. And the take, generallyspeaking, is pretty meager, at least in the UnitedStates, where most theater is produced by nonprofitorganizations struggling to make ends meet.Commissions are few and far between, and seldomqualify as munificent. The theaters’ inability to offermore incentive viciously reinforces the cycle thatbars so much international drama from our stages.So translators have little choice but to work under theassumption that true love is blind—especially tomoney.

Even if they can’t pay more, what theaters cando is involve the translator in the process as early aspossible, from the moment the play is selected (toooften, producers or directors don’t even consider theissue of translation until a few weeks before begin-ning rehearsals). Better still would be to consult withtranslators about plays that haven’t been translated at

all: this would help lead the theaters to commissionnew translations of unknown works as opposed toretranslations of known plays. By treating the trans-lator as a coauthor or designer, the director or dra-maturg can help ensure that the translation willreflect the concept of the production, and vice versa.Early, clear, and frequent communication even inmatters as seemingly trivial as script formatting willsave substantial time and peoplepower.

As a case in point, I would like to refer to atranslation I did of Brecht’s play In the Jungle of theCity. This came about as a commission: in 1998,Bertolt Brecht would have turned 100, and theatersaround the world celebrated by producing many ofhis plays: 7 Stages of Atlanta received support fromthe local Goethe Institute to mount a production ofJungle with a German director and scenographer.After consulting the extant published translations, theproducers hired me to create a new English versionthat would sound more contemporary, moreAmerican, and would be more “actable.” (The avail-ability or unavailability of playscripts in translationcalls for a separate article.)

My own goal was to present a clearly under-standable text that would capture the energy of thefight that is the play’s central metaphor, as well asthe poetry that is its hallmark. It was clear that forour audience in Atlanta, certain themes—particularlyallusions to race and instances of racism—would res-onate differently than they would in Germany, eitherin Brecht’s time or today.

One of the first puzzles I needed to solveinvolved the protagonist Garga’s penchant for quot-ing Rimbaud, a task that led me to check the originalsource. Comparing the German with the French, Idiscovered that Garga’s version of Rimbaud bore anuncanny resemblance to Brecht, who was obviouslymore interested in capturing the soul of the passagesthan in reproducing them word-for-word, a guidelineI determined to follow with absolute fidelity.

Performing the play in the United States madethe Chicago setting more tangibly realistic, just as itmade the idea of sailing straight from Lake Michiganto Tahiti more comically surreal. References to theflatlands or prairie evoke more and different associa-tions from American audiences than they would from


German theatergoers: the uncrowded countryside ismarked in the play by its very absence and serves asa utopian counterpart to the city, an idea I was ableto strengthen by referring to the Gargas’ former“Haus im flachen land” as their “little house on theprairie.”

A similar opportunity for playfulness came inthe first scene, set in a Lending Library, where thecharacter called Worm picks out a book at randomand begins reading: the literal citation would be “Theskies were black, clouds were flying east.” This Ichanged to a readily recognizable passage fromDickens—perfectly logical given the time andplace—that also served to foreshadow the last line ofthe play, “Es war die beste Zeit,” felicitously ren-dered as “It was the best of times.” Later on, inScene Nine, the original Salvation Army ministerborrows his “last words” from Frederick the Great: Irisked adding anachronism to Brecht’s numerousanatopisms by quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tofurther underscore the issues of racism explored inthe piece and help move the text into the conceptualcontext of our production in Atlanta. This prolepsisnotwithstanding, I was generally concerned to con-

vey the flavor of the 1920s, especially where captur-ing the sights and sounds of the city itself. TheFleischkarren of the original became “Butcher boys,”after consultion with people who remembered themand who also vetted various slang expressions.

Any financial reward was minimal, to say theleast. As expected, the Brecht estate offered ironcladterms of contract in matters of rights and royalties(reserving for the estate all of the former and muchof the latter), all of which were scrupulously adheredto. The theater couldn’t afford much in the way ofcommission, but they did arrange for me to meetwith the director early on, and we remained in touchthroughout the rehearsal process. They also flew meout for the opening.

Did I like what I saw? I’m sure I would havestaged it differently (some years ago I directed aplay…now that was Brecht!); but the performancedid help me keep my eyes open to the number ofinterpretations a dramatic text may inspire. Which isone reason we should translate warily, lest webecome blinded by our passion: after all, it was lovethat once translated Bottom…into an ass.



By the time I had finished creating the Englishsubtitles for Sylvio Back’s film “Cruz e Sousa:

O Poeta do Desterro” (1999), I had the uncannyfeeling that João da Cruz e Sousa had translated meinto a mysterious and powerful language I had neverseen before. My sense of relief at having finishedmy work before what I thought would be an impos-sible deadline (I was given three months to completethe project) was eclipsed by the joy at havingundone in English, and in conjunction with a teamof translators laboring in Spanish and French, Cruze Sousa’s one hundred years of solitude in thePortuguese language. How could such a marvelouspoet have been unknown and in exile from the restof the literary world for so long? This isolation isdoubly ironic in that Cruz e Sousa lived much of hisshort life (he died of tuberculosis at the age of 36)on an island in southern Brazil that used to be calledDesterro (which means exile) and is now known asSanta Catarina, whose main city is Florianópolis.Although it has been said that translation is “animpossible transubstantiation” or “a resurrection,but without the body,” I was certain when I saw thefinal version of the film with the English subtitlesthat Sylvio Back, through the actor Kadu Carneiro’sbody, voice, and gestures, had somehow managed toembody the spirit of Cruz e Sousa in the perfectmedium for the twenty-first century—and this isespecially fitting in that the poet died in 1898, thesame year that marked the beginning of Braziliancinema. Perhaps my work on Back’s film (a con-struct of a life perforce historical and fictive shotthrough with narrative visual re-creations), is reallya translation of a translation. But herein resides thedirector’s genius and radical good sense: Cruz eSousa the poet speaks in his own words, by meansof his poems and personal letters. Sylvio Backdescribes the structure of the film as a biographicalinterlinking of what he calls “34 visual stanzas.”

One of these stanzas, Sequence II, in which

Kadu Carneiro watches himself in a mirror as herehearses his lines from Cruz e Sousa’s poem “OAssinalado” (“Marked for Greatness”) contains, forme, a profound metaphor for translation itself thatmay, in fact, have helped me overcome many chal-lenges, both inter- and intralingual, as I worked onthe English version of the screenplay. Certainlythere is a conscious awareness in this sequence ofthe film as a process, reminiscent of, say, theSpanish director Carlos Saura and so many others.But the streak of sacrificial blood that suddenlyappears on the actor’s face facilitates another kind ofprocess, equally kinetic, but with a religious signifi-cance in that it enables Carneiro to incorporate inhis body (as if he were a horse to be mounted by aparticular god from the Yoruban pantheon) the poethe portrays in the film. The babalorixá (candomblépriest) foresees Cruz e Sousa’s designated future ofhardship by means of the jogo de búzios (the castingof cowry shells) and the 16 eyes of Ifá, the Yorubangod associated with divination. The marginality ofmadness in the Euro-Brazilian context of “Markedfor Greatness” is thus tranformed into the integrativeceremonial order of Afro-Brazilian religion.

Cruz e Sousa

You’re the madman of immortal madness,The madman for whom madness reigns

supreme.In your black shackles of this World, you

scream,Enchained in the most outrageous Sadness.

You’re the Poet, marked for Greatness by fate.There’s empty space for you to populateWith plural beauty you make eternal.

In Nature’s fullness that will never die,All the bold forces of life justify

TRANSLATING FOR FILM: CREATING THE SUBTITLES FORSYLVIO BACK’S “CRUZ E SOUSA: THE BANISHED POET” orDESEXÍLIO EM INGLÊS DO POETA DO DESTERROBy Steven F. White

The crazed seizures that make you immortal.

Candomblé Priest

João, my son, Ifá, the god of divination, tellsme that no suffering in this life is for naught.No tear is lost. Human life, João, is barely apreparation for the true life. There is no tearthat God does not perceive, João. Who hasnever cried a secret tear? God awaits each onefor eternity. And so, João, you will reap therichness and greatness of your poems madefrom pain and sorrow. Let the African gods,João, give you the strength to face the hard-ships you meet on the road of your life. Letthe benevolent forces bless you, my son. Andlet Olorum bring you peace and tranquility onyour journeys. Axé.

[Cruz e SousaTu és o louco da imortal loucura,/O louco daloucura mais suprema./A Terra é sempre a tuanegra algema,/Prende-te nela a extremaDesventura./Tu és o Poeta, o grandeAssinalado/Que povoas o mundo despovoa-do,/De belezas eternas, pouco a pouco./NaNatureza prodigiosa e rica/Toda a audácia dosnervos justifica/Os teus espasmos imortais delouco!

BabalorixáJoão, meu filho, o babalaô falou através deIfá (adivinho), que nenhum sofrimento nestavida é vão. Nenhuma lágrima se perde. Avida humana, João, é apenas uma preparaçãopara a verdadeira vida. Não há uma lágrimaque Deus não veja, João. Quem não chora asua lágrima secreta? Deus as guarda por todaa eternidade. Assim, João, tirarás da dor e dosofrimento a riqueza e a grandeza de teuspoemas. Que os orixás, João, te dêem forçaspelas provações e pela tua caminhada nestavida. Que todas as forças benéficas teabençoem, meu filho. E que Olorum te dêpaz e tranqüilidade nos teus caminhos. Axé.]

The prerequisite, of course, for a film under-stood as a kind of xirê, a celebration by means ofvisitation and possession, is the padê, the invocationof Exú, the messenger, who informs the gods that itis Cruz e Sousa himself, not Kadu Carneiro, sittingin a trance on celluloid ground with sacred leaves ina terreiro (candomblé temple) that pulses with therhythms of the atabaques (sacred drums) and collec-tive singing. I came to understand Exú, in this sense,as the orixá (god) of translators, a messengerbetween the Portuguese and English languages.

Exú represents the dynamic continuum betweentotal incomprehension and complete revelation(which resembles, perhaps, the two poles of transla-tion embodied in the aftermath of Babel at one endof the spectrum and the Pentecostal tongues offlame at the other). Without Exú, how can the trans-lator struggle with the linguistic forces of perma-nence and change? How can communication exist?How can language retain its boundary-transformingpowers? As I worked on the translation, I saw Exú atthe crossroads of meaning, opening and closing theway. Exú, I began to realize, facilitates the commonground of disparate languages and the connectionsbetween humanity’s diverse speech communities. Inshort, what I found in Exú was a kind of translation-al axé, a vital force, a transgressive harmony linkedto the swarm of rhymes and rhythms that I needed todiscover in English in order to reveal the music ofCruz e Sousa’s poetry in Portuguese. Ultimately, myrole as a translator was to create the visual beliefsystem of subtitles so that an international audiencemight move beyond a simple willing suspension ofdisbelief and be utterly convinced by the poetry inSylvio Back’s film.

In a way, I had begun translating Cruz e Sousain 1993-94 by living in Desterro (Florianópolis) on asabbatical leave from St. Lawrence University,where I had the chance to meet Zahidé de Muzart,one of Cruz e Sousa’s most fervent contemporarysupporters, and to teach a course on translation withWalter Carlos Costa at the Universidade Federal deSanta Catarina. No doubt I already had started toassimilate the landscape of the poet, the one thatappears in the film: I remember, for example, read-ing Cruz e Sousa’s last sonnets one beautiful after-


noon at sunset on the Praia Moçambique. At the endof my stay in Brazil, while visiting Rio de Janeiro, Ispoke with the thoroughly impressive poet-translatorPaulo Henriques Brito, who shocked me with hisgenerosity when he gave me the original 1966recording of “Os Afro-Sambas” by Baden Powelland Vinícius de Moraes (an LP with a deeply syn-cretic spirit—not entirely unlike “O Poeta doDesterro”—that I had been seeking all year inBrazil) as a present. Five years later, it was throughPaulo that Sylvio Back found me in Madrid, where Iwas living at the time, and proposed the collabora-tion.

It was with a certain trepidation that I begannegotiating the points of the contract with theBrazilian director. I drew on the expertise ofacquaintances who knew the film industry in theUnited States and Colombia as well as the broadcastmedium in the U. S. advertising business to establisha flat fee for the job to be paid upon satisfactorycompletion of the translation. I learned, too, aboutthe tremendous number of variables in terms offinancing films in Brazil. For example, the costs ofcreating the subtitles in English, Spanish and Frenchwould be covered by a regional governmental office(in conjunction with a state-owned company thatproduced electricity) interested in promotingtourism on the island whose beautiful landscapeswere an integral part of the film.

I also learned that it is important to insist on acontract so that certain points can be negotiated,including: retaining the copyright of the translationin the translator’s name; establishing how the trans-lation will be used as subtitles and marketed as film,video, and DVD; delineating whether or not thetranslation will appear in book form as a publishedscreenplay; stipulating that the translator’s namemust appear in the credits of the film and on thetitle page of any book publication; providing a gratisVHS copy of the subtitled film as well as compli-mentary copies of the published work; and facilitat-ing access to proofs of the text as subtitles and alsoas page proofs for the book.

I discovered that the point of making sure tohave the right to review the actual text that willappear as the subtitles is extremely important.

Apparently, although I submitted an electronic ver-sion of the translation, someone needed to retype themanuscript for use in the subtitling machine.Consequently, in the text generated by this process,there were many errors that I had a chance to correctthat did not exist in the version I submitted initiallyto the director. It made me remember seeing certainforeign films and cringing at all the typographicalerrors in the subtitles, an unsettling experience thatcertainly does not inspire viewer confidence. Thetruth is that I enjoyed working with the printed textgenerated by the subtitling machine because I had aclear idea as to the exact words that would be ineach frame of the film. In the left hand margin, thesubtitle number appeared in conjunction with theelapsed time of the film (with the precision of timesthat one associates with Olympic runners!). In addi-tion to my being able to correct spelling mistakes,there was also some leeway for me to adjust the linebreaks of the poems and how the subtitle as versewould actually appear on the screen.

Naturally, any process of negotiation dependson the goodwill of all parties. Fortunately, the direc-tor was absolutely professional and helpful through-out the entire process, and I was very satisfied withthe agreements we reached. After signing the con-tract, however, panicked by the scope of the projectthat I had accepted, I went to see “Shakespeare inLove” (in English, with Spanish subtitles inMadrid), with a very specific purpose and wasgreatly relieved to see how the rather dense, poetictext of the screenplay of this film fit on the screenand how little was lost in translation. After this, itwas simply a question of learning some technicalvocabulary (such as Off Screen and Voice Off) andof putting in the long hours needed to conserve inmy English version as many of the formal qualitiesof Cruz e Sousa’s poetry as possible.

The temporal tightrope I walked as a translatorconsisted of creating in English an identity poeticsthat balanced an aesthetic sensibility clearly fromthe 19th century with a political sensibility regard-ing racism in Brazil that seemed strikingly contem-porary. Two things confirmed this impression as Iworked. One was a fortuitous visit to the MuséeD’Orsay in Paris, where I saw a luminous, enigmat-


ic, symbol- and reverie-filled exhibit of paintings byartists such as Redon, Burne-Jones, Lévy-Dharmer,and Khnopff that resonated so deeply with certainpoems by Cruz e Sousa such as “Antífona”(“Antiphon”), “Grande Amor” (“Great Love”), and“Ilusões Mortas” (“Dead Illusions”). But there arealso other, fiercer poems by Cruz e Sousa (who wasthe son of slaves and the victim of racism in Brazil),such as “O Emparedado” (“Trapped”), “Litania dosPobres” (“Litany of the Poor”), and “Escravocratas”(“Slave Lords”), that found their echo in the proseand poetry that I was reading and translating by newblack Brazilian writers such as Edimilson deAlmeida Pereira, Cuti, Ronald Augusto, RicardoAleixo, Lepê Correia, and others.

Sylvio Back’s controversial film “Cruz e Sousa:O Poeta do Desterro,” along with the recentquadrilingual edition of the film’s screenplay pub-lished by 7 Letras in Rio de Janeiro, will resurrectand even globalize a poet whose complex, multi-dimensional racial and sexual identity in the 19thcentury may not be entirely in keeping with the waysome viewers, readers, and political activists mightmold him to fit their contemporary needs.

The film reminds us, however, that underlyingthe Euro-Brazilian voice of Cruz e Sousa’sSymbolism, so important to the literary history ofhis country and to the entire Portuguese language, isanother voice, that of his fiancée Pedra Antióquia,calling the poet back to his trans-Atlantic Africanheritage, singing to him in Yoruba of love and therisks of existence as emblematized by her necklacenot of cowry shells but of human skulls.

Cruz e Sousa

You are from the source, from the secret sea,From unfamiliar surf, where the line seemsTo catch the vessel in a net of dreamsAnd leaves it rocking on water, empty.

From the sea comes your sparkling sympathy,Your agitated sleep and your features:The look of menacing feral creaturesIn eyes like waves that are dark and stormy.

From an unfathomed violet ideal You surge from the viscous water and wheelLike a moon in heavy fog bursting free.

Your flesh contains a flowering of vines,Virgin saltwater-songs, the day’s first signs,And the sharp smells of a sargasso sea.

Pedra Antióquia

If you want to be my loverFirst consult your head

If you want to get marriedFirst consult your head

If you want moneyFirst consult your head

If you want to build a houseFirst consult your head

If you want to be happyFirst consult your head

O, head! Make good things come to me!

[Cruz e SousaÉs da origem do mar, vens do secreto,/Doestranho mar espumaroso e fio/Que põe redede sonhos ao navio,/E o deixa balouçar, navaga, inquieto./Possuis do mar o deslum-brante afeto,/As dormências nervosas e osombrio/E torvo aspecto aterrador, bravio/Dasondas no atro e proceloso aspecto./Numfundo ideal de púrpuras e rosas/Surges daságuas mucilaginosas/Como a lua entre anévoa dos espaços…/Trazes na carne o eflo-rescer das vinhas,/Auroras, virgens músicasmarinhas,/Acres aromas de algas e sar-gaços…


Pedra AntióquiaSe você quiser ser meu amado/Pergunteprimeiro à sua cabeça/Se você quer casamen-to/Pergunte primeiro à sua cabeça/Se vocêquiser ter dinheiro/Pergunte primeiro à suacabeça/Se você quer construir umacasa/Pergunte primeiro à sua cabeça/Se vocêquiser ser feliz/Pergunte primeiro à suacabeça/Oh! cabeça! Cabeça faça coisas boaschegarem a mim!]

Pedra speaks to João about their potential lifetogether in keeping with the liturgical language ofAfro-Brazilian religions. One must consult the Ori,because it is in the head that a particular god exer-cises control over traits, desires, and words that areboth human and divine. These are the convergencesthat I sought to understand and preserve throughtranslation when João da Cruz e Sousa became theowner of my head.


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It is a commonplace notion that each generationmust produce its own translation of an important

poetic text. One reason for this is that the problemsof verse translation are, at any given period, onefacet of the larger general problem of verse compo-sition. Taste, and the notion of what constitutes apoem, can and do change over time. With this inmind, I would like to examine six different transla-tions of a single poem from the Book of Songs,_____ China’s earliest anthology of poetry. Thetranslations cover a period of approximately 100years, beginning with those of James Legge andWilliam Jennings in the 19th century, followed bythose of Arthur Waley, Bernard Karlgren, EzraPound, and Burton Watson in the 20th century.

For the Chinese, the Book of Songs holds theequivalent position of importance and primacy thatHomer holds for the West. It is both poetry and, asone of the Confucian classics, scripture. The Book ofSongs is an anthology of 305 poems of varyinglengths, drawn from various levels of Zhou dynasty(1122–249 B.C.) society. It is divided into four sec-tions: the airs of the states, or folk songs collectedfrom among the common people of the 15 states;the minor odes, which focus more on the life of thenobility; the major odes, which interweave historicaland legendary materials of the Zhou state into theconcerns of the aristocratic society; and the hymns,which are somber, liturgical texts associated withthe royal houses of the Zhou and Shang and thestate of Lu (the home of Confucius). The hymns areamong the oldest texts in the anthology and maydate back to as early as 1000 B.C.1

According to tradition as recorded in theRecords of the Grand Historian, _____ the Book ofSongs was compiled by Confucius himself. It is saidthat the Sage began with more than 3000 composi-tions, editing and selecting the best until he arrivedat what is today known as the Book of Songs. Today,the history of the text, its origins and formulation, is

considerably more complex. In terms of form, the songs employ a line made

up of four characters, though other line lengths dooccur. One line is generally a complete syntacticunit. The lines are arranged in stanzas of four, six,or eight lines. Rhyme is common and usually usedat the end of even-numbered lines, but internalrhyme and alliteration also are used. The airs tend tobe highly compressed and elliptical; they alsoemploy a great deal of repetition. In general, theanthology is quite economical in expression.

I have chosen the 113th poem from the Book ofSongs, the seventh in the “Airs of the State of Wei,”known as shishu, _____(big rat[s]). The poem is acomplaint about the oppression and heavy taxesextorted from the people by the government of Wei.The Chinese text of the poem:

∫”π´∫”π´! µL≠πß⁄∂¡;§T∑≥≥e§k, ≤ˆß⁄™÷∂±.≥u±N•h§k, æA©ºº÷§g; º÷§gº÷§g, ¨∏±oß⁄©

∫”π´∫”π´! µL≠πß⁄≥¡; §T∑≥≥e§k, ≤ˆß⁄™÷ºw.≥u±N•h§k, æA©ºº÷∞Í; º÷∞Íº÷∞Í, ¨∏±oß⁄™Ω!

∫”π´∫”π´! µL≠πß⁄≠]; §T∑≥≥e§k, ≤ˆß⁄™÷≥“.

BIG RAT, BIG RAT:MULTIPLE TRANSLATIONS OF A CHINESE POEMBy John Balcom


≥u±N•h§k, æA©ºº÷≠•; º÷≠•º÷≠•, This poem is fairly typical of the “Airs” section ofthe Book of Songs in that the poem consists of threestanzas, each of eight lines with four characters toeach line, a very terse form. This particular poemfalls under the rubric of bi, § , “metaphor,” one ofthe three compositional techniques used in the“Airs” as defined by later commentators. This poemis considered metaphorical because the officials arecompared to large rats. (The other two composition-al techniques are fu,Ω·, or narrative display, andxing, ø, or motif.)

In 1861, James Legge published the first com-plete translation the Book of Songs in English.Legge preached at the Union Church in Hong Kongfor nearly 30 years before returning to England,where he was made the first Professor of Chinese atOxford University. He is famous for having spent alifetime translating the Confucian and Daoist clas-sics. Here is his version of the poem:

Large rats, large rats, let us entreatThat you our millet will not eat.But the large rats we mean are you,With whom three years we’ve had to do,And all that time have never knownOne look of kindness on us thrown.We take leave of Wei and you;That happier land we long to view.O happy land! O happy land!There in our proper place we’ll stand.

Large rats, large rats, let us entreatYou’ll not devour our crops of wheat.But the large rats we mean are you,With whom three years we’ve had to do;And all that time you never wroughtOne kindly act to cheer our lot.To you and Wei we bid farewell,Soon in that happier state to dwell.O happy state! O happy state!There shall we learn to bless our fate.

Large rats, large rats, let us entreat

Our springing grain you will not eat.But the large rats we mean are you,With whom three years we’ve had to do.From you there came not all that whileOne word of comfort ‘mid our toil.We take our leave of you and Wei;And to those happier coasts we flee.O happy coasts, to you we wend!There shall our groans and sorrows end.2

Initially, Legge published a scholarly prose versionof the Book of Songs; later, with the help of others,he produced a verse version for the non-specialist.This version in rhyming couplets is the sort of trans-lation one would expect from late VictorianEngland. The meter is regular and the rhyme veryintrusive, if not jarring to the ear. The eight-linestanzas of the original have become ten-line stanzasin translation: Legge pads his translation, fleshingout the meaning of the elliptical original. For somereason, he doesn’t think his reader capable of under-standing the metaphorical function of the rats in thepoem, and insists upon telling us that the rats areactually members of the government of Wei.Another feature of this translation that will not findmany takers today is the syntactic contortions toachieve the clunky rhymes. Most contemporaryreaders will spend a good deal of time retranslatingLegge’s translation into modern English with normalsyntax. Also, there is that 19th-century species offaux poetic language: “let us entreat,” “we take ourleave,” “to you we wend.” This sort of medievalismcertainly fit the tastes of the day and lends a certainantiquated texture to the poem.

Another 19th-century rendition is that done byWilliam Jennings, Vicar of Beedon and onceColonial Chaplain of St. John’s Cathedral, HongKong. He produced a complete translation of theBook of Songs for Sir John Lubbock’s HundredBooks series. His complete version was published in1891. Jennings produced his translation after study-ing the original texts and a number of commen-taries. He also availed himself of Legge’s scholarlyprose version.

In the introduction, Jennings enumerates someof the problems facing the translator of the Book of


Songs:

A line consists regularly of four characters ormonosyllabic words, often strong words, andpregnant with meaning in their collocation,defying equally terse translation….A greatpeculiarity is that almost every line is a sen-tence in itself, which is a source of greatcomfort amid all the difficulties that beset thetranslator at every turn….A remarkable pecu-liarity of style is this, that while in an Englishballad we often find a refrain or chorus at theend of the verse, in Chinese there is some-thing corresponding to that in the begin-ning—some allusion to natural objects, bear-ing figuratively upon the subject, and repeat-ed perhaps with variations in most of the suc-ceeding verses.3

In his introduction, Jennings also comments onthe shortcomings of his predecessor’s metrical ver-sion:

It seems to be the general opinion, that in themetrical version which followed, in which heavailed himself of coadjutors (not sinologists)in England and elsewhere, he has been farfrom equaling himself. In that version hasbeen adopted the plan of making many diffi-cult pieces intelligible by introducing intothem (contrary to his expressed aim) phrases,and often several whole lines of explanatorymatter which properly should be relegated tofootnotes.4

Jennings sought to produce a verse translationmore faithful to the original in terms of form andcontent than Legge’s. In other words, he wished toadhere to the scholarly and philological accuracy ofa prose text while producing a verse translation. Asa result, he does not add the explanatory paddingthat we saw in Legge, and he is often a bit moreterse than Legge. Jennings’ translation:

Song of Farmers Driven Forth by Extortion

O monster rats! O monster rats!Eat not our millets, we implore.

Three years we’ve borne with you,And still our presence you ignore.

Now we abandon you,And to yon pleasant lands repair.

O pleasant lands! O pleasant lands!A refuge have we surely there.

O monster rats! O monster rats!Devour not all our crops of wheat.

Three years we’ve borne with you,Still with no mercy do we meet.

Now we abandon you,And take to yon glad Land our flight.

O gladsome Land! O gladsome Land!There justice shall we have, and right.

O monster rats! O monster rats!Devour not all our springing grain.

Three years we’ve borne with you,Nor heed you still our toil and pain.

Now we abandon youFor brighter plains that yonder lie.

O brighter plains! O brighter plains!Whose, then, will be the constant cry?5

First of all, it should be noted that Jennings addstitles to his translations, something lacking in theoriginal. (The poems are often referred to by the sin-gle most important image in the poem.) He alsoappends some explanatory notes to his translation.In the first, he informs the reader that the word“monster” means “huge” and that “the State offi-cials had grown fat on their extortion, and were noless troublesome than rats.” And the “brighterplains” in the third stanza he says means “borders,frontiers.” Unlike Legge, Jennings has seen fit torelegate his explanations to footnotes. However, bymaintaining a little bit of the terseness of the origi-nal, albeit within a late-Victorian translation, he hasalso created new problems. For example, he rendersthe fourth line of the first stanza as: “And still ourpresence you ignore.” Although it can be argued that


this is what the original says, the sense is off; thefarmers are not being ignored, far from it, they arebeing taxed too heavily. They probably wish that thegovernment officials would ignore them for achange. What the officials fail to take notice of isthe plight of the people.

Jennings maintains the eight-line stanzas of theoriginal, as well as a consistent rhyme schemethroughout the poem: xABABCxC, with the endword of the seventh line rhyming internally on thesame word in the sixth line. As Jennings points outin his introduction, the first line to each stanza func-tions as a refrain of sorts, and therefore he does notrhyme this first stanzic verse. Jennings seems to bea better versifier than Legge et al.—his rhymes areless intrusive, but he, too, twists English syntax forhis rhymes. Another feature of Jennings’ version ishis use of archaisms such as “yon,” “gladsome,” and“repair” to give the poem a more archaic flavor. Heis perhaps justified; after all, he is translatingChina’s earliest poetic anthology. The use of theword “millet” in the first stanza with a plural suffix“s” added is also a bit odd.

These two 19th-century translators, as differentas their versions are, do share certain similarities intheir approaches to translation. Both insist uponusing rhyme and, as a result, both twist the syntax oftheir verse. Secondly, both translators use archaisms,probably to heighten the poetic qualities of their ren-ditions. They do differ in their views on explanatorytranslation, adding material to explain implied orsuggested meanings not necessarily in the originaltext. To the contemporary ear, Jennings’ translationprobably is to be preferred.

But it was in the 20th century that dramaticchanges in the art of translation began to occur. In1937, Arthur Waley published his translation of theBook of Songs and in 1954, a revised version. Theentire translation was re-edited using BernardKarlgren’s translations and notes, which appearedbetween 1942 and 1946.6 Waley is, of course, thejustly famous translator of classical Chinese andJapanese literature. He was also the first translatorof Chinese poetry to reject the intentional archaismof 19th-century translators and to situate his artwithin the broader context of early Anglo-American

modernist discourse. In his translations, he con-sciously rejects an outmoded literariness and optsfor 20th-century English and a situational and narra-tive realism one associates with the Imagist poets.By doing so, Waley basically set the standard for20th-century translation of classical Chinese poetry.Waley’s translation:

Big rat, big rat,Do not gobble our millet!Three years we have slaved for you,Yet you take no notice of us.At last we are going to leave youAnd go to that happy land;Happy land, happy land,Where we shall have our place.

Big rat, big rat,Do not gobble our corn!Three years we have slaved for you,Yet you give us no credit.At last we are going to leave youAnd go to that happy kingdom;Happy kingdom, happy kingdom,Where we shall get our due.

Big rat, big rat,Do not eat our rice-shoots!Three years we have slaved for you.Yet you did nothing to reward us.At last we are going to leave youAnd go to those happy borders;Happy borders, happy bordersWhere no sad songs are sung.7

Waley’s version is a striking departure from what weare accustomed to reading from earlier translators.There is a directness and simplicity, if not limpidity,in his renditions that are absent from the 19th-centu-ry versions. Waley has forsaken rhyme and its con-comitant syntactic distortion for normal colloquialsyntax, achieving a tone closer to the original aswell as a narrative freshness. His choice of wordstends to be colloquial but descriptive: the word“gobble,” for instance; however, in places the wordshave lost something: his use of the word “corn” to


mean “grain,” for example. Waley’s translation ofthe Book of Songs is still considered by scholars tobe a masterpiece of translation and some of his bestwork.

In 1950, the great Swedish sinologist BernardKarlgren published his prose translation of the Bookof Songs. Karlgren set out to produce a scholarlyversion with no literary pretensions. He provided theChinese text, a romanized text including his phonet-ic reconstruction of the rhyme words. Karlgren’s textis meant to be used as a crib by students and schol-ars. His translation:

1. You shi-rats, you shi-rats(a), do not eat ourmillet! Three years we served you, but youhave not been willing to (look at =) heed us;it has gone so far that we will leave you; wego to that happy land; oh, happy land, happyland! Then we shall find our place.

2. You shi-rats, you shi-rats, do not eat ourwheat! Three years we have served you, butyou have not been willing to be good to us; ithas gone so far that we will leave you; we goto that happy country, happy country! Thenwe shall find our right.

3. You shi-rats, you shi-rats, do not eat oursprouting grain; three years we have servedyou, but you have not been willing to (recog-nize our toil=) reward us; it has gone so farthat we will leave you; we go to those happyoutlands, happy outlands, happy outlands!Who goes there to make long-drawn-outlamentations?

(a) Some kind of rodent.8

Karlgren’s translation, as we noted, makes no pre-tensions of being an artistic rendition. The value ofhis text lies in its ability to convey a sense of thesimplicity of the original. His version has becomethe standard scholarly crib for all would-be sinolo-gists. Professor Karlgren’s reading of the charactershi, , is different from that of the other transla-tors considered here. In most early commentariesand dictionaries, the character is normally glossed assimply meaning “big,” which is the meaning it car-

ries today. However, Karlgren’s interpretation isbased on a gloss in the Examples of Refined Usage,∫∏∂Æ (3rd century BC), China’s earliest lexico-graphical work, where the character shi ∫” is iden-tified with the homophonous morpheme shi, Ò,which contains the graphs for rat, π´ , and stone,• , and which occurs in the Book of Changes,©ˆ∏g, meaning “some kind of rodent.”9 Yet, giventhe logic of metaphor, a reading of the character as“big” clearly makes sense.

Perhaps the most striking translation of the Bookof Songs—and I use the word translation in thebroadest sense of the word—is that of Ezra Pound.Ezra Pound, of course, needs no introduction. Onecan say there is never a dull moment in Pound’stranslation, but the reader would probably be moreinterested in reading his translations for the Poundthey contain rather than as translations of a Chineseclassic. Pound clearly brings to his translations allthe concerns that one finds in Anglo-Americanmodernist poetry. What Pound gives us is a real20th-century version of the poem:

RATS,Stone-head rats lay off our grain,Three years pain,Enough, enough, plus enough again.

More than enough from you, deaf you,We’re about thru and ready to goWhere something will growUntaxed.Good earth, good sownAnd come into our own.

RATS,Big rats, lay off our wheat,Three years deceit,And now we’re about ready to goTo Lo Kuo, happy, happy land, Lo Kuo, good

earthWhere we can earn our worth.

RATS,Stone-head rats, spare our new shoots,



Three years, no pay.We’re about ready to move awayTo some decent border town.Good earth, good sown,And make and end to this endless moan.10

The reader will at once be struck by Pound’s formaland rhythmic experimentation everywhere evident inthis translation. First off, he uses an imagist tech-nique in the word RATS in capitals. Visually, the useof capital letters is a graphic way to emphasize thesize and alarm the speaker feels at the sight of theofficials. It is perhaps a good example of whatPound called phanopoeia, or “throwing a visualimage on the mind,” a quality he found most strong-ly exhibited in the Chinese written language.11

Pound rejects the formal strictures of the original inorder to play with the rhythm of the poem and toallow himself to emphasize certain words such as“untaxed” in the first stanza. Other striking qualitieswould be the use of the highly colloquial languagesuch as “lay off.”

But Pound’s version also suffers somewhatfrom his own quirky theories about the Chinese lan-guage as he inherited them from Earnest Fenollosa’sThe Chinese Written Character as a Medium forPoetry, which he edited.12 Fenollosa and Pound bothhad the mistaken notion that Chinese is a picto-graphic language and downplayed its more impor-tant phonetic properties. For Pound, every Chinesecharacter was a picture to be interpreted, and there-fore his “stone-head rats.” What Pound has done inthis particular case is to disassemble the Chinesecharacter shi ∫” and interpret it based on its parts. Inthe Chinese we see the characters shishu, ∫”π, orliterally, “big rat(s).” Pound breaks the first charac-ter down into its component parts: shi • , or“stone,”and ye ≠∂, or page. So where does he getthe word “head”? Using Fenollosa’s theories, hemakes an “intuitive” leap, associating the characterye ≠∂with another character containing the samecomponent: tou ¿Y, or “head.”

One other oddity is Pound’s reading of the twocharacters º÷∞Í as “Lo Kuo.” Instead of reading thecharacters as meaning something like happy or joy-ful land, he seems to think that it is the actual name

of a state. One meaning of the character “Kuo”(guo) ∞Í is state. Regardless of lapses a sinologistwouldn’t make, one can safely say that with Pound’stranslation there is never a dull moment.

The last version I would like to look at is thatby Burton Watson. Burton Watson is generally con-sidered the most gifted translator of classicalChinese texts in the second half of the 20th century.As the poet W.S. Merwin has said, Watson continuesand extends the vein initiated by Arthur Waley.13

Watson’s work has more or less set the standard forthe translation of classical Chinese poetry in recentdecades. Watson, unlike the other translators, hasnot made a complete translation of the Book ofSongs. His translation is part of a selection he didfor his The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: FromEarly Times to the Thirteenth Century, published in1984. His translation:

No. 113. Big Rat, Big Rat

(A complaint against rapacious officials.)

Big rat, big rat, don’t eat my millet!Three years I’ve served you but you won’t care for me.I’m going to leave you and go to that happy land, happy land, happy land where I’ll find my place.

Big rat, big rat, don’t eat my wheat!Three years I’ve served you but you do me no good.I’m going to leave you and go to that happy realm happy realm, happy realm – things will be right for me there.

Big rat, big rat, don’t eat my sprouts!Three years I’ve served you but you give me no comfort. I’m going to leave you

and go to those happy fields, happy fields, happy fields, who will moan there for long?14

Indeed, Watson does continue and extend the trendinitiated by Waley; he too rejects rhyme, opting forfree verse that better captures the spirit of the origi-nal. There is a conscious choice of monosyllabic anddisyllabic words of Germanic origin as opposed topolysyllabic words of Latinate origin—a generaltrend in the United States in the latter half of the20th century. The phonetic simplicity of the transla-tion actually mirrors the monosyllabic simplicity ofthe original. Punctuation is used sparingly to repro-duce the rhythm of American speech. Finally, theheavy use of contractions is also typical of the collo-quial diction we find in so much of late 20th centuryAmerican verse. What Watson offers the reader is aversion of the poem in a contemporary Americanpoetic idiom.

Watson also seems to have benefited fromKarlgren’s version in that he handles the final verseas a question. One major difference in Watson’stranslation is his use of the first person singularrather than first person plural that we saw in theother translations. In the Chinese, there is no pro-noun, but English demands one. Watson simplyvisualizes the situation of the lyric voice in a differ-ent way from other translators and tends to make itmore personal.

From the foregoing discussion, it is clearlyapparent that the verse translation of any period isoften bound up with the larger problem of versecomposition in general. These concerns change withtime, as do our notions of what constitutes a poem.The norms and demands of one time are clearly dif-ferent, and perhaps nowhere so greatly as betweenthe 19th and 20th centuries. Truly, each generationmust produce its own translation of any major work.

Notes

1 See Stephen Owen’s “Foreword” to The Book ofSongs, translated by Arthur Waley and editedby Joseph R. Allen. New York: Grove Press,1996. pp. xiv-xv.

2 James Legge. The Book of Poetry. Facsimilereprint. New York: Paragon Book ReprintCorporation, 1967. pp. 125-126.

3 William Jennings. The Shi King: the Old PoetryClassic of the Chinese. Facsimile reprint. NewYork: Paragon Book Reprint Corporation,1969. p. 19.

4 William Jennings. pp. 20-21.5 William Jennings. p. 126.6 Arthur Waley. The Book of Songs. London: George

Allen & Unwin, 1954. See Waley’s preface.7 Arthur Waley. p. 309.8 Bernard Karlgren. The Book of Odes. Stockholm:

Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950. pp.73-74.

9 A tip of the hat to my friend Goran Malmquist forthis information.

10 Ezra Pound. The Classic Anthology Defined byConfucius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,1954. pp. 53-54.

11 Ezra Pound. ABC of Reading. p. 42. 12 Ezra Pound. ABC of Reading. p. 21.13 Jacket blurb to Burton Watson’s The Columbia

Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times tothe Thirteenth Century. New York: ColumbiaUP, 1984.

14 Burton Watson. The Columbia Book of ChinesePoetry. p. 32.



STRIP IN

UNIVERSITY OF

NEBRASKA AD

It is generally recognized that poetry as the pri-mary genre in Arabic literature has been only

marginally represented in English translations anduntil recently has been largely ignored in studiesdealing with Islam or the Arab world. A quickreview of more than 2000 modern poems translatedinto English during this century indicates that only asmall fraction (about fifty) of these poems werepublished before 1950, and in nearly all cases thetranslation was made by native speakers of Arabic.This is largely because earlier British and AmericanOrientalists/Arabists tended to focus in their workson nonliterary aspects of Arabo-Islamic culture andthus failed to take active part in the translation ofpoetry or other Arabic literary genres. The onlynotable exception as far as modern poetry is con-cerned is Arthur Arberry, whose contributions to thetranslation of poetry (classical and modern) includehis pioneering 1950 anthology.

As Arberry pointed out in his preface, theanthology was a joint attempt in which he and stu-dents from several Arab countries cooperated to pro-duce a collection representative of Arabic poetrywritten from the 1920s to the 1940s. Arberry’s versi-fied translations may strike readers of poetry as arti-ficial and ineffective in achieving the poetic qualityof the originals; but by choosing versification, heraised an important issue regarding the method to befollowed in translating poetry. He obviously felt thathis translations should reflect the poetic styles andtechniques of the original poems. Apart from its sty-listic flaws, Arberry’s anthology serves as a positivecontribution to the translation of modern Arabic,poetry for two reasons: its being the result of coop-eration between Arabic- and English-speaking trans-lators, and the broad scope it has maintained interms of the poets and the countries represented (45poets, 11 countries, and the two schools of Arabpoets active in the United States and SouthAmerica).

After the publication of Arberry’s anthology(1950) and until the early 1970s, slow but steadystrides were made in the translation of Arabic poet-ry, particularly in the United States. However, thetranslations appeared mostly in journals and littlemagazines. It should be noted that despite thesestrides and the proliferation of Arabic studies inAmerican and British institutions, no other antholo-gy comparable to Arberry’s was published. It wasonly during the 1970s and 1980s that we begin towitness the publication of more significant anddiversified anthologies of Arabic poetry in Englishtranslation. They were edited or undertaken not onlyin English-speaking countries (mainly the UnitedKingdom and United States) but also in several Arabcountries, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon. Thelatter fact underlines the prominent role that Arabtranslators have continued to assume to ensure thatArabic poetry reach a wider audience and receivethe recognition it deserves as part of world litera-ture. Whether working alone or in cooperation withEnglish-speaking translators, Arab translators (poets,scholars, and others) have contributed, though notalways successfully, to most of the translations thatare currently available (see, for example, Altoma13–16).

Apart from the innumerable translated poemspublished in periodicals and in studies dealing withArabic literature, there are now numerous antholo-gies, which represent the poetry of the postwar peri-od. These can be classified into three categories: (1)general/Pan-Arab anthologies; (2) region- or coun-try-oriented anthologies; and (3) anthologies ofpoets.

For the purpose of this survey, only representa-tive anthologies of the first group will be examinedin terms of their scope as well as their method oftranslation.

MODERN ARABIC POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:AN OVERVIEW OF SELECTED ANTHOLOGIES*By Salih J. Altoma


Khouri and Algar’s bilingual anthology (1974)offers a fine and reliable translation of 80 poems by35 poets. The poetry selected represents mostly thepost-1950 free verse and prose poem movements,but it also includes examples from the works ofleading pre-1950 poets who were known for theirinnovations or departure from the classical tradition.Issa Boullata’s (1976) focuses on the former move-ment and captures, with remarkable skill, the spiritof the period (1950-1975) as manifested in theworks of 22 poets. Both anthologies cover countriesin which the new currents first emerged: Egypt,Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and the Sudan.Khouri’s collection includes, in addition, a notedromantic poet from Tunisia, al-Shabbi (1909–1934).Both anthologies, however, useful and reliable asthey are, lack the poetic quality that only creativetranslators in the target language can ensure.

Jayyusi’s Project for Translation from Arabic(PROTA) has sought to address this problem byenlisting the contribution of English-speaking poetsin several of the anthologies she has edited since theearly 1980s. Her Modern Arabic Poetry (1987), inparticular, stands out as a landmark in the history ofArabic poetry in English translation, for the follow-ing reasons. First, as a leading poet and authority onthe subject, Jayyusi has carefully chosen a largenumber of poems representative of the various phas-es of modern Arabic poetry, ranging from the neo-classical to the more recent and radical transforma-tion Arabic poetry has undergone. The anthologyincludes examples (sometimes excerpts or frag-ments) from the works of more than 90 poetsarranged into two broadly defined sections: poetsbefore and after the 1950s. Second, as a testament tothe pan-Arab unity of culture and spirit, Jayyusi’scollection provides a broader geographical represen-tation by including poets from different parts of theArab world (from the Gulf to the Atlantic), althoughmore poets are still drawn, for understandable con-siderations, from Egypt and the Fertile Crescentregion (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine).Third, the anthology has succeeded to a large meas-ure in providing a truly poetic translation of theoriginal text, thanks to the participation of a numberof American, British, Canadian, and Irish poets:

Alan Brownjohn, Patricia Alanah Byrne(Rosenfield), Diana Der Hovanessian, CharlesDoria, Alistair Eliot, Thomas Ezzy, Samuel Hazo,John Heath-Stubbs, W. S. Merwin, ChristopherMiddleton, Naomi Shihab Nye, Desmond O’Grady,Peter Porter, Anthony Thwaite, and Richard Wilbur.This was achieved in cooperation with a group offirst translators competent in both Arabic andEnglish. There is an obvious literary benefit inenlisting the help of creative translators in the targetlanguage, not only because of their rootedness in thepoetics of their literary tradition and their first-handfamiliarity with the literary taste of their time butalso because they are more qualified to serve aseffective intermediaries between two different cul-tures: their own and that of the source language.Such an approach does have, as some critics main-tain, its own potential risk in that it may lead toinaccurate rewriting of the original poems.Inaccuracies in Jayyusi’s anthology are rare, how-ever, although in some cases, especially with tradi-tional poetry, the original poems have been deliber-ately truncated or abridged in English. For example,the translated version of “Lullaby for the Hungry,”by the greatest modern neoclassical poet,Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri (1900–1997), isbased on 20 lines selected from a much longer (100-line) poem. But, as Jayyusi herself stated, such neo-classical poetry presents the translator with a mostonerous task in view of the fact that it is built onwell-entrenched phrases and a rich legacy of rhetori-cal usages and other devices that are not translatablewithout the aid of unwieldy footnotes. Instead ofexcluding the translation of traditional poetry, whichstill plays a central role in the Arab world, Jayyusihas wisely attempted to represent it in her anthologyin abridged versions.

Other general anthologies that deserve to benoted include al-Udhari’s Modern Poetry of the ArabWorld (1986), which presents, according to achronological and theme-oriented scheme, works ofleading poets from the Fertile Crescent region: Iraq,Jordan/Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. The selectionsare grouped under four headings: the Tafìla (freeverse) movement (Iraqi School), 1947–1957; theMajallah Shi`r movement (Syrian School),


1957–1967; the June (i.e., June War of 1967)Experience, 1967–1982; and the Beirut Experience(i.e., Israel’s occupation of Beirut), 1982 onward. Asthe headings suggest, Udhari’s anthology bringstogether some of the finest modernist poets, who areknown for their poetic innovations and radical standagainst the political and social conditions in theArab world. Among the poets represented areAdonis, al-Bayati, Darwish, Hawi, Jabra, al-Khal,al-Maghut, Qabbani, al-Sayyab, and Sa`di Yusuf.Udhari’s schemes of classification or periodizationand of selection can be questioned on severalgrounds, however, such as limited regional represen-tation (despite the title) and the fact that not all ofhis selections belong to the periods under whichthey are included.

Anne Fairbairn’s bilingual anthology (1989)represents an ambitious undertaking by two poets:an Australian (Fairbairn) and Ghazi al-Gosaibi [al-Qusaybi], a Saudi poet of distinction, who is alsonoted for his contributions to other projects of trans-lation as well as for his critical studies dealing withArabic poetry. Intended primarily as an introductionfor Australian readers, the anthology was designedwith a view to providing a panorama of 20th-centu-ry Arabic poetry. To meet this objective, Fairbairnand al-Gosaibi were guided by three criteria: toselect poems from every Arab country; to representdifferent schools with the exception of prose poetry;and to choose poems that have universal themes“such as poverty, death, love, parenthood” (introduc-tion n.p.). Despite the obstacles that such an under-taking has to overcome, both editors/translators havesucceeded in offering a large number of selections,often of just a few lines, from the works of morethan 90 poets. Most of the poets chosen belong tothe post-1950 generations. As for the method oftranslation followed, Fairbairn, as she remarks in hernote, has attempted different versions on the basis ofal-Gosaibi’s liberal translations. Being a poet her-self, she was guided by the principle that her transla-tions should re-create the original texts in Englishwithout distorting their essence. There is no doubtthat both Fairbairn and al-Gosaibi have given us, inthis anthology, samplings of poems perceptivelyselected from Arabic and artistically rendered in

English. It is relevant to note that the leadingAustralian poet A. D. Hope (1907-2000) had viewedit within the Australian context as “a miraculousachievement” and “a literary event” that will “helpto break down those barriers which so sadly divideus today” (foreword, n.p.).

All the anthologies cited above include theworks of several women poets; but Kamal Boullata’santhology (1978) is dedicated exclusively to Arabwomen’s contributions to the poetic revolution thathas taken place during the last 50 years. Among the13 poets represented are Nazik al-Mala’ikah (Iraq),Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Fadwa Tuqan (Palestine),and Fawziyya Abu Khalid (Saudi Arabia). Althoughnot comprehensive in its coverage of women poets,Boullata’s work still serves as an important guide toArab women’s creative spirit as they address person-al, national, and universal problems of their time. Itincludes about 100 poems or extracts of poems,mostly translated from Arabic, but in some casestranslated from French or originally written inEnglish. The English translations from Arabic, pri-marily by Boullata, are notable for both artistic sen-sitivity and reliability. The fact that the translationshave appeared in major world anthologies ofwomen’s poetry may serve as a measure of thiswork’s success.

In contrast, however, to Boullata’s pioneeringcollection, Handal’s recent anthology (2001) standsout as an ambitious attempt to ensure a greater visi-bility not only for Arab women poets but also forother poets of Arab origin. International in its scope,the anthology presents the works of 83 poets, mostof whom write in Arabic and are chosen from allArab countries with the exception of Oman and theSudan. The second-largest group is that of the Arab-American poets, followed by others who write inFrench or Swedish. By bringing together in one vol-ume poets from different Arab and non-Arabregions, literary traditions, and religious back-grounds, Handal has sought, and succeeded to alarge extent, to demonstrate some of the sharedexperiences and concerns (private, national and uni-versal) that mark their poetry. The anthology beginswith a detailed introduction (more than 60 pages),


which sheds light on salient stylistic and thematicaspects of Arab women’s poetry as it evolved duringthe 20th century. It concludes with biographicalnotes about the poets and the numerous translators(about 40), including American, Australian, andBritish poets, who contributed to the anthology. Thegreater visibility of Arab women poets is alsoreflected in the publication of an increasing numberof their individual works (see, for example, titleslisted below under Kashghari, al-Sabah, Sa`d, Saudi,and Tuqan).

As indicated earlier, and as this overview sug-gests, an extensive corpus of contemporary Arabicpoetry has become accessible in English translationin a variety of sources, including numerous antholo-gies. It is important, however, to keep in mind thatthis corpus, extensive as it is, offers only a partialrepresentation of Arabic poetry today. There are stillmany poets who have not been adequately represent-ed or have been left out completely. Al-Babatin’s(1995) dictionary of living poets alone lists morethan 1600 poets, selected from a much larger num-ber of poets participating in a special survey. This isnot to imply that all poets listed merit serious con-sideration for the purpose of translation. It only sug-gests that there is still a major gap in the fairlyextensive corpus of translated poetry. This gap isparticularly evident in relation to the contemporarypoetry of North African countries: Algeria, Libya,Morocco, and Tunisia. It is also evident in theabsence of individual collections representing othermajor modern poets, such Amal Dunqul, and AhmadAbd al-Mu`ti Hijazi (Egypt), Salma Khadra Jayyusiand Tawfiq Sayigh (Palestine), Nazik al-Malaìkah,Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, and Sa`di Yusuf (Iraq) Abdal-Aziz al-Maqalih (Yemen), Yusuf al-Khal and others.

What is more noteworthy, perhaps, is the factthat although non–Arabic-speaking translators havebecome more involved in the translation of modernArabic poetry, native Arabic speakers continue toserve as the primary anthologists. There are a fewnotable exceptions, such as the American poetSamuel Hazo, who translated Adonis; DenysJohnson-Davies, known for his translation of numer-ous Arabic works, including Mahmud Darwish’s

poetry; O’Grady, and a few others, as the bibliogra-phy below indicates. It is also relevant to note that afairly large number of the collections have beenpublished in Arab countries, particularly Egypt, afact that may limit their circulation or use inEnglish-speaking countries.

Further Reading

Altoma, Salih J. Modern Arabic Poetry in EnglishTranslation: A Bibliography. Tangier: King FahdSchool of Translation, Abdelmalek Essaadi U,1993. [For more information on other antholo-gies not discussed above or listed below, see pp.13–16, 146–49.]

Pan-Arab Anthologies

Arberry, Arthur J. Modern Arabic Poetry: AnAnthology with English Verse Translations.London: Taylor’s Foreign Press, 1950;Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967.

Asfour, John Mikhail. When the Words Burn: AnAnthology of Modern Arabic Poetry, 1947–1987.Dunvegan, Ontario: Cormorant Books, 1988,rev. ed. 1992.

Boullata, Issa J. Modern Arab Poets: 1950–1970.Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1976.

Boullata, Kamal. Women of the Fertile Crescent:Modern Poetry by Arab Women. Washington,DC: Three Continents Press, 1978; Boulder, CO:L. Rienner, 1981, 1994.

Fairbairn, Anne, and Ghazi al-Gosaibi. Feathers andthe Horizon: A Selection of Modern ArabicPoetry from Across the Arab World. Canberra:Leros Press, 1989.

Handal, Nathalie, ed. The Poetry of Arab Women: AContemporary Anthology. New York andNorthampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2001.

Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. Modern Arabic Poetry:An Anthology. New York: Columbia UP, 1987.

Megally, Shafik, trans. An Anthology of ModernArabic Poetry. Zug: International DocumentationCo., 1974.

Obank, Margaret and Samuel Shimon, eds. A Crackin the Wall: New Arab Poetry. London: Saqi,


2001.O’Grady, Desmond. Ten Modern Arab Poets:

Selected Versions. Dublin: The Dedalus Press,1992.

Samples of Modern Arabic Poetry in EnglishTranslation. Trans. Lana Younis; Revised with anintroduction by Muhammad Enani. Cairo:GEBO, 1999. [Inside title Exercises inTranslation: Poem [Poetry] and Prose is moreaccurate because the samples include not onlypoems by Adonis, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, JabraI. Jabra, Muhammad al-Maghut, and AhmadAbd al-Mu`ti Hijazi, but also two plays byAlfred Faraj and a few selections from earlierperiod.]

al-Udhari, Abdullah, trans. Modern Poetry of theArab World. Harmondsworth, Middlesex,England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986.

Selected Regional Anthologies

Ahmed, Osman Hassan, and Constance E. G.Berkley, eds. Anthology of Modern SudanesePoetry. Washington, DC: Office of the CulturalCounsellor, Embassy of the DemocraticRepublic of the Sudan, 1983.

Aruri, Naseer, and Edmund Ghareeb, eds. Enemy ofthe Sun, Poetry of Palestinian Resistance.Washington, DC: Drum and Spear Press, 1970.

Elmessiri, A. M., trans. The Palestinian Wedding: ABilingual Anthology of ContemporaryPalestinian Resistance Poetry. Washington, DC:Three Continents Press, 1982.

—. A Lover from Palestine, and Other Poems: AnAnthology of Palestinian Poetry. Washington,DC: Free Palestine Press, 1970.

Enani, M. M., trans. An Anthology of the NewArabic Poetry in Egypt. Cairo: General EgyptianBook Organization (GEBO), 1986.

Ghanim, Shihab, trans. Modern Poetry from theLand of Sheba. United Arab Emirates: n.p. [Sh.M. A. Ghanem], 1999.

Ghazzawi, Izzat, ed. Modern Palestinian Poetry inTranslation: 35 Poets. Jerusalem: ThePalestinian Writers’ Union, 1997.

Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. Anthology of Modern

Palestinian Literature. New York: Columbia UP,1992. See pp.81-331 for translations of Arabicpoems by 57 Palestinian poets.

—, ed. Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology.London and New York: Kegan PaulInternational, 1988. See pp. 41–252 for poetry intranslation from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Kaye, Jacqueline, ed. Maghreb: New Writing fromNorth Africa. York, England: Talus Editions andU of York, 1992. [Includes poems by fourMoroccan poets: Ahmed Belbdaoui, MuhammadBennis, Ahmad al-Majjati, and Abd Allah Raji`.]

Lu’lu’a, Abdul Wahid, trans. Modern Iraqi Poetry.Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1989.

Megalli, Shafik, trans. Arab Poetry of Resistance:An Anthology. Cairo: al-Ahram Press, 1970.

Poetic Experimentation in Egypt since the Seventies.Alif (Cairo: The American U in Cairo) 11(1991). [A special issue that presents a bilingualanthology of poems selected from the works ofabout 20 contemporary Egyptian poets.]

al-Sanousi, Haifa, trans. The Echo of KuwaitiCreativity: A Collection of Translated KuwaitiPoetry. [Revised by Mohammad Sami Anwar.]Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies onKuwait, 1999.

Shahham, Abd Allah, trans. Symphonies of theHeart: Selections from Modern Arabic Poetry inJordan. Amman: Department of Culture andArts, 1987.

al-Wasiti, Salman, ed. Ten Iraqi Soldier-Poets.Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1988. [Covers theIran-Iraq War.]

Selected Anthologies of Poets

Abd al-Wahid, Abd al-Razzaq. Poems. Selected byAli Ja`far Allaq and Trans.MohammedDarweesh. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1989.

Abu Sinnah, Muhammad Ibrahim. Poems. Trans.Soad Mahmoud Naguib and Mahir Shafiq Farid.Cairo: GEBO, 1993.

Adonis (Ali Ahmad Saìd). The Blood of Adonis:Transpositions of Selected Poems of Adonis (AliAhmad Said). Trans. Samuel Hazo. Pittsburgh:


University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.—. The Pages of Day and Night. Trans. Samuel

Hazo. Marlboro, VT: Marlboro Press, 1994;Evanston, IL. : Marlboro Press; NorthwesternUP, 2000.

—. Transformations of the Lover. Trans. SamuelHazo. Athens, OH: Ohio UP, 1983.

Afif, Qaysar. The Trilogy of Exile. Trans. MansourAjami; Edit. Barbara De Graff Ajami.[California?: s.n.]: 2000.

—. And the Word Became Poem. Trans. MansourAjami; Edit. Barbara De Graff Ajami. Princeton,NJ. : The Grindstone Press, 1994.

al-Allaq, Ali Ja`far. Poems. Trans. MohammedDarweesh. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1988.

Arar, See al-Tall, Mustafa Wahbi.Awaji, Ibrahim. The Tents of the Tribe. Trans.

Maryam Ishaq al-Khalifa Sharief. London:Echoes, 1996.

al-Azzawi, Fadil. In Every Well A Joseph Is Weeping.Trans. Khaled Mattawa. Quarterly Review ofLiterature. Poetry Book Series 36 (1997).

Baini, Charbel. QuartetsRubaiyat. Trans. EmileChidiac. Merrylands, Australia: Charbel Baini,1993.

al-Bayati, Abd al-Wahhab. Love, Death, and Exile.Trans. Bassam K. Frangieh. Washington, DC:Georgetown UP, 1990.

Algosaibi, see al-Qusaybi.Darwish, Mahmud. The Adam of Two Edens. Ed.

Munir Akash and Daniel Moore. Bethesda. MD:Jusoor; Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2001.

—. The Music of Human Flesh. Trans. DenysJohnson-Davies. London: HeinemannEducational Books; Washington, DC: ThreeContinents Press, 1980.

—. Psalms. Trans. Ben Bennani. Colorado Springs,CO: Three Continents Press, 1994.

—. Sands and Other Poems. Trans. Rana Kabbani.London: Kegan Paul International, 1986, 2001.

—. Selected Poems. Trans. Ian Wedde and FawwazTuqan. Cheshire: Carcanet Press, 1973.

al-Faytouri, see Fituri.Fituri, Muhammad. Shrouded by the Branches of

Night. Trans. Muhammad Enani. Cairo: GEBO,1997.

Guwaidah, Farooq, see Juwaydah, Faruq.Hafidh, Yaseen Taha, see Hafiz, Yasin Taha.Hafiz, Hisham Ali. The Desert Is My Oasis.

London: Kegan Paul, 1994.—. Words with Rhythm: Second Beat. Trans. Farouk

Luqman. London: Kegan Paul, 1995.Hafiz, Yasin Taha. Poems. Trans. Mohammed

Darweesh. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1989.Hawi, Khalil and Nadeem Naimy. From the

Vineyards of Lebanon. Trans. Fuad Said Haddad.Beirut: The American University of Beirut,1991.

Hawi, Khalil. Naked in Exile: Khalil Hawi’sThreshing Floors of Hunger. Trans. AdnanHaydar and Michael Beard. Washington, DC:Three Continents Press, 1984.

al-Haydari, Buland. Songs of the Tired Guard. Trans.Abdullah al-Udhari. London: 1977.

—. Dialogue in Three Dimensions. Trans. HusainHaddawy. London: Pan Middle East Graphicsand Publishing, 1982.

al-Ìsa, Sulayman. The Butterfly and Other Poems.Trans. Brenda Walker. Damascus: Dar Talas,1984.

Janabi, Hatif. Questions and Their Retinue: SelectedPoems. Trans. Khaled Mattawa. Fayetteville:University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

Juwaydah, Faruq. Had We Not Parted. Trans.Muhammad Enani. Cairo: GEBO, 1999.

—. A Thousand Faces Has the Moon. Trans.Muhammad Enani. Cairo: GEBO, 1997.

Kabbani, Nizar, see Qabbani.Kashghari, Badia [Badiàh]. The Unattainable

Lotus. Trans. by the author. London: Saqi, 2001.al-Maghut, Muhammad. The Fans of Swords:

Poems. Trans. May Jayyusi and Naomi ShihabNye. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press,1991.

—. Joy Is Not My Profession. Trans. John Asfourand Alison Burch. Montréal: Signal Editions,1994.

Mahdi, Sami. Poems. Trans. Mohammad Darwish.Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1988.

Matar, Muhammad Afifi. Quartet of Joy: Poems.Trans. Ferial Ghazoul and John Verlenden.Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1997.


Naimy, Nadeem, see Hawi, Khalil.Qabbani, Nizar. Arabian Love Poems. Trans. Bassam

K. Frangieh and Clementina Brown. ColoradoSprings, CO: Three Continents Press, 1993.

—. On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and OtherPoetry of Nizar Qabbani. Trans. Lena Jayyusiand Sharif Elmusa with Jack Collom et al. NewYork: Interlink Books, 1996.

—. Poems of Love and Exile [Min qasa’id al-ìshqwa al-manfa]. Trans. Saadun Suayeh [ Sa`dunSuwayyih]. Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1998.

—. Republic of Love: Selected Poems. Trans. Nayefal- Kalali. London: Kegan Paul International,2000.

Qurashi, Hasan Abd Allah. Specters of Exile andOther Poems. Trans. John Heath-Stubbs andCatherine Cobhan. London: Echoes, 1991.

al-Qusaybi, Ghazi. From the Orient and the Desert.London: Kegan Paul, 1977, 1994; Stoksfield:Oriel Press, 1979.

—. Dusting the Colour from Roses: A BilingualAnthology of Arabic Poetry. Trans. A. A. Ruffai.Revised by Heather Lawton. London: Echoes,1995.

Saàdeh, Wadih. A Secret Sky. Transcreated from theArabic by Anne Fairbairn. Charnwood, Australia:Ginninderra Press, 1997.

al-Sabah, Suàd Mubarak. Fragments of a Woman.Trans. Nehad Selaiha. Cairo: GEBO, 1990.

—. In the Beginning Was the Female. Trans. AbdulWahid Lu’lu’ah. Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1994.

Sa`d, Maryam Qasim. A Handful of Earth: SelectedPoems. London: Aurora Press, 1993.

Saìd, Hamid. Poems. Trans. Salman al-Wasiti.Baghdad: Dar al-Ma’mun, 1988.

al-Saqlawi, Saìd. The Awakening of the Moon: ASelection of Poems. Trans. Abdullah al-Shahhamand M. V. McDonald. Muscat, Oman: al-BatinahPublishing Co, 1996.

Saudi, Mona [Muna]. An Ocean of Dreams: Forty-three Poems. Trans. Tania Tamari Nasir. Pueblo,CO: Passeggiata Press, 1999.

al-Sayyab, Badr Shakir. Selected Poems. Trans.Nadia Bishai. London: Third World Centre forResearch and Publishing, 1986.

al-Shabbi, Abu al-Qasim. Songs of Life: Selections

from the Poetry of Abu’l Qasim al-Shabbi. Trans.Lena Jayyusi and Naomi Shihab Nye. Carthage,Tunisia: National Foundation for Translation,1987.

Shusha, Faruq. The Language of Lovers’ Blood.Trans. Muhammad Enani. Cairo: GEBO, 1999.

—. Time to Catch Time. Trans. Muhammad Enani.Cairo: GEBO, 1997.

al-Suwaydi, Muhammad Ahmad. Pathways ofDawn. Trans. Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh. AbuDhabi, UAE: n.p. 1997.

al-Tall, Mustafa Wahbi. Mustafa’s Journey: Verse ofArar, Poet of Jordan. Trans. Richard LoringTaylor. Irbid, Jordan: Yarmouk University, 1988.

Tuqan, Fadwa. Daily Nightmares: Ten Poems. Trans.Yusra A. Salah. New York: Vantage Press, 1988;[S.I]: Palestinian Writers Union, 1991.

—. Selected Poems of Fadwa Tuqan. Trans. IbrahimDawood. Irbid, Jordan: Yarmouk University,1994.

Zoghaib, Henri. In Forbidden Time: Love Poems.Trans. Adnan Haydar and Michael Beard.Washington, D.C: New Pen Bond Publishers,1991.

______(*) A shorter version of this article appeared as anentry in the Encyclopedia of Literary Translationinto English. Ed. Olive Classe. London: FitzroyDearborn Publishers, 2000.



The Dhammapada has none of the stories,parables, and extended instruction that char-acterize the main Buddhist scriptures, thesutras. It is a collection of vivid, practicalverses, gathered probably from direct disci-ples who wanted to preserve what they hadheard from the Buddha himself. In the oraltradition of the sixth century before Christ, itmust have been the equivalent of a hand-book: a ready reference of the Buddha’steachings condensed in haunting poetry andarranged by theme—anger, greed, fear, hap-piness, thought. Yet there is nothing piece-meal about this anthology. It is a single com-position, harmonious and whole, which con-veys the living presence of a teacher ofgenius.

—Eknath Easwaran

The preceding was written by Eknath Easwaran inhis introduction to The Dhammapada.

Dhammapada is a Pali term meaning “path tovirtue,” “utterances of religion,” “the way of theLaw,” or “the path of discipline.” All of these transla-tions are accurate, yet no one is more accurate thananother. The Dhammapada is a work in motion.Growing out of the discourses of Guatama Buddha,it made its way through the centuries as an oral tradi-tion, and more recently as a work in translation. Asillustrated by the many interpretations of the title, theDhammapada is a text that encompasses broad ideasand multiple meanings. As we read it today, we arelooking at the reconfiguration of groups of signs thathave been scattered over the centuries. In this essay, Iwill be looking at the configuration of those signs asthey have been translated over time and between cul-tures.

The Dhammapada is part of the Theravadacanon of Buddhist literature, all of which are in Pali,a vernacular descendent of Sanskrit. This canon isdivided into three pitakas, or “baskets.” The

Dhammapada is part of the Sutta-Pitaka, or “Basketof Discourses,” which takes its form as discourses bythe Buddha or his disciples (Pelikan, xvi). The othertwo baskets consist of the Abhidhamma-Pitaka, deal-ing with questions of metaphysics, and the Vinaya-Pitaka, containing the rules of the monastic order.Consisting of 423 verses divided into 26 chapters,the Dhammapada has been carried down throughoral tradition, eventually being preserved in the Palilanguage.

In approaching this topic, I have been influ-enced by Octavio Paz and his conception of languageand translation. There is a certain similarity betweenPaz’s conception of language and the Buddha’s con-ception of reality. The Buddha taught that everythingwe are and everything around us is composed of ourthoughts; that there is no objective reality apart fromour perception of it. Therefore, we exist in a state ofconstant change, a continuous series of changingthoughts, each one affecting the others. Paz con-ceives of language as a series of rotating signs thatare valid only within a particular society and timeperiod. There is no single objective reality apart fromthe interpretation we make through language. For theBuddha, reality takes form as a series of changingthoughts; for Paz it is the rotation of signs. Theseparallel ideas will serve as my point of entrance intothis text.

There are many decisions to be made before thetranslator begins dealing with the words. He or shemust decide whether or not to adhere to the originalstructure—to preserve the rhythms and patterns ofthe original. He must decide whether or not his textwill be self-sufficient or dependent upon subsidiaryexplanations. He must also decide when and how farto deviate from the text in an effort to be understand-able to a Western audience. Moreover, as each trans-lator works with the Pali text, he is interpreting itaccording to his own perceptions and understanding.The resulting work, as Paz would say, is a new andunique text, similar to but not identical with the orig-inal.

THE DHAMMAPADA: A WORK IN MOTIONBy Patrick Murphy

The translations I will be looking at range fromsimple and poetic to complex and burdensome.Beginning with the first English translation in 1881by F. Max Müller, I will compare verses from aseries of translations, each with its own distinct styleand perspective. My goal here will be to highlightthe particular choices made by each translator andhow those choices affect the reader’s interpretation.By examining the movement from Pali to English,we also examine the movement from Easternthought to Western thought. It is in the translationprocess that we are forced to immerse ourselves inthe multiplicity of meanings provided by the text. Inthis way, we come away with a broad understandingof the work. My purpose in this essay is to look atthe translation process, to highlight the difficulties,to look at how individual translators make choicesand how these choices affect our interpretation ofthe text. Since the depth and breadth of meaning ineach verse prevents me from addressing more than asmall selection, I have chosen verses that deal withcentral aspects of Buddhist thought.

A brief word about the texts: The translationsof the Dhammapada that I will deal with in thisessay come from a group of five texts that I havechosen on the basis of their scholarly significanceand on the translators’ specific interpretiveapproaches. The oldest among the group is F. MaxMüller’s translation in the collection entitled SacredBooks of the East. This is the first translation of theDhammapada into English and was originally pub-lished in 1881. Of the five texts, Müller’s translationis the most concise, including only a brief introduc-tion. S. Radhakrishnan’s 1950 translation of theDhammapada was well received upon its initial pub-lication and is still in wide circulation today.Radhakrishnan was president of India from 1962 to1967, chancellor of Delhi University, and author ofIndian Philosophy and An Idealist View of Life. Histranslation of the Dhammapada includes an exhaus-tive introduction, the Pali text, and explanatorynotes. A more recent translation, Eknath Easwaran’sThe Dhammapada: Translated for the ModernReader, was published in 1985 by Nilgiri Press. Ofthe five translations I deal with here, Easwaran’smakes for the most pleasant reading experience. His

translations demonstrate an intimate knowledge ofthe void between Eastern and Western thought thataids him in building bridges between the two. Alsoincluded in the collection is Oxford UniversityPress’s Sacred Writings: The Dhammapada. Editedby Jaroslav Pelikan and translated by John RossCarter and Mahinda Palihawadana, this translation isthe result of a collaboration between Eastern andWestern scholarship. It includes the Pali text, literaltranslations, and commentary for every verse. I havefound the notes in this book to be invaluable inpreparing this essay. Finally, the most unusual ver-sion of the Dhammapada in this collection is enti-tled Treasury of Truth: Illustrated Dhammapada.This book incorporates a full-page illustration ofeach verse, literal translations, prose translations,notes, Pali alphabet and phonemes, commentary,and the original story from which the verses are saidto stem. Treasury of Truth was translated by theVenerable Weragoda Sarada Maha Thero.

Yamaka Vaggo

In his introduction to the first chapter ofEknath Easwaran’s Dhammapada, StephenRuppenthal writes, “Every reader knows that onebook which becomes part of one’s life means morethan a thousand others. The Dhammapada wasmeant as such a book, and its method for transform-ing our lives is given right in the first chapter”(Easwaran, 75). Known as the Twin Verses or ThePairs, Chapter One of the Dhammapada presents thereader with pairs of possibilities, each leading to itsown destiny. Organized into 10 pairs of 20 verses,this first chapter lays out a course of action and con-sequence. The pairs are a reflection of each other,each beginning with the same premise, from whichfollow contrasting paths of discipline and indul-gence.

All that we are is the result of what we havethought: it is founded on our thoughts, it ismade up of our thoughts. If a man speaks oracts with an evil thought, pain follows him, asthe wheel follows the foot of the ox thatdraws the carriage.


All that we are is the result of what we havethought: it is founded on our thoughts, it ismade up of our thoughts. If a man speaks oracts with a pure thought, happiness followshim, like a shadow that never leaves him.(Müller, 115)

A man’s reality is determined by his thoughts.Buddhism teaches that there is no objective realityapart from our individual perception of it. Therefore,our lives take shape as a consequence of the contentof our mind. Because this idea is central to Buddhistthought, I want to examine the first line of this firstverse more closely.

Manopubbangama dhamma manosetthamanomaya

1 Preceded by perception are mental states,for them is perception supreme, from per-ception have they sprung. (Pelikan, 89)

1 Mind preceded all knowables, mind’s theirchief, mind-made are they. (Thero, 2)

1 All that we are is the result of what we havethought: it is founded on our thoughts, itis made up of our thoughts. (Müller, 115)

1 (The mental) natures are the result of whatwe have thought, are chieftained by ourthoughts, are made up of our thoughts.(Radhakrishnan, 58)

Much of the variation in translation of thisverse revolves around the word dhamma. Dhammahas many different connotations. In its most com-mon form, it means “truth” or “religious law,” but inthis first chapter, dhamma is used to describe expe-rience, or more exactly, “the meaningful totality ofexperience” (Thero, 3). In Buddhist thought, it isthis totality of experience that makes us who we are.

In these four versions, we see four differentinterpretations of the word dhamma: moving from“all that we are” to “mental states” to “knowables”

to “mental natures.” This first verse demonstrates acertain mobility that has substantial consequencesfor interpretation. To translate dhamma as “all thatwe are,” as Müller has done, exhibits a profoundreconstruction of Western ideas. Here, reality or“being” results from thought. This is quite differentfrom the traditional Western point of view that ourthoughts or mental states are a reaction to a preexist-ing reality. For Buddhists, reality does not existapart from mind, the duality of mind-body is absent.Müller’s translation captures this idea very succinct-ly by contrasting being and thought.

Looking at Carter and Palihawadana’s version(edited by Pelikan), the relationship between “per-ception” and “mental states” is less clear. Thisessential aspect of Buddhist thought is confoundedby a phrasing that, to the Western intellect, fails touncover the essence of the verse. In juxtaposing“perception” and “mental states,” the reversal of therelationship between being and thinking is lost. Thephrase “mental states,” while being a more literaltranslation of dhamma, lacks the meaningful conno-tation of Müller’s “all that we are.” Thero’s transla-tion is similarly problematic. The phrase “mind pre-cedes all knowables” betrays the causal relationshipbeing presented. To a Westerner, this would seem tobe self-evident—certainly, the existence of a mindwould have to precede knowledge. Thero’s choice ofwords fails to uncover the relationship betweenthought and being. In translating dhamma, the trans-lators must be aware of the fact that mind or mentalstates, while closely connected with being and reali-ty in the East, are almost synonymous with thoughtand perception in the West. Therefore, the translatormust choose a phrasing that clarifies the reversal ofcausation that Buddhist thought presents to theWestern intellect.

The greatest departure from the literal transla-tion, and also the most succinct and to the point, isfound in Eknath Easwaran’s 1985 translation: “Ourlife is shaped by our mind; we become what wethink” (Easwaran, 78). Here, the terms are clear;being results from thought. Like Müller, Easwaranconfigures the signs appropriately so that theWestern mind can grasp the concept. Moreover,Easwaran simplifies the phrase while at the same


time highlighting the profundity: “we become whatwe think.” Although the use of the phrase “webecome” is a substantial departure from manopub-bangama (thought precedes) or manosettha (thoughtis dominant), it demonstrates a successful effort tobridge the gap between Eastern and Westernthought.

Appamada-Vaggo

Appamada Vaggo, like the Twin Verses, pres-ents the disciple with two paths leading to oppositedestinations. Those who are aware of the worldaround them, who maintain this awareness, and whoare vigilant in their practice will break the cycle ofbirth and death known as samsara. Those who areslothful, lazy, or caught up in the pursuit of pleasurewill continue to suffer multiple births and deaths.

According to the commentary in Pelikan’sDhammapada, the Pali term appamada “illumines amassive meaning, spans a massive content; for theentire Word of the Buddha included in the threepitakas taken up and given articulation, boils downto the word ‘awareness’ only” (Pelikan, 109). Butnot just awareness as we think of it in the West, butan intense and constant awareness of experience. Itis said that a man endowed with this type of aware-ness will give his full and undivided attention to allexperience whether he is washing dishes or makinglove. This intensity and constancy is essential in fol-lowing the path laid out by the Buddha. For this rea-son, appamada is also translated as “vigilance” or“earnestness.” Since the translators are bound by theverse structure of the Dhammapada, they don’t havethe freedom to explain this in prose form. Much asin poetry, the Dhammapada demonstrates a certainfixity of signs that correspond to multiple meanings.In light of this, how does one choose a term to sig-nify appamada when no single English term encom-passes the multiple meanings of the term? The trans-lator must be adept at using context and combina-tions that provide the multiplicity of meaning denot-ed by appamada. It is not merely the sign in itselfthat points to meaning but also the configurationand convergence of multiple signs. In the transla-tions that follow, it can be seen how these translators

have dealt with (or failed to deal with) the dilemmaof configuring signs so that they encompass thismultiplicity of meaning.

Appamado amatapadam pamado maccuno padamAppamatta na miyanti ye pamatta yatha mata.

21 Earnestness is the path of immortality(Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path ofdeath. Those who are in earnest do notdie, those who are thoughtless are as ifdead already. (Müller, 117)

21 Vigilance is the abode of eternal life,thoughtlessness is the abode of death.Those who are vigilant (who are given toreflection) do not die. The thoughtless areas if dead already. (Radhakrishnan, 66)

21 The path to the Deathless is awareness;Unawareness, the path of death. They whoare aware do not die; They who areunaware are as dead. (Pelikan, 109)

21 Be vigilant and go beyond death. If youlack vigilance, you cannot escape death.Those who strive earnestly will go beyonddeath; those who do not can never cometo life. (Easwaran, 81)

Müller has chosen “earnestness” as his transla-tion of appamada, a term synonymous with sincerityand seriousness. In and of itself, it lacks the breadthof meaning signified by appamada. So the job ofthe translator is to open appamada, in this case“earnestness,” up to multiple meanings. This can bedone through using particular combinations ofwords, i.e., pluralizing the meaning through the useof context. This particular verse provides that oppor-tunity through its oppositional structure. Becausetwo opposing paths are laid out, each path can bedefined by its opposite: awareness/unawareness,mindfulness/lack of mindfulness. Therefore, in thecareful choice of an opposite to appamada, thetranslator has the opportunity to broaden the reader’sinterpretation of the term. Müller has chosen


“thoughtlessness” as the opposition for “earnest-ness.” This term is troubling, for it has connotationsthat run contrary to the meanings being expressed inthis verse. “Thoughtlessness,” if interpreted as lack-ing thought, is not necessarily a bad thing inBuddhist philosophy. Nibbana, the supreme enlight-enment, is a state described as beyond thought, astate where the mind is still and fully awake, unin-terrupted by the constant flux of thoughts. WhileMüller probably was thinking of thoughtlessness as“a lack of consideration,” nevertheless, the use ofthoughtlessness may serve to confound rather thanclarify the meanings being signified here.Radhakrishnan demonstrates a similar uneasiness incontrasting vigilance and thoughtlessness as thepaths to Nibbana and Samsara, respectively.Easwaran also uses vigilance, but stays away fromthe problems caused by “thoughtlessness.”

The translation in Pelikan’s Dhammapadademonstrates an entirely different perspective on theverse. Whereas the others have emphasized hardwork and vigilance, Carter and Palihawadana havechosen to emphasize “awareness.” Certainly, bothawareness and vigilance are encompassed in themeaning of appamada, but to prioritize one or theother reflects a difference in interpretation. Thisraises the broader question as to whether the incon-sistencies I have highlighted heretofore are a resultof translation processes or interpretive processes.When one is translating a text with the breadth ofmeaning found in the Dhammapada, translationbecomes an act of interpretation. The opposite alsoholds true: interpretation becomes an act of transla-tion, for one must translate not only the words butalso the cultural context behind the words. In read-ing the Dhammapada, we are moving not only fromone language to another but also from one civiliza-tion to another.

Radhakrishnan’s translation of this versedemonstrates a unique style. Illustrating the need topluralize meaning through context, here as in otherverses, he is given to including parenthetical com-ments. He qualifies vigilance with “(who are givento reflection).” Without a doubt, this style clarifiesthe meaning and gives the reader a more completeunderstanding of appamada. But it raises the ques-

tion as to the point at which the translator strays toofar from the verse structure of Dhammapada.Surely, one could include a wide variety of paren-thetical comments in the text as a means of clarifi-cation, but at what detriment to the poetic nature ofthe work? This effort at clarification is approacheddifferently in Thero’s Dhammapada, which includesa separate “explanatory” translation of each verse.This translation, unbound by the verse structure,uses the freedom of prose to fix the meaning.Following are the translation of verse 21 and theexplanatory translation by Thero:

21 Heedfulness is the Deathless path,Heedlessness, the path to deathThose who are heedful do not die,Heedless ones are like the dead. (Thero,44)

The path to the deathless is the perpetualawareness of experience. The deathless doesnot imply a physical state where the bodydoes not die. When an individual becomestotally aware of the process of experiencing,he is freed from the continuity of existence.Those who do not have that awareness arelike the dead, even if they are physically alive.

So, if the prose version is more clear in terms ofconveying meaning, why adhere to the verse struc-ture at all? After all, shouldn’t the goal be compre-hension? What is it about the structure that is soimportant as to give it priority over meaning? Mightit be that the rhythm of the verse is as important insignifying meaning as the signs themselves? Sincethese verses were originally spoken, not read, thereis an aspect of performance to the Dhammapada. Ithas lived most of its life as oratory. Therefore, theadherence to the verse structure is an effort to retainthe performance, which in itself is imbued withmeaning. It is important to remember that in anexamination of the written text, the Dhammapada isremoved from this central meaning-giving aspect.This work was not originally read by the Buddha’sdisciples, but experienced by them. Just as the scoreof a musical piece can add to our understanding, it


cannot replace the auditory reception of the piece.Similarly, these explanatory translations, while help-ful, cannot replace the performance. And it is thisverse structure that holds onto the performance ofthe Dhammapada.

Citta Vaggo

In Citta Vaggo, the Buddha characterizes thenature of one’s mind as stubborn, willful, deep, fick-le, and subtle. It is the battleground for the preemi-nent battle of humanity. “No conqueror, not evenNapoleon or Alexander, ever fought a battle moresignificant than that waged for control over one’smind” (Easwaran, 84). The mind has the capacityfor both good and evil, the former being the resultof ceaseless attention and training, the latter beingthe result of neglect. The Buddhist concept of mindis difficult to translate, for it encompasses muchmore than the largely intellectual Western concep-tion of “that which reasons.” In Buddhist terms, themind is much closer to soul, consciousness, encom-passing emotional states and temperament. Mind isthe essence of a person, tied closely to kamma(Karma), and remains as an entity after death. Theterm Cittam is commonly translated as either mindor thought. In his commentary on chapter 3, Therowrites, “writers on Buddhism mistakenly call it‘mind’ or ‘consciousness.’ But what it means is theaffective rather than the cognitive aspects of themental process” (Thero, 71). The translations ofverses 35 and 36 follow:

Dunnigghassa lahuno yattakamanipatino cittasadamatho sadhu cittam dantam sukhavaham.

Sududdasam sunipunam yatthakamanipatinam cit-tam rakkhetha cittam guttan sukhavaham.

35 Hard it is to train the mind, which goeswhere it likes and does what it wants. Buta trained mind brings health and happi-ness.

36 The wise can direct their thoughts, subtle

and elusive, wherever they choose: atrained mind brings health and happiness.(Easwaran, 87)

35 Commendable is the taming Of mind, which is hard to hold down,Nimble, alighting wherever it wants,Mind subdued brings ease.

36 The sagacious one may tend the mind,Hard to be seen, extremely subtle,Alighting wherever it wants.The tended mind brings ease. (Pelikan, 123)

35 The control of thought, which is difficultto restrain, fickle, which wanders at will,is good; a tamed mind is the bearer ofhappiness.

36 Let the wise man guard his thought, whichis difficult to perceive, which is extremelysubtle, which wanders at will. Thoughtwhich is well guarded is the bearer ofhappiness. (Radhakrishnan, 70)

35 It is good to tame the mind, which is diffi-cult to hold in and is flighty, rushingwherever it listeth; a tamed mind bringshappiness.

36 Let the wise man guard his thoughts, forthey are difficult to perceive, very artful,and they rush wherever they list: thoughtswell guarded bring happiness. (Müller, 118)

Remembering back to the first chapter, in readingthe Dhammapada we must shift our perception ofthe mind from an entity that makes sense of “whatis” to an entity that determines “what is.” Thoughtsare the individual products of thinking, whereasmind is that which performs the function of think-ing. Thoughts are, in and of themselves, temporary.In Buddhist literature, they are often compared towaves in the ocean, arising and subsiding. The mind,on the other hand, suggests not only permanence butalso immortality, not unlike that of the “soul.”Cittam encompasses both of these aspects and more.


In the translations of Citta Vagga, we see a dilemmasimilar to the one the term appamada presented inchapter 2. The English signs are overly specific,lacking the ability to signify the full range of mean-ing inherent in the Pali term. In these translations, itcan be seen clearly how the translators use combina-tions and context in an effort to pluralize meaning.

Looking at Radhakrishnan’s translation, noticehow he shifts from thought to mind in translatingcittam. It is this oscillation that signifies the attemptto pluralize meaning. The juxtaposition of the per-manent connotations of mind and the fleeting quali-ties of thought open up the meaning to signify thebroadness of meaning encompassed by cittam.Easwaran and Müller also demonstrate this oscilla-tion. However, Carter and Palihawadana maintainthe translation of cittam as “mind” throughout thetwo verses. While I do not suggest that this con-founds the meaning, I do believe that it fails to capi-talize on the opportunity to encompass the broaderconnotations of these verses.

Bala Vaggo

Chapter 5 of the Dhammapada is translated as both“Fools” and “The Childish.” The verses in this chap-ter describe the world as inhabited by the fool.Foolishness here is a matter not of mental capacitybut rather of awareness. For this reason, many trans-lators prefer to translate bala as “childishness.” Inhis introduction, Easwaran writes, “A fool’s behavioris not likely to improve, but a child is simply imma-ture; given time and experience, he will grow up.The Buddha was a compassionate teacher whosepath was open to people of all capacities; he wouldnot deprecate anyone’s ability to grow” (Easwaran,91). In looking at the translations, the translator’sunique perspective presents itself in the manner inwhich he or she treats the term bala.

Digha jagarato ratti digham santassa yojanamDigho balanam samsaro saddhammam avijanatam

60 Long is the night to him who is awake;long is a mile to him who is tired; long is

life to the foolish who do not know thetrue law. (Müller, 120)

60 Long is the night to those who are awake;long is the road to those who are weary.Long is the cycle of birth and death tothose who know not the dharma.(Easwaran, 94)

60 Long is the night to him who is awake,long is the yojana to him who is weary;long is the chain of existence to the fool-ish who do not know the true law.(Radhakrishnan, 79)

60 Long is the night for one awake, Long is aleague to one exhausted, Long is samsarato the childish ones Who know not dham-ma true. (Pelikan, 146)

Both Müller and Radhakrishnan use the traditional“foolish,” whereas Carter and Palihawadana haveused “childish.” The term “foolish,” as Easwaranpoints out, lacks the emphasis on growing and learn-ing that “childish” has. The choice of using “child-ish” incorporates both a sense of impermanence andthe capacity to grow. Using this term has the addedvalue of shifting the verse to illustrate not only thefolly of one who is not aware but also the propensityfor growth that the Buddha made central in histeaching. In the chapter title, Easwaran translatesbala as “immature,” which, like “childish,” encom-passes a propensity for growth. But looking at thetext, Easwaran has chosen to use neither, opting toleave the direct translation of bala out completely.He allows the phrase “those who know not the dhar-ma” to stand alone. Once again, Easwaran departsfrom the text to a greater extent than the other trans-lators, while maintaining both lyrical rhythm andclarity.

Also of interest in this verse is the translationof the word samsara. This concept is uniquelyBuddhist, referring to the chain of birth, aging,death, and rebirth. From a Buddhist point of view,this continual rebirth is seen not as a continuation of


life but rather as the continuation of death. Beingborn again is not something Buddhists aspire to, forit is a continuance of the suffering inherent in life.The Buddhist goal, Nibbana, is to end this chain ofbirth and death, giving up the attachment to physicalmanifestations of the spirit.

In Müller’s translation, “long is life to the fool-ish,” the concept of samsara is lost. The Westernerunfamiliar with Eastern religion would surely inter-pret “long is life” as a good thing. Easwaran andRadhakrishnan both translate samsara with this inmind. What is interesting is that Carter andPalihawadana (and Thero as well) choose not totranslate the term samsara at all, maintaining thePali term in the text. This brings up a fascinatingquestion: When to translate terms that have complexconnotations, and when to leave them as they are.The answer to this question is a function of the sup-porting material in the book. Both Thero’s andPelikan’s books include explanatory notes in whichan explanation of samsara is given. The use of thenontranslated term in the text provides a sort of tab-ula rasa on which both the reader and translator arefree from English terms whose connotations mayconfound rather than clarify meaning. This is oneadvantage to including extensive notes and explana-tions. Conversely, using the nontranslated terms andrelying on supplementary material leaves the textsomehow incomplete and insufficient as an entity inand of itself. This dichotomy accounts for the largerdeviations between the translations I have dealt with.Thero’s and Pelikan’s versions include the most sup-porting material, and looking back through thetranslations presented in this essay, it is these twoversions that are most literal and demonstrate a clos-er adherence to the rhythm of the Pali text. Müller’sand Easwaran’s translations include far less support-ing material, and therefore, they take greater liber-ties with their translations. I would suggest that thisgreater liberty accounts for the self-sufficiency andoverall clarity of meaning found in these texts.Radhakrishnan’s translation is something of an enig-ma among the five, for it seems that he has strad-dled the line between the two approaches. For thisreason, it demonstrates neither the purity and literal-ness of Thero’s and Pelikan’s nor the clarity and self-

sufficiency of Müller’s and Easwaran’s. In examining these five translations, I have

found that it is at the point in which the textsdiverge from one another that one can truly immerseoneself into the meaning of the Dhammapada. Itbreathes through plurality, and it is this plurality thathas kept readers coming back to it over the cen-turies. The delight one feels upon encountering anew way of understanding an old text is no lessintense than the event of one’s initial encounter withthat text. In this way, the work escapes obsolescenceand remains relevant between civilizations andthrough time.

Works Cited

Easwaran, Eknath, trans. The DhammapadaTomales. California: Nilgiri Press, 985

McCarthy, Justin, et al, ed. Sacred Books of theEast #1881. F. Max Muller, trans. New York:P.F. Collier & Son, 1900.

Pelikan, Jaroslav, ed. Sacred Writings, Buddhism:The Dhammapada. John Ross Carter,Mahinda Palihawadana, trans. New York:Oxford University Press, 1987.

Radhakrishnan, S. ed., trans. The Dhammapada.Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1950.

Thero, Weragoda Sarada Maha, ed. Treasury ofTruth: Illustrated Dhammapada Taipei: TheCorporate Body of the Buddha EducatioinalFoundation, 1993.



Translation wields enormous power in con-structing representations of foreign cultures.

Lawrence Venuti, The Scandals of Translation

Introduction

Venuti’s cautionary words hold true for the caseof Turkish literature, not merely because it is a

foreign culture that is represented as a limited canonin English translation but also because the workschosen and translated are done so by a mere handfulof academic scholars, writers, and poets. I willreview the translations of one of the most widelyread scholars and translators of Turkish literature,Talat Sait Halman, to explore the types of powerwielded in the construction of the Turkish culturevia the translation of its literature. Viewed to be,consciously or not, dominated by the discourse offluency, a popular translation of a period poem willbe evaluated to see to what extent the determiningfeatures of the text have been preserved or separatedin the translation. I suggest that the preservation ofthese determining features is a critical aspect of thetranslation process that should not be avoided,because it identifies a text as Turkish, as belongingto a particular literary movement, as the work of aparticular author, and thus as worthy of translationand study to begin with. It is indisputable thatHalman’s translations of Turkish literature haveplayed a substantive part in bringing Turkish litera-ture to an English-speaking audience that would oth-erwise not have had access to it. Yet, at the sametime, it is possible that the discourse of fluency haslikewise contributed to the perpetuation of a generic,unisymbolic, unicultural perception of what consti-tutes the West’s understanding of Turkish literatureand the various literary movements within it. In theinterest of time and space, and recognizing the lim-

its to which such claims may hold true, I will try toavoid attempts at making, proving, or disprovinguniversal proclamations on translation. Rather, via astudy of one Halman translation of poet CemalSüreya’s poem “Gül” [(The) Rose], I hope that par-ticular observations specific to this poet and thistranslation may support more critical evaluations oftranslations of other poems and the products ofother translators of less well-known literatures.

What is the Discourse of Fluency?

For students and scholars of Turkish literature, orany literary culture that is represented significantlyas a body of translations, the issue of translationmethodology is unavoidable. Whether in discussingthe merits of one version over another, or pullingtogether one’s own literal (or more literary) transla-tion, questions as to accuracy and faithfulness (inboth language and content) unavoidably arise. Thetranslator’s many challenges go beyond what seemsto be the unbreachable canyon between the linguisticsystem of modern Turkish and that of, for instance,modern English. We need also to consider the chal-lenges posed by different periods and literary move-ments within a particular system: for instance, howdoes the translator differentiate the language of a16th- from that of an 18th-century qaside? Or thenarrative voice of Nazlı Eray from that of Firuzan?None of these are new challenges for anyone who isinvolved with literature or language studies, and I donot claim to have the answers to all, or any, of theseconcerns. What I hope to do, however, is to illustratethe very absence of such differences in the canon ofTurkish literature in English translation and to sug-gest that this absence may be a result of the fluencydiscourse that has dominated Western academic (andeconomic) discussions on the merits of a particulartranslation. This discourse has been a contributor tothe formation of a homogeneous melting pot of

THE POWER OF TRANSLATION:THE EFFECTS OF A FLUENCY DISCOURSE

By Özlem Sensoy

global literature in an English-language environmentthat values what Lawrence Venuti calls the invisibili-ty of the translator:

“Invisibility” is the term I will use to describethe translator’s situation and activity in con-temporary Anglo-American culture. It refersto two mutually determining phenomena: oneis an illusionistic effect of discourse, of thetranslator’s own manipulation of English; theother is the practice of reading and evaluatingtranslations that has long prevailed in theUnited Kingdom and the United States….Atranslated text…is judged acceptable…whenit reads fluently, when the absence of any lin-guistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seemtransparent…The illusion of transparency isan effect of fluent discourse, of the transla-tor’s effort to ensure easy readability byadhering to current usage, maintaining con-tinuous syntax, fixing a precise meaning.1

The dominance of the discourse of fluency is espe-cially problematic for a literary culture such asTurkish that is represented in a limited way inEnglish, in terms of both what is translated and bywhom. The need to make what is foreign compre-hensible is in itself a crucial goal; however, whenthe goal dominates the translatorial decisions madeupon the text itself, the resulting translation exhibitsmore the attempts at normalizing the text (making itcomprehensible) rather than illustrating what thetext itself is or may be. As each text of Turkish liter-ature from various periods and by various writers istranslated, the resulting normalization of the texts(in attempts at making them accessible to Englishspeakers) creates a homogeneous landscape ofTurkish literary styles in the English canon, thusmaking it difficult to discern in the English the var-ied styles, specific turns of phrase, canonizedvocabulary, etc., that identify particular literarymovements.

One such literary movement is the Ikinci Yeni(Second New) movement, which opens up in themid-1950s. Cemal Süreya is considered to be amongits leading figures. Like other literary movements,

the Second New modernist movement is identifiableby certain stylistic properties that not only define itwithin the landscape of modern Turkish literature ingeneral but also define what it is not, thereby mak-ing these stylistic properties core features of itspoetic discourse. For this reason, it seems valid toexpect that any translation of a poem belonging tothis particular movement will preserve these verystylistic features in order to situate, within theEnglish canon of Turkish literature, what the proper-ties of this poetic mode are and are not. But first,who were the Second New authors and what arethese defining stylistic features that are to be pre-served?

The Second New

A cogent explanation of what the Second New move-ment was is given by Asım Bezirci in this way:2

The Second New is a poetic movement thatblooms after 1954. Its leading figures arepoets including Oktay Rifat, Ilhan Berk,Turgut Uyar, Edip Cansever, Cemal Süreya,Sezai Karakoç, Ece Ayhan, Ülkü Tamer,Tevfik Akdag and Yılmaz Gruda. The name“Second New” was coined by the criticMuzaffer Erdost. In reality, this is a deceptivenaming. The reason being that when consid-ering the “newnesses” that our poetry hasbeen undergoing since the Tanzimat, it wouldonly be appropriate to call the Second Newthe “Eighth New.” But since the Second Newin a sense grows as a reaction to the Garipmovement (The First New), and because itwas repeated so frequently, this name hasheld.3

According to Bezirci, this movement is identi-fiable in the context of its position and relationshipswith each of the other newnesses or modernities.Thus, just as the Second New text is fixed withinthe canon of Turkish literature in Turkish by its ref-erential positions vis-à-vís other movements in theliterary landscape, likewise any translation of a

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Second New work would need to situate itself inopposition to other works within the canon ofTurkish literature in English. Given the obvious factthat not one translator at any one time is working ontranslating the whole corpus of what is Turkish liter-ature, this strategy is seemingly difficult. When theparticular features that situate the Second New inrelation to other movements in Turkish are consid-ered, however, transporting a similar system intoEnglish seems more conceivable.

Second New poetics can be identified by thefollowing features set out by Bezirci. First, it is amovement that breaks from the forms and structuresof traditional poetry.4 The movement “strives for animmeasurable, pure Turkish.”5 It approaches for-malism6 in its structures, giving priority to formover content. Poet Ilhan Berk writes:

Actually, poetry doesn’t say anything./ Thepoetry of our time is no longer written for thepurposes of saying something./ The topic ofpoetry is nothingness, it grows from nothing-ness./ The Second New is on the side of poet-ry which isn’t made to be understood./Anyone who wants to understand somethingmay read prose./ Poetry must be the absenceof topic and narration.7

The poetry of the Second New strives for the defor-mation8 of the spoken language and of the stan-dardized images in literature. Another defining fea-ture of the Second New is synaesthesia,9 to crossthe wires of the aspects of sense, to appropriatethem by image or form. Next is free association,10

not only to challenge and stretch traditional associa-tions of image and form but also to break them. TheSecond New poetry’s next feature is abstraction,11

the move away from the many in favor of the one,from the whole to the part. Another aspect of theSecond New is the absence of sense,12 an attempt toremove any rhetoric, commentary, or narrative frompoetry. Next is imaging,13 that is, bringing image tothe fore over content. “It is necessary that a poemwhich distances itself from meaning must secure the‘anticipated joy and especially the effect and impres-

sion’ by way of image.”14 And finally, the SecondNew poetry strives to lean away from reason, toreach outside the boundaries of logic.15 Althoughmany of these defining principles may be collapsedinto broader concepts than what Bezirci has out-lined, this detailed mapping is valuable to the trans-lator of Second New literature in that it succinctlyprovides the black outline drawing within which thetranslator may color in the poem. It may be appro-priate now to move on to a case study of a SecondNew poem, to evaluate to what extent these definingfeatures are preserved in translation.

Case Study: The Rose

Cemal Süreya’s poem “The Rose” is one of the best-known Turkish poems in English translation, but it isnot known specifically for being a Second Newpoem (although the poet is recognized as being aleading figure in the movement). There are, Ibelieve, two reasons why this poem is one of themost widely available Turkish poems in Englishtranslation.16 The first is the fame of the translator.Talat Sait Halman has published over 2500 Turkishpoems in English translation and is both a poet andan academic scholar of Turkish literature. Thus, hisauthority as a translator who is both familiar withthe source literary culture and is a poet in his ownright gives him the status of producing what manyconsider to be authoritative translations. The secondreason is the distribution of Halman’s translations.Given the limited number of translators working inthe field of Turkish literature and the absence ofother “voices” translating “The Rose,” for instance,Halman’s translation gains canonic status. AlthoughHalman himself has written in various sources thatno one translator can produce the authoritative trans-lation of any work,17 this nevertheless does notnegate the fact that in the field of Turkish scholar-ship today, his work is considered to be the source toconsult when seeking a translation of any Turkishliterary text. It is important to keep this in mind,because it leads to some important questions. Forinstance, what happens to a literary culture repre-sented in translation when many of its works arerepresented by one translator? And how well is our


understanding of Turkish literature shaped in light ofthis limited representation? Likewise, it seemsimportant that those of us working in the field notmerely evaluate more critically the production by theone translator but also provide guidelines for evalua-tion—i.e., what is it specifically that we are lookingfor in this translation? In the case of “The Rose,”since it is a work of the Second New literary move-ment and it does reflect many of the features out-lined above, it would seem that adherence to the fea-tures of the movement would provide fair groundsfor criticism.

First, here is the Turkish poem, accompanied bya dictionary-style breakdown of vocabulary:

Gül

[(The) Rose]

Gülün tam ortasında aglıyorum[(the) rose’s] [exact/precise] [its center+loc.18 ] [I am crying]At the exact center of the rose, I am crying

Her aksam sokak ortasında öldükçe[Every/each] [night] [(the) street] [its center+loc.] [as (I/it) dies]Every night at the center of the street, as I (it) die(s)

Önümü arkamı bilmiyorum[My front+acc. ] [my back+acc.19] [I do not know]I don’t know my front, my back

Azaldıgını duyup duyup karanlıkta[Your/its lessening+acc.] [hearing] [hearing] [darkness+loc.][I don’t know] its (your eyes’) lessening (moving away, reduction) hearing it inthe darkness

Beni ayakta tutan gözlerinin[I+acc. (me)] [foot+loc.] [which holds] [your eyes’]Your eyes’ which hold me standing

Ellerini alıyorum sabaha kadar [Your hands+acc.] [I am taking] [to morning] [until (to this extent)]seviyorum[I am loving]Your hands [or: the hands of your eyes] I am taking, I am loving [them] untilmorning

Ellerin beyaz tekrar beyaz tekrar beyaz[Your hands] [white] [again/repeat] [white] [again/repeat] [white]

Your hands are white again white again white

Ellerinin bu kadar beyaz olmasından [Your hands’] [this] [until (to this extent)] [white] [their/its being]korkuyorum[I am fearing]I am afraid that your hands are this white

Istasyonda tren oluyor biraz[station+loc.] [(the) train] [is (existing)] [a little]A train is at the station for a while

Ben bazan istasyonu bulamayan bir [I] [sometimes] [station+acc.] [(one who) doesn’t find] [a/one]adamım[I am a man]I am sometimes a man who cannot find the station

Gülü alıyorum yüzüme sürüyorum[Rose+acc.] [I am taking] [on/to my face] [I am wiping/spreading]I am taking the rose and wiping it against my face

Her nasılsa sokaga düsmüs[Every] [in any case] [to the street] [has fallen]However [in any case] that it has fallen to the street

Kolumu kanadımı kırıyorum[My arm+acc.] [my wing+acc.] [I am breaking]My arm, my wing I am breaking

Bir kan oluyor bir kıyamet bir çalgı[a/one] [blood] [it becomes] [a/one] [apocalypse] [a/one] [a call/ring]It is becoming (one) blood, (one) apocalypse, (one) call

Ve zurnanın ucunda yepyeni bir çingene[And] [(at) the bugle’s] [tip/edge+loc.] [brand new] [a/one] [gypsy]

And at the tip of the bugle, one brand new gypsy

And Halman’s translation:

Rose

Seated at the core of the rose I weepAs I die in the street each nightAhead and beyond all unmindfulPang upon pang of dark diminutionOf eyes upheld blissful with life

Your hands are in my caress into duskHands forever white forever whiteA train a while at the stationA man who lost the station to me

On my face I rub the roseFallen forlorn over the pavementAnd cut my body limb by limbBloodgush doomsday madmusicOn the horn a gypsy is reborn

Keeping in mind the features of the Second Newpoetry as outlined above (namely, the absence ofsense-making and narrative, which is replaced by


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imagistic threads to render meaning, the use ofsynaesthesia to further apply image value andabstract sense experiences, and the challenging ofthe boundaries of language and logic associations),we can see how each of these is carried through theTurkish poem above. Süreya avoids committing thereader to a rigid Turkish syntax by providing possi-bilities. For instance, he maintains traditionalTurkish word order, which dictates that the mainverb fall at the end of the line. However, he chal-lenges the boundaries of this syntax by creatingambiguities as to the objects of the verbs. Forinstance, in the first stanza, although it is clear thatthe subject “crying” is the speaker, I (for in Turkishthe verb carries the subject marker), it is not clearwhat the circumstances are. The subject may be cry-ing in the middle of the street as s/he dies, or as therose itself dies. Taking advantage of the agglutina-tive structure of Turkish, he likewise manipulates theaccusative object marker (-[n]I) to again allow forvarious object probabilities. For instance, in line 4,the accusative marker on “Azaldıgı-nı” (its lessen-ing) may be (1) the object of “bilmiyorum” (I don’tknow), or (2) the possessed object of “gözlerinin”(your eyes’). It is also a possible rendering that theaccusative marker be read “Azaldıgın-ı” (your less-ening). This kind of image-layering allows for vari-ous co-understandings that, guided by linguisticmanipulation, stretch the boundaries of expected lin-guistic possibilities to render additional ones.Recognizing the fact that such linguistic turns par-ticular to Turkish may not be wholly imported intoEnglish, we may note some of the choices made byHalman. For example, he places his poet in the firstword of the poem, “Seated,” which immediatelyremoves the ambiguities and the meaningless featureof the source text. Likewise, Halman, rather thanpreserving the following ambiguity of who is actual-ly “dying” in the poem, has chosen the “I” in line 2.These sorts of decisions render a single interpreta-tion of two critical parts, thereby stripping the poemof not merely possible features, but defining fea-tures, features that situate this poem in the landscapeof Turkish literature and the landscape of Turkish lit-erature in English translation.

In addition to the linguistic twists and turns,

Süreya maintains several synaesthesias throughoutthe poem. There is a geography of place that isestablished from the very beginning. There is a geo-graphical center, first the rose, then the street, theindividual (who cannot identify the front and backand thus is in between), and the rising and fallingimplied by “azaldıgını” (your/its lessening/reducing)and “ayakta tutan” (holding me/it upright). We cansee that Halman has deleted nearly all of these geog-raphies. The narrator is seated at the “core” of therose but he dies “in” the street, and rather than animplied loss within his body as he is unable to iden-tify his front or back, Halman renders “Önümüarkamı” (my front my back) as “Ahead and beyond”and ignores the placing of vertical space in lines 4and 5 (“azaldıgını”/ “ayakta tutan”) altogether witha simple “eyes upheld.” Again, each of these deci-sions displaces the poem from its defining features.

In addition to the geography of space in thepoem, there is the geography of an evolution in timeas the persona begins walking the street in the night-time and holds the lover’s hands until dawn. There isalso a physical bodily geography, the “front andback” of the individual, the hands of the beloved, thebroken arm and wing of the persona. Each of thesegeographies is sustained and developed throughoutthe poem, collecting from a unit center (i.e., the cen-ter of the rose) until they are released in a sharpburst from the end of a bugle in the final line of thepoem. Synaesthesia is also revealed in Süreya’spoetic imaging in the red and white colors that dom-inate the poem. Halman’s choices in each regardseems to favor a fluent, meaning-rendered decisionthat creates a fluid poem that may be very poetic,but that now contains few of its source features. Heopts for pretty rhymes and off-rhymes such as“weep-street,” “white-fright,” “horn-reborn,” whichmerely distract the reader from more formal struc-tural “rhymes.” For instance, in line 7, “Ellerintekrar beyaz tekrar beyaz” may be read as “Yourhands are again white again white,” and also,“tekrar” may be read as the command form (“tekrar-la”) of the verb “tekrarlamak” (to repeat). Thismakes a nice multisensory experience for the reader,who is asked to repeat the words that are now both acommand to the reader and an observation by the


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poet, in a very inclusionary experience. This charac-teristic of Second New literature can be seen to bepart of its wish to produce a formal, language-driv-en, imagistic poetry without narrative and traditionalstructure. Each of these features particular to thispoem represents an aspect of the Second New move-ment that situates this poem within the greater land-scape of Turkish literature and that, when not pre-served in translation, removes the aspects that defineit as a poem belonging to this tradition and as awork of this prolific poet.

Conclusion

Recalling Lawrence Venuti’s cautionary wordsabove, “Translation wields enormous power in con-structing representations of foreign cultures,” thisstudy has attempted to show to what extent suchpower is wielded in the case of Turkish literature.When we are faced with a literary tradition that isrepresented in a limited canon in English translationand when the work of translation itself is done by ahandful of translators, our evaluation and commen-taries on such translations become critical. In theabsence of other translator “voices” producing mul-tiple translations of the same work, and in the pres-ence of a dominant translator, it is very easy toimagine a scenario in which the texts chosen andtranslated by that one translator gain canonic status,whether intended or not, in effect forming the pri-mary, if not the sole, reference of what the Turkishliterary landscape is. Rather than its seeming anapocalyptic premonition, I hope that this study hasrevealed the necessity for those of us who use trans-lations in our studies and classes to consider thesefacts when bringing a less widely disseminated liter-ature to an English-speaking audience.

The Rose

At the center of the roseWeeping nightlyAt the center of the streetDyingNo longer recognizing my front or my backListening lessening

In the darknessYour eyes holding meOn foot

Your hands I take in mineLoving until sunRiseSo white your hands again white and whiteI fear your hands so whiteAt the station a trainA whileSometimes IAm a man who cannot find the station

I take the rose in my hand Spread across my faceHoweverFallen to the streetBreaking my arm and wingThere is blood there is chaos there is a callAnd at the edge of the bugle a gypsy a new

Notes

1 Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: AHistory of Translation. Routledge, London andNew York: 1995. p. 1.

2 Translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.3 Bezirci, Asım. Ikinci Yeni Olayı [The Second New

Movement]. Evrensel Publishers, Istanbul:1996. p. 9.

“Ikinci Yeni 1954’ten sonra filizlenmeye baslayanbir siir hareketidir. Öncüleri Oktay Rifat, IlhanBerk, Turgut Uyar, Edip Cansever, Cemal Süreya,Sezai Karakoç, Ece Ayhan, Ülkü Tamer, TevfikAkdag, Yılmaz Gruda gibi sairlerdir. Harekete“Ikinci Yeni” adını elestirmen Muzaffer Erdosttakmıstir. Gerçi yanlıs bir adlandırmadır bu.Çünkü, siirimizin Tanzimat’tan beri geçirdigiyenilik olayları göz önünde tutulursa, IkinciYeni’ye ancak “Sekizinci Yeni” demek uygundüser. Ama Ikinci Yeni bir yönüyle Garip akamına(Birinci Yeni’ye) tepki olarak dogdugu ve sık sıktekrarlandıgı için bu ad yerlesir.”

4 Ibid. p. 13. “Gelenekten Kopma.”5 Ibid. p. 13. “ölçüsüz bir öztürkçecilige yönelirler.”


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6 Ibid. p. 13. “Biçimcilige Kayma.”7 Ibid. p. 14. “Ilhan Berk’e göre, ‘Siir aslında bir sey

söylemez./ Çagımızın siiri bir sey söylemek içinyazılmıyor artık./ Bir hiçtir siirin konusu, birhiçten dogar./ Ikinci Yeni anlatılmayan siirdenyanadır./ Bir sey anlamak isteyenler düzyazıokusunlar./ Konusuz, öyküsüz olması gerekirsiirin.’”

8 Ibid. p. 15. “Degistirim.”9 Ibid. p. 17. “Karıstırım.”10 Ibid. p. 19. “Özgür Çagrısım.”11 Ibid. p. 21. “Soyutlama.”12 Ibid. p. 23. “Anlamsızlık.”13 Ibid. p. 26. “Imgeleme.”14 Ibid. p. 26. “Anlamdan uzaklasan siirden ‘bekle-

nen coskuyu, özellikle de etkiyi, izlenimi’imgenin saglaması istenir.”

15 Ibid. p. 29. “Usdısına Çıkma.”16 See Halman, Talat Sait. “Cultranslation—A New

Technique of Poetry Translation” in In Focus. p. 10. See also Halman, T.S. “Re-Weaving theRug: Translating from Turkish” in Paintbrush.Spring & Autumn, 1977. p. 55.

17 See for instance, “Re-Weaving” article in fn. 16.18 loc.= Locative suffix.19 acc.= Accusative suffix, in this case denoting that

it is the object of “bilmiyorum” (I don’t know).


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Sony Labou Tansi, one of Africa’s foremost writ-ers, is known for his plays as well as his novels.

He is a writer for whom writing is a commitment. Acareful analysis of his works shows how the authorcreates new words and transposes African words,songs, and expressions into the body of the narra-tives in French with or without their translations. Hecarries this style a step further in Les yeux duvolcan, his fifth novel. According to Singou Basseha(1988), Labou Tansi was concerned about the speedat which events were changing in Brazzaville, hishometown. Within 15 years, the names of somestreets had been changed seven times, thus losing apart of their history and identity. Because history isessential in nation building and in any planning forthe future, it seemed obvious that Brazzaville, lack-ing a viable history, was heading for disaster. Thecity of Brazzaville therefore becomes symbolic andsymptomatic of an Africa where everything is in tur-moil. In this respect, Les yeux du volcan becomesthe chronicle of a people whose future is uncertainprecisely because they do not have a sense of history.

The narrative structure of the novel, like that ofL’anté-peuple before it, follows a linear pattern, andevents are presented chronologically. It is the storyof a giant riding a horse-driven carriage who arrivesin an African town (Brazzaville) and sets up a tent inthe compound of a high school. Having declaredthat “si je dois mourir, eh bien! que cela soit ici”(16) [if I have to die, well then, it should be at thisplace], he shakes hands with the crowd that hasgathered to see him and receives the visit of themost important personalities in the city, some ofwhom are interested in the crimes that he is sup-posed to be selling. He offers tea and cigars to hisvisitors while evading their questions about his iden-tity and the crimes he has for sale.

The title of the novel is a cry from within thatexplodes like events in La vie et demie. The volcano

in the title is a metaphoric representation of Africaand other oppressed people elsewhere. The giant inLes yeux du volcan is killed because he failed toaccomplish the mission entrusted to him. The sym-bolism of his death revolves around the notion oftime. The eyes of the volcano, like those of the peo-ple, are watching, ready to strike back at those inpower who are inefficient and slow to action. Thepeople’s eruption that would bring about a revolu-tion would nevertheless be marked by generosityand respect for humanity. Today, when mankind istorn between war (total death) and life, BenoîtGoldmann, the hero, is the prophet of the future whohas respect for human values.

What makes the novel most compelling, how-ever, is the language of the author. Without resortingto the same translation strategies that AhmadouKourouma, for instance, employs in Les soleils desindépendances or Monnè, outrages et défis, LabouTansi nevertheless uses every occasion to emphasizethe different languages present in his novel. It is sig-nificant to note that the very first words pronouncedby the giant, the protagonist of the novel, are in thelocal African language: “Mogrodo bora mayitou...”(15). This expression, which is later translated as “Sije dois mourir...,” (16) (if I have to die), serves toremind the reader of the presence of an African lan-guage occupying the French space of the novel. Inthis way, both languages are made to assume equalimportance, because the African expression becomescomprehensible to the monolingual reader only afterits French translation. Thus, to understand the fullimport of the story, the reader is called upon to drawon the resources of the two languages.

Another strategy that Labou Tansi uses and thatis reminiscent of African traditional oral perform-ance is the introduction of African songs into thebody of the narrative. To give primacy to the Africanword and to demonstrate its capacity to sustain dis-course, the author has transported these songs from

WRITING AND THE POWER OF WORDS: TRANSLATING SONY LABOU TANSI’S LES YEUX DU VOLCANBy Kwaku A. Gyasi


the African language into the French text withoutany accompanying translation:

Mahungu koKonkoto koMu bakenoKonko tokoKu dia tu mundiaKonkoto koKu lumbu keKonkoto keMu gabeno (54).

If this song is introduced without its translation intoFrench, it is because, as the narrator explains, it is asong known to all; it is “le chant contagieux desdieux kongo, connu de nous tous” (54) (the song weall know, the contagious song of the gods ofKikongo). Ironically, however, the fact that the songis only in Kikongo indicates that the all-inclusive“nous” (we) refers only to the people of the Kongowho share the same cultural heritage. In fact, itexcludes the monolingual French reader who canunderstand the song only after it has been translated.Thus, in this particular instance, the narrator’s state-ment contrasts with an earlier one made about asong “connu de tous les habitants” (29) (known toall the people) of the city but that is made accessibleto all readers through its French translation:

Viens voirLe soleil est tombé fouViens boireLe ciel qui pisse le jourLe plus bas du mondeMange le temps qui passeEt mets tes jambes dans tes yeux (29).

While certain songs are inserted into the textwithout any translation (“Kamba ta Biyela bamuhondele e-e / Kani mwatu e-e / Ko kwa kena e-e”[56]), the translations of others are found in foot-notes (“Wa luwidi.... kokwa kena” [127], “BoBadindamana... Nsakala” [166]), while the mean-ings of others are explained in the body of the narra-tive:

Wa mana bindamana Beto bala mambu we yola.Ce refrain dénoncait l’intention de génocideque les Autorités nourrissaient à l’égard deHozanna et de Nsanga-Norda... (159).

Rather than a simple reminder that we are inthe presence of an African text, these Lingala/Kikongo words, accents, and rhythms are essentialto the structure of the work, to its philosophical,sociological, and literary ambitions. By introducingthese words and songs, these African turns ofphrase, Labou Tansi deconstructs the form of theFrench novelistic genre to produce an authenticAfrican text. If Les yeux du volcan is the dream ofan African future, it is a dream viewed from aLingala/Kikongo point of view.

The novel is also rich in allusions as it makesreferences to certain events that have a significantimpact on African history and studies. On page 70,for instance, the discovery of “pétrole quatorze”(petroleum fourteen) by a doctor calls to mind thework of the Senegalese historian and anthropologistCheik Anta Diop, who was famous for his workwith “carbon 12,” while the name of Tombalbaye(one of the cities in which the story is set) and a ref-erence to “des Tirailleurs tchadiens” (13) recall theevents of the Chadian civil war. (It must be notedthat Tombalbaye was the name of the Chadian presi-dent whose overthrow led to that country’s civilwar.) Elsewhere, the narrator comments on the tak-ing of the Bastille and refers to this FrenchRevolution as “un bordel d’une Révolution” (73) (aworthless Revolution), thus removing the sacredaura surrounding the revolution on whose idealsFrance’s “civilizing” mission may be said to havebeen based. Foreign missionary activities in Africaalso come up for scrutiny. Although Labou Tansidoes not devote entire pages to a critique of theactions of missionaries in Africa in the manner ofMongo Beti (Le pauvre Christ de Bomba) [The PoorChrist of Bomba] or Ferdinand Oyono (Une vie deboy) [Houseboy], (Le vieux nègre et la médaille)[The Old Man and the Medal], he neverthelessstresses the dubious character of some of theEuropean and American missionaries who were in


Africa to win more than souls. Thus, in the novel,the paternity of a mulatto child with blue eyes isattributed to Father Luxor Sadoun who, “basé àIndiana, ne passait jamais trois dimanches de suitesans se voir obligé de venir lâcher la volonté duSeigneur sur les pécheresses invétérées de Hondo-Norté et de Hozanna” (83) (based in Indiana, neverspent three consecutive Sundays without feelingobligated to release the will of the Savior on theinveterate female sinners of Hondo-Norté andHozanna).

Les yeux du volcan is also rich in intertextualreferences. For example, the expression “maman dema mere” (my mother’s mama) calls to mind LabouTansi’s other novel, L’etat honteux, in which thisexpression figures prominently as one of the favoriteexpressions of the president. In addition, the eventsof Les yeux du volcan take place in the cities ofHondo-Norté, Westina, Hozanna, and NsangaNorda, the same cities in which the events of Lessept solitudes de Lorsa Lopez are set. Similarly, “letemps des Oncles français” (12) (the time of theFrench uncles) recalls Henri Lopes’ Le pleurer-rire,in which the French are also referred to as “lesOncles.” Les yeux du volcan therefore continues theauthor’s project of conjoining political denunciationand style.

The problematic of translation:It is generally accepted that the most funda-

mental problem of all translation lies in the psycho-logical differences between source and target lan-guages, because each language possesses its ownproperties and carries its own peculiar meaning.This problem becomes even more pronounced inAfrican writing, in which the European language isalready tainted with a certain local quality. A talent-ed writer like Labou Tansi manages to twist theFrench language to suit his own purposes and, in theprocess, demonstrates his mastery in creating newwords and shifting the meaning of existing ones.Although we refer to Labou Tansi’s style as beinghighly personal, however, it is also true that we candescribe his language of writing as a blend ofAfrican languages and the special kind of Frenchspoken in the streets of Brazzaville.

Hence, the major problem that arises from thetranslation of his work resides in rendering andmaintaining the form and meaning of his idiosyn-cratic manipulation of French into the English lan-guage. Let us take an example extracted from hisdescription of the flow of a river and the vegetationthat surrounds it:

Puis il avait regardé le fleuve, lancé commeune furia d’eau et de rochers sur des kilo-mètres, dans une espèce de danse blanchâtre.L’autre rive montrait les rochers du Diable etleurs dents, gestionnaires d’une végétation demisère. Au loin, flottaient les lambeaux d’unhorizon affligé, qui tentait de régler sa mésen-tente avec les crêtes de Hondo-Norte. Valzara,derrière l’île d’Abanonso, semblait se gratterla tête entre deux nuages, comme pour pro-tester contre les agissements des collinesattribuées aux Libanais. (8-9)

The most difficult expression to translate in theabove extract is “danse blanchâtre.” Because thisexpression is used to describe the kind of whitishsubstance that forms on the surface of the riverwhen it flows over the rocks, a literal rendition ofthe expression as “a whitish dance” or “an off-whitedance” would be meaningless in English. The otheralternative would be to derive the meaning of theadjective “blanchâtre” from “blanc,” meaning“white,” “pure,” or “innocent.” A critical reading ofthe passage, however, will demonstrate that althoughthe narrator attributes human actions to the non-human objects in the passage (for example, “réglersa mésentente” and “gratter la tête”), he describesthe flow of the river, the surrounding vegetation, andthe skyline in very negative terms. The word “furia”illustrates the intense, disordered, and destructiverage of the river, whereas the epithet given to therocks, “Diable,” continues the image of disorder anddestruction. In addition, while describing the vegeta-tion as poor and the horizon as being “afflicted,” theauthor’s choice of the words “mésentente,” “grater,”and “protester” further serves to expand on theimage of desolation painted in the passage. Hence,the appropriate translation of “danse blanchâtre”


would therefore be a translation that retains the neg-ative image portrayed by the author. Because theflow of the river has been described as disorderedand disorganized, the dance must perforce be char-acterized as being without harmony or rhythm.Thus, my translation of the above passage goes likethis:

Then he had looked at the river, flowing likea furia of water and rocks along several kilo-meters in a kind of disharmonious dance. Onthe other bank could be seen Devil’s rocksand their jagged edges, rulers of a vegetationof misery. In the distance hung a glimpse ofan afflicted horizon that was trying to cometo terms with the crests of Hondo-Norte.Valzara, lying behind the island of Abanonso,seemed to scratch its head between the cloudsas if to make a protest against the intrigues ofthe hills that were attributed to the Lebanese.

Similarly, a word like “ramardage,” in theexpression “Quel ramardage magnifique!” (137) hasto be understood not in terms of its actual meaningin French but in terms of how it is used by theauthor. “Ramardage” in French refers to the actionof repairing fishing nets after the fishing season. Inthe novel, it is applied to the coming together of thegiant and Benoît Goldmann, two apparently differ-ent people, for a common cause. Thus, the expres-sion has to be understood as a form of an unusualarrangement. I therefore chose to translate the aboveexpression as “What a magnificent arrangement!”

The other major problem concerns the transla-tion of the names of streets and places. To retain theFrancophone “flavor” of the original text, the initialstrategy was to leave those names untranslated in theEnglish version. Names of places such as “l’ancienmarché aux Chiens,” “la colline des Soixante-Mètres,” and street names like “la rue des Poissons-Chats” or “la rue du Corbeau,” however, will createan unnecessarily exotic effect in an English text. Aswe have already pointed out, the writing of Les yeuxdu volcan was the author’s reaction to the ridicu-lousness of the speed at which names of streets andplaces were changing in his hometown of

Brazzaville. Thus, the author’s choice of namesserves to achieve the effect of emphasizing theabsurdity in the names themselves and the prepos-terous nature of their change, an absurdity that leadsto the production of a comic effect in the Frenchtext. To achieve the same effect as the one in theFrench version, the best possible alternative was totranslate the names into English. Two examples willillustrate this point:

L’homme emprunta la rue de la Paix auniveau de l’ancien marché aux Chiens, dansl’ancien quartier des Hollandais, s’arrêta unmoment pour river ses beaux yeux aux tuilesvertes de la cathédrale Anouar, traversa lequartier Haoussa, arriva au rond-point desMusiciens... L’homme monta la colline desSoixante-Mètres, traversa le chemin de fer,dépassa le bois d’Orzengi. (11)

The man took Peace street when he arrived atDog market in the old Dutch quarter, stoppedfor a moment to rivet his beautiful eyes onthe green tiles of Anouar cathedral, crossedthe Hausa quarter, and arrived at Musiciansroundabout... The man went up Sixty-Metershill, crossed the railway track and went pastthe Orzengi forest.

The second example is even more illustrative ofthe absurd nature of the names of the streets andavenues that, in this case, are made up of plantnames (Bougainvillées, Frangipaniers), a bird(Corbeau), and a book of alphabets (Abécédaire):

Il traversa la rue des Bougainvillées et l’alléedes Frangipaniers, arriva devant la fontainedes Chinois, hésita une autre fois avant dechoisir une autre fois la droite; il descendit larue du Corbeau, traversa la voie ferrée, arrivaau pied de la montagne d’Italie, choisit sapremière gauche en empruntant l’avenue desAérogares jusqu’à l’Abécédaire. (12)

He crossed Bougainvillea street andFrangipani alley and arrived in front of the


Chinese fountain, hesitated once more beforemaking another right turn; he went downCrow street, crossed the railway line, andarrived at the foot of Italy mountain. Hechose the first left turn while followingAirport avenue right up to the AlphabetPrimer.

Ideophones and onomatopoeias present yetanother problem in translating African literature.Although Labou Tansi does not use many of theseforms in his writing, a translator of his work still hasto be alive to their presence in the text. In Les yeuxdu volcan, for instance, he describes the noise madeby roosters in the following terms:

Au-dehors, les coqs avaient commencé leur con-cert d’engueulades pour marquer la fin de lapremière moitié du jour.- Kokodi hé ko! (102)

Two remarks can be made about this passage. Inthe first place, Labou Tansi does not characterize acockcrow as a triumphant cry, the way it is under-stood in French, and he does not use the standardFrench ideophone “cocorico!” to represent the soundmade by the rooster. Thus, the fact that he describescockcrow as a noisy disturbance and elects to tran-scribe the local ideophone of the cockcrow attests tohis design to emphasize the African specificity of histext. For this reason, rendering “Kokodi hé ko!” as“cock-a-doodle-do” not only would be inappropriate,because it would ascribe to the text an English con-text it does not have, but it also would destroy theAfrican foundation upon which the text is based. Thebest strategy, in my opinion, is to leave the Congoleseonomatopoeic sound in the English text in much thesame way as the author has done in the French:

Outside the house, the roosters had startedtheir chorus of noisy disturbances to signalthe end of the first half of the day.“Kokodi hé ko!”

Another problem encountered in the translationprocess concerns the translation of songs from

French into English. As I have already pointed outearlier, the author himself has elected to translatesome of these songs from the local language into theFrench narrative. Although he does not always pro-vide the Lingala or Kikongo original, it is obviousthat he has been able to achieve a certain rhythmand rhyme in the French. Let us take two examplesto illustrate this point:

Viens voirLe soleil est tombé fou.Viens boireLe ciel qui pisse le jourLe plus bas du mondeMange le temps qui passeEt met tes jambes dans tes yeux. (29)

In this example, the structure of the song ismarked by the rhyme scheme ababcde and there isan alliterative sound “t” towards the end of the song:“le temps, tes jambes, tes yeux.” Unfortunately, inan English translation, it is difficult to obtain thispoetic quality that the author achieves in his Frenchtranslation of a Lingala song. Because it is not pos-sible to achieve the same stylistic qualities as thoseof the author, the translation should focus more onthe meaning of the song rather than on its structureand style:

Come and seeThe sun has gone mad.Come and drinkThe sky that gushes The lowest day in the worldConsume the passing timeAnd put your legs in your eyes.

The second example, which the narratordescribes as a song of solidarity, builds on the poeticqualities mentioned above. The whole song is basedon a rhythm of assonance /ou/ and alliteration /t/. Asin the previous example, it was impossible to trans-fer this quality from French into English. Here is theFrench version:

Foutez la merdeNous foutrons la paix


Bâclez toutNous foutrons la joieC’est le temps des comptesChaque minute est une têteFoutez la trouilleNous tout-foutrons debout. (29)

And here goes my translation:

Screw up everythingWe will screw up peaceBotch up everythingWe will screw up happinessIt’s the time of reckoningEvery minute is a headGet rid of fearWe will screw up everything on its head.

Thus, in the two examples quoted above, my strate-gy was to capture the tone and meaning of LabouTansi’s language, because it would be impossible totransfer his very personal style into the English version.

I have already mentioned Labou Tansi’s skill atcreating new words and shifting the meaning ofexisting ones. Fortunately, the meaning of some ofthe words he creates can be discerned from theimmediate context in which they are used. Let uslook at the following example:

Pour nous, tout était clair: nous vivionsdans un bordel dont les Autorités étaientau-dessus des lois. Nous pensions mêmeque nos Autorités étaient devenues “légi-vores.” Celui qui avait un rien d’autorité lemontrait en grignotant la Constitution oules articles du Code civil. (20)

In this quotation it is easy to see that “légivores” is acombination of “legal” and the Latin word “vorare”(to devour). For this reason, it is not difficult totranslate “légivores” as “legivorous,” because thesound of the English word will create the sameeffect as the French:

For us, everything was clear: we were livingin a brothel whose Authorities were above the

law. We even thought that our Authorities hadbecome “legivorous.” Anybody who had atiny bit of authority flaunted it by nibbling atthe Constitution or the articles of the civilcode.

The same reasoning can be made for a wordlike “Pleurotte.” From the context in which it isused, this word can be said to mean “Crybaby.”However, I opted to translate it as “Pleurotus” inorder to maintain the sound quality. Although“pleur” in “Pleurotus” does not convey the meaningof crying in English as it does in the French word“Pleurotte,” readers of the English version can stillget the meaning from the context in which it is used:

Nous avions oublié l’inoubliable, car ilarrivait sans cesse au colonel Nola de pleurer,à telle enseigne que certaines langues l’ap-pelaient en silence colonel “Pleurotte.” (37)

We had forgotten the unforgettable, forColonel Nola could never stop weeping, somuch so that some folks were secretly callinghim “Pleurotus.”

In other instances, it is clear that Labou Tansiuses certain words in a personal way while exploit-ing the meaning of those words in normal usage. Weshall take one example to illustrate this point:

“Je vous ai gouvernés, messieurs, et voici quevous chiez sur mon cousin de confiance.Quelle mocherie!” (40)

In this quotation, it can be recognized thatalthough “mocherie” is the author’s own creation, itis based on an actual word “moche,” meaning“ugly” or “rotten.” What the speaker alludes to inthe above passage, however, is not simply the notionof ugliness or rottenness but also an attitude ofungratefulness. On the basis of this interpretation, Itranslated the passage as follows:

“Gentlemen, I have governed you well andnow you shit on my trustworthy cousin. What


a rotten and ungrateful bunch!”

Sometimes when Labou Tansi uses a word ofhis own creation or a word from an African lan-guage, he cushions their meaning in the course ofthe narrative. For instance, when Colonel PedroGazani refuses the drink offered by Warrant OfficerBenoît Goldmann, he produces his own drink andexplains:

“J’appelle ça le ‘kabronahata’: une inventionde mes méninges. Ça pisse moins fort quevotre gnôle. Et c’est dur comme du métal.”(123)

In this example, the word “kabronahata” pre-sents no difficulty, because the author provides anexplanation:

“I call this ‘kabronahata’: my brain-child. Youpiss less often than your hooch. And it is asstrong as metal.”

Like other African writers, Labou Tansi makesuse of proverbs or sayings to explain and to illus-trate speech. The translator has to recognize thesesayings and render them in an appropriate manner.For instance when the mayor pays a visit to thegiant, he starts their deliberations with a localproverb. And, as is often the case in such situations,the reply from the giant is also couched in the formof a proverb:

- Nos ancêtres disaient qu’on n’as pas le droitde renvoyer un étranger, dit le maire en pro-posant un cigare à l’homme.- Vous avez eu des ancêtres intelligents, dit lecolosse qui refusa le cigare. Mes ancêtres àmoi ont dit qu’on ne doit pas aller sous l’eaules yeux grands ouverts. (65)

To be adequate, the English translation mustcapture the structure and tone of the African say-ings:

“Our ancestors say that no one has the rightto send a stranger away,” said the mayor as he

offered the man a cigar.“Your ancestors were very intelligent,” saidthe giant, who refused the cigar. “My ances-tors say that one must not go under waterwith one’s eyes wide open.”

Although the last sentence could be translated as“my ancestors say that you must look before youleap,” doing so will destroy the primacy of theAfrican idiom that the author establishes in the narrative.

Aside from the difficulty in finding the appro-priate English words for the individual words thatLabou Tansi uses, the greatest problem that faces thetranslator of Labou Tansi’s work is the task of trans-ferring the quality of his language, the ways inwhich he manipulates the alien and potentially alien-ating French language into an adequate and appro-priate English medium. A good number of the pas-sages in Les yeux du volcan point to this assertion.There are instances of what may be called “francon-golais,” that is, the use of French in a Congolesecontext whose “equivalent” in English is very diffi-cult to determine. Let us look at the following sen-tences contained in the admonition of Jean-Paul II tothe authorities of Hondo-Norte: “Foutez la merdeque vous pouvez, tuez qui vous voulez dans votreenclos.... Foutez la viande que vous voulez! Laissezla lumière en paix, messieurs” (17). I translated thisas “Screw up everything, you can kill whoever youwant in your little corner... Kill all the flesh that youdamn well please! But gentlemen, leave the lightalone.” Let us look at this turn of phrase the authoruses to describe a sleepless night: “Quelle cuited’enculé nous nous sommes donnée la nuit dernière!Nous n’avons pas fermé l’oeil avant la troisièmerigolade de Lydie” (58), which I translated as “Whata terrible night we had last night! We didn’t sleep awink before Lydie’s third laugh.” I have to admitthat my English translation of these sentences is notas forceful as the French. One really gets theimpression that something is missing, even thoughthe translation is still an attempt to capture LabouTansi’s unique style and meaning.

Another problem that confronts the translatorof Labou Tansi’s text is finding appropriate English


words for the different language registers present inthe French. In Les yeux du volcan, not only does theCongolese writer use popular terms like “foutez,”“enculé,” and “badinez” throughout the text, he alsoresorts to the use of slang terms like “zigoto,” (astrange looking individual), “pognon,” (money), and“baraqué” (to be well-built), as well as such techni-cal terms as “bousingot” (leather hat), “vésanie”(insanity), and “lagotriche” (woolly monkey). Aneffective translation of Les yeux du volcan willtherefore be one in which the translator is not onlyfamiliar with the African context of the narrative butalso sensitive to the different shades of meaning thatLabou Tansi manipulates in his use of the Frenchlanguage.

Quite obviously, in the translation of LabouTansi’s text, as indeed in any African literary text,Western definitions of equivalence should beapproached with caution, because the translator ofan African literary text is concerned with establish-ing not only equivalence of natural language butrather of artistic procedures. For an African text,these procedures cannot be considered in isolationbut rather must be located within the specific cultur-al-temporal context within which they are used.Without doubt, the creative manipulation of Englishand French in postcolonial Anglophone andFrancophone literatures makes it necessary to chal-lenge and redefine many accepted notions in transla-tion theory. Because these postcolonial texts are ahybrid of indigenous and imported modes of story-telling and because of the linguistic and cultural lay-ering within them, conventional notions of equiva-lence, or ideas of loss and gain, that have long dom-inated western translation theory are in and of them-selves inadequate as translation tools. Indeed, asSamia Mehrez has pointed out, “because the ulti-mate goal of such literatures is to subvert hierarchiesby bringing together the ‘dominant’ and the‘repressed’ by exploding and confounding differentsymbolic worlds and separate systems of significa-tion to create a mutual intersignification, their trans-lation must of necessity confront, redefine, and inthe process deconstruct existing translation theo-ries.” An African literary text has both anautonomous (in the sense of being based on African

culture) and a communicative (the cross-fertilizationof the different languages) character to it. The trans-lator must therefore bear in mind both itsautonomous and its communicative aspects, and anytheory of translation should take both elements intoaccount.

Works Cited

Basseha A. Singou. Interview with Labou Tansi.Bingo (August 1988): 52-53.

Beti, Mongo. Le pauvre Christ de Bomba. Paris:Robert Laffont. 1956.

Kourouma, Ahmadou. Les soleils desIndépendances. Paris: Seuil, 1968.

—. Monnè, outrages et défis. Paris: Seuil, 1990.Mehrez, Samir. “Translation and the Postcolonial

Experience: The Francophone North AfricanText.” Ed. Venuti, Lawrence. RethinkingTranslation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology.London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

Oyono, Ferdinand. Une vie de boy. Paris: Julliard,1956.

—. Le Vieux nègre et le médaille. Paris: Julliard,1956.

Sony Labou Tansi. La vie et demie. Paris: Le Seuil,1979.

—. L’etat honteux. Paris: Le Seuil, 1981.—. L’anté-peuple. Paris: Le Seuil, 1983.—. Les sept solitudes de Lorsa Lopez. Paris: Le

Seuil, 1985.—. Les yeux du volcan. Paris: Le Seuil, 1988.


Book Reviews

Umberto Eco. Experiences in Translation. AlastairMcEwen, trans. Toronto: University of TorontoPress, 2001. 135 pp. $19.95

Gregory Conti, Reviewer

Like his earlier essay on the interpretation of narra-tive prose, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994),Umberto Eco’s latest book of literary criticism isbased on a series of lectures, this time in Ontariorather than Massachusetts, delivered when he wasEmilio Goggio Visiting Professor in the Departmentof Italian Studies of the University of Toronto inOctober 1998. Though based on three lectures, thebook is divided into two parts: “Translating andBeing Translated” and “Translation andInterpretation.” Notwithstanding the insightful andentertaining accounts of his experience as translatorand (above all) as “translatee” presented in part one,the title of part two is more representative of thebook’s overall content. Before he became a best-sell-ing international novelist and sometime translator,Eco was, and still is perhaps, most renowned as asemiotician, and his interest in and mastery of thescience of interpreting signs informs his discussionof translation.

To be sure, Eco’s reflections on the species ofliterary translation and its relationship to the largergenus of interpretation will be of interest to bothpractitioners and theoreticians. Part one begins withan anecdote that is emblematic of Eco’s approach totranslation and at the same time a tribute to hisEnglish-language translator, William Weaver:

“In my novel Foucault’s Pendulum there is, ata certain moment, the following dialogue…[for which a] literal translation in Englishwould be:Diotallevi – God created the world by speak-ing. He didn’t send a telegram.Belbo – Fiat lux, stop. Letter follows.

Casaubon – to the Thessalonians, I guess.William Weaver… realized that this exchangehinges on the word lettera, which is used inItalian both for mailed missives and the mes-sages of Saint Paul … while in English theformer are letters and the latter are epistles.That is why, together with the translator, Idecided to alter the dialogue and to reassignthe responsibility for the witticism:Diotallevi – God created the world by speak-ing. He didn’t send a telegram.Belbo – Fiat lux, stop. Casaubon – Epistle follows.”

Eco comments that this translation is “faithful”without being “literal” because while changing thedenotations of the original, it preserves the connota-tions. The English text is different from the Italianbut “in spite of this, the English text says exactlywhat I wanted to say, that is, that my three charac-ters were joking on serious matters—and a literaltranslation would have made the joke less perspicu-ous.” (pp. 7-8)

Having established, in this entertaining fashion,the importance of the elementary distinction betweenthe denotative and connotative sense of the text, Ecogoes on to develop his thesis that the heart of transla-tion is interpretation: “Translations do not concern acomparison between two languages but the interpre-tation of two texts in two different languages.” Theargument proceeds mostly, though not exclusively,through a series of binary oppositions—“Incom-mensurability versus Comparability,” “Source versusTarget,” “Foreignizing and Domesticating,” “Archaicversus Modern,”—which allow Eco to touch on themajor issues in recent translation studies while grad-ually refining and substantiating the role of the trans-lator as an interpreter of literary texts: “We decidehow to translate, not on the basis of the dictionary,but on the basis of the whole history of two litera-tures”…, “[T]ranslating is not only connected withlinguistic competence, but with intertextual, psycho-logical, and narrative competence” (pp 13-14), andfinally, my favorite, “Interpreting means making a


bet on the sense of the text…Of course the wholehistory of a culture assists the translator in makingrelatively safe bets…yet any interpretation remains abet” (pp. 16-17).

As this last comment illustrates, Eco is awareof the risks involved in literary interpretation, andhe is always careful to point out the multiplicity andcomplexity of meanings inherent in the text. The artof translation, then, consists in identifying whichmeanings a translation should preserve “at all costs”and then to render those meanings in the “target”text. Eco uses the phrase “at all costs” advisedly.Through a series of examples ranging from theBible and War and Peace, to English, German,French, Portuguese, and Russian translations of hisown novels, in addition to his own Italian transla-tions of two French works, Eco presents a strongcase for translators allowing themselves consider-able leeway with the literal sense of the original inthe interest of preserving its “deeper meaning.” Thetranslators of a vivid description of an underwaterscene in The Island of the Day Before, for example,were told by Eco to feel free to choose their ownwords for color and shape to describe the scene, aslong as they succeeded in rendering the “rhythm andvivacity” that constituted the deep meaning of thescene. The Russian translator of The Name of theRose used ecclesiastical Slavic terms to obtain thearchaic effect created for western readers of Eco’soriginal Medieval Latin. The author defends thetranslator’s change of the original, noting that, “inorder to make the translation archaic it was neces-sary to domesticate it.”

Preservation of the deep meaning of the origi-nal at the expense of its literal language is the guide-post for Eco’s translator in interpreting the text. Hisroots in semiotics come to the fore when he usesscientific language to formulate his thesis in relationto Foucault’s Pendulum:

Every sentence (or short sequence of sen-tences) of a discourse conveying a story canbe summarized (or interpreted) by a micro-proposition…The micro-propositions can beembedded in larger macro-propositions. . . .The whole novel could be summarized by a

hyper-macro-proposition that reads: “For fun,three friends invent a cosmic plot, and thestory they imagined comes true.” …A firsthypothesis is that one can change the literalmeaning of the single sentences in order topreserve the meaning of the correspondingmicro-propositions, but not the sense ofmajor macro-propositions. …One coulddecide, for example, that if character A tells along stupid joke and if no literal translationcan render the stupidity of the joke, a transla-tor is entitled to switch to another joke, pro-vided it remains clear that A tells silly jokes.It is on the basis of interpretive decisions ofthis kind that translators play the game offaithfulness. (pp. 38-39)

The strength of this scientific metaphor ofmicro- and macro-propositions is its ability tostreamline some of the complexity of literary narra-tive, and it enables Eco to convert his theory intouseful practical advice for translators. Its weakness,however, at least in this translator’s opinion, is itstendency to favor the universal characteristics of the“deep meaning” over the particular details of cultur-al references that contribute to the unique identity ofthe original. To illustrate this point, let me use oneof Eco’s examples.

In the section entitled “Sameness inReference,” Eco recounts a difficulty in translatingan Italian cultural reference in Foucault’s Pendulum.During a description of a drive in the hills,Diotallevi observes that endless vistas opened up“beyond the hedge.” Eco points out that the hedge isa reference to Giacomo Leopardi’s sonnet“L’infinito,” the most famous poem of Italianromanticism and part of the standard Italian publicschool curriculum. Since foreign readers probablywould not catch this reference to Italian literature,Eco told his translators to use a literary referencefrom their own culture. In the English version,Weaver simply substituted Keats for Leopardi—“weglimpsed endless vistas. Like Darien….” “Thus,”Eco concludes, “to preserve the psychological senseof the text (and to render it understandable withinthe framework of the receiving cultures), translators


were entitled, not only to make radical changes tothe literal meaning of the original text, but also to itsreference…. Only by this maneuver can the transla-tor suggest what seems to be the ‘deep sense’ of thestory, that is, a psychological feature of the charac-ter—Diotallevi can enjoy a landscape only throughthe poetical experience of somebody else.”

It may seem bold to contradict the author withregard to the “deep meaning” of his own text, butone cannot help but wonder whether the Italiancharacter’s reference to his native literary culture isnot indicative of an equally essential feature of hispsyche. Not only is Diotallevi a culture snob who isable to perceive nature only through poetry, but heperceives it through Italian poetry, which he learnedin a certain kind of Italian family and in Italianschools. Substituting Keats for Leopardi may, infact, not preserve the psychological meaning of thepassage, or it may preserve its universal aspects atthe expense of the particular. This preference for theuniversal tends to run throughout Eco’s examples,and it seems to derive from the scientific approachof the semiotician rather than the artistic approachof the novelist.

In part two of the book, Eco examines the rela-tionship of translation to interpretation, and here thesemiotician comes to center stage as the translatorretreats to the wings. After a brief review ofJakobson and Peirce’s theories of interpretation, Ecoconcludes that translation should not be identifiedwith interpretation but is better viewed as a speciesof the larger genus of interpretation, which includesall forms of intralinguistic and interlinguistic refor-mulations, from transcription through transmutation(films based on novels, comic strips of the DivineComedy, etc). This taxonomy of interpretation, andEco’s explanations of translation’s place in the clas-sification, will be useful to scholars in translationstudies, particularly those interested in comparingliterary translation to other forms of interpretation,such as musical performance, film and theater adap-tation, or parody.

A final word about the graceful translation ofEco’s rhetorical style as rendered here by AlastairMcEwen. All the way through Experiences inTranslation, the reader has the sensation of listening

to a skillful and engaging lecturer. This is no doubtpartly due to Eco’s own mastery of the anecdotalstyle of oral presentation. McEwen succeeds, how-ever, in preserving Eco’s Italian professorial style,retaining Latinate words whenever possible—“paronomasia” instead of pun, “perspicuous” insteadof clear, “hypotyposis” instead of vivid descrip-tion—and adhering to an authoritative yet genteelformal register. The examples cited here fromMcEwen’s translation are probably the only wordscapable of rendering Eco’s boundless erudition, butone is also left with the impression that they suc-cessfully capture the “deep sense” of the lecturer’spersona.

The Love You Promised Me by Silvia Molina.David Unger, trans. Willimantic, CT: CurbstonePress, 1999. ISBN 1-880684-62-4 (Paper). 152 pp.From El amor que me juraste. Mexico, D.F.: JoaquinMortiz, S.A. de C.V, 1998.

Patricia Schoch, Reviewer

Silvia Molina is a prolific and critically acclaimedcontemporary Mexican writer. She has written 10children’s books, three collections of short stories, aone-act play, two volumes of essays, and five novels.Only four of her short stories and two of her novelshave been translated into English; the first novel, Lamañana debe seguir gris, originally published in1977, was translated by John and Ruth Mitchell in1993, and her most recent novel, El amor que mejuraste, winner of the 1999 Sor Juana de la CruzPrize of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, hasnow been translated by David Unger.

Most of Molina’s previous novels have dealtwith themes of Mexican women in search of theiridentity against a backdrop of contemporaryMexican political upheaval that is interwoven withMexican history. Although in a recent interview,Molina denied that her writing style is similar to that


of the La Onda writers of the 1960s, like them shepeppers her text with foreign words and nontradition-al language (Garcia 114). In The Love You PromisedMe, Molina combines her love of history, literature,and music in a rich, intertextual and multilingual tap-estry with her familiar theme of a woman seekingself-realization and independence in the aftermath ofa failed love affair. The outer frame of the novel con-sists of the first-person narrator, Marcela, rereadingthe letters she exchanged with her ex-lover. The innerframe is Marcela’s search for her own identity by dis-covering the secret of her father’s estrangement fromhis family. Molina uses the voice of a woman speak-ing her thoughts aloud to create an intimate, informalatmosphere in the novel.

Unger’s translation of El amor que me juraste,The Love You Promised Me, successfully transplantsthis intimate tone through the use of contractionsand an informal level of diction. See, for example, apassage in which Marcela is reflecting not only onher relationship with her now-deceased mother butalso on her relationship with her ex-lover. Molina’soriginal Spanish reads:

De pronto, alguien como Eduardo te dice queha dejado de quererte (un hecho) y tu cariñoya no tiene lugar ni razón de ser, y no haydónde guardarlo ni protegerlo. No te sirve, nosabes qué hacer con él, ya no es sino, algoinservible de lo cual debes deshacerte. (El Amor 34)

Unger’s translation of these lines captures the infor-mal tone and also retains Molina’s italicizedemphases:

Someone like Eduardo all of a sudden tellsyou that he doesn’t love you anymore (donedeal) and your affection has no rhyme or rea-son to be and there’s no place to put it or jus-tify it. It’s of no use. You don’t know what todo with it, it no longer is, except as some-thing pointless which you must get rid ofimmediately. (The Love 23)

The use of the parenthetical “(done deal)” and the

familiar “you” creates an intimacy with the reader. Itis as if we are hearing Marcela think aloud. Unger’stranslation reflects this stream-of-consciousnesstechnique combined with the shifts in diction levelthroughout the novel that are symptomatic ofMarcela’s inner conflict as she rereads Eduardo’slove letters and searches for the root causes of herfather’s estrangement from his family.

In addition, Unger preserves the Mexican fla-vor of the original by incorporating certain ofMolina’s Mexican terms in a manner that is easilyrecognizable to the English reader. One of hisstrongest examples of communicating Mexican cul-ture through untranslated words occurs in a discus-sion of Mexican textiles. Molina’s original Spanishpassage reads:

Los viajes de Ilona por los pueblos deMéxico le mantenían vivo el aprecio por lomexicano y le fueron dando al mismotiempo esa colección de textiles piezas deTalavera, de La Granja, vidrio con pinturadorada, jarrones para pulque, piezas dehierro forjado . . . objetos en su maryoríade estilo colonial. (El Amor 104)

Unger’s English translation places in italics thewords of the original for such Mexican cultural arti-facts as the famous Talavera ceramics from Pueblaand the La Granja ceramics of Guadalajara.

Ilona’s trips to Mexican villages kept herappreciation of Mexican culture alive andalso helped her develop a collection of tex-tiles, Talavera and La Granja ceramics,gold painted glass, pulque jars, wroughtiron—objects that were mostly from thecolonial period. (The Love 88)

Unger’s decision to maintain the termsTalavera, La Granja, and pulque recreates theMexican flavor of the original and serves to build abridge between the cultures. This technique, howev-er, was not original to the translation. Molina usesthe same technique with English words in the origi-nal novel when she describes an American brick-


making system based on Mexican Indian tech-niques:

A su regreso California, la patentó: TheSoskay System, y más adelante abrió supropia compañía: Concrete Products MouldCo. Apenas se casó Eduardo con Ilona,Bernard Soskay trató de convencerlo de intro-ducir The Soskay System en México, peroEduardo no se interesó. (El Amor 100-1)

Thus, both Molina in her original writing and Ungerin his translation underscore the growing influencetheir two cultures are having on each other.

Moreover, the central theme of the novel turnson this technique, accentuating the influence ofAmerican culture in Mexico. In Chapter 1, Molinaintroduces a verse in English from an Americansong that she hears while alone in a hotel room inher father’s hometown, which she has never visitedbefore. The song is coming from the next room inthe hotel, a room occupied by American honey-mooners. Molina writes:

De tanto oír aquella balada, me la había aprendi-do y comenzaba a desesperarme:

There was a boy,a very strange and enchanted boy,They say he wandered very far,very far, over land and sea . . . (El Amor 12)

Molina weaves this verse in English throughout thenovel to punctuate her search for her father’s familyin the small Mexican fishing town of San Lázaro.She has gone alone to San Lázaro to confront notonly her father’s mysterious past but also her owntroubled present, which involves guilt over her affairwith a married man. The verse echoes her doubtsand loneliness:

Afuera, miraba desde la cama la noche eraclara y si no hubiera sido por la canción quesalía del cuarto de junto no habría sentidoganas de llorar:

. . . and while we spoke of many things,fools and kings, this he said to me:The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to loveand be loved in return. (El Amor 19)

Unger translates Molina’s introduction to thisAmerican song as follows:

From my bed, I could see it was a cloudlessnight. If it weren’t for the music from the roomnext door, I wouldn’t have felt like crying.

. . . and while we spoke of many things . . . . (The Love 8)

Molina repeatedly juxtaposes this verse againstMarcela’s failure to communicate with her husbandand children. In the end, Marcela comes to the real-ization that she is repeating the sins of her father inher infidelity to her own family:

¿Por qué me hería? Porque me obligaba apensar en mi padre. En aquel hoven que dejótodo por me mamá; y luego tuvo otra familia.Quizás entendiéndolo podría entenderme, jus-tificarme, arrepentirme. (El Amor 163)

Unger’s translation embodies the tortured tone ofMolina’s original:

Why did this music bother me? Because itreminded me of my father, the young manwho left everything to go with my mother andthen started a second family. Perhaps under-standing him, I could begin to understandmyself, absolve myself, and repent. (The Love145)

Thus, both the original author and the translator cre-ate works that not only resonate with the flavor ofboth cultures but also use foreign words in juxtaposi-tion as counterpoint to the central theme of the novel.

Unger’s English translation of Molina’s Spanishtext also reminds us that each language is a way ofinterpreting the world and that the actions in one lan-


guage are not always perceived the same way inanother language or culture. As Gregory Rabassa haswritten, “cocks do not crow alike in the ears of differ-ent peoples” (2). Unger was faced with a similardilemma in this translation. “Taaaaannnnntaaaaannnnn,” Molina’s church bells chime in the fol-lowing passage:

El despertar de la ciudad ocupó entonces miimaginación y divagué para no pensar ni enEduardo ni en Rafael, al que había olvidadohablar por la noche, ni en mis hijos ni ennada que me recordara mi confusión, porqueme agradaba el efecto de calma que teníanaquellas llamadas: taaaannnn, taaaannnn. (ElAmor 49)

Unger translates these lines as follows:

The town awakening occupied my thoughts,and I let it, so I wouldn’t have to think aboutEduardo or Rafael—I’d forgotten to call himthe night before—or about my children oranything that would bewilder me because Iwas enjoying the calming effect of the clang-ing of the bells. (The Love 36)

By omitting the sound taaaannnn, taaaannnn fromhis English version, Unger relinquishes Molina’splayful exploration of language in the original work.Thus, Unger’s translation decision parallelsRabassa’s—church bells do not toll alike in Mexicoand the United States.

As mentioned above, Unger consistently recre-ates the narrator’s conversational tone, even ininstances when the diction level becomes uneven. Attimes, however, Unger’s translation choices exagger-ate the variances in tone. For instance, Marcela says,“I was getting ticked off, he seemed like such a rustichistorian” (The Love 107). The original Spanish linereads, “. . .—me comenzaba a exasperar. Creí que eraun historiador de pueblo” (El Amor 123). The term“ticked off ” is of a somewhat lower diction level thanthe original “me comenzaba a exasperar” or “I startedto get exasperated.” Furthermore, “ticked off ” cre-ates a jarring juxtaposition with the very formal “rus-

tic historian” that occurs later in the same sentence. Adifferent equivalent to “rustic historian,” such as“hick historian,” might have been more parallel withUnger’s choice to use “ticked off,” a lower dictionlevel translation of the verb “exasperar.”

Although Unger’s use of contractions con-tributes to the informal tone in English, at timestheir frequency distracts the reader. For instance,Unger repeatedly combines the word “would” withother auxiliaries. He translates “Mi mamá me pedía”(El Amor 89) as “My mother’d ask me” (The Love75). He also translates “Mi bisabuelo habría tenidoesa clase de monedas para pagarle a los trabajadoresde sus haciendas, y le hubiera gustado pagarle a memadre con un puño de ellas, para que olvidará a mipapa” (El Amor 94) as “My great-grandfatherwould’ve used those coins to pay the workers at hishaciendas, and he would’ve liked to pay my mothera fistful of coins to forget my father” (The Love 80).Although Spanish is a highly inflected languagewhose structure combines the auxiliary with theverb, in this instance, contracting “would” with“mother” and “have” is not a typical treatment inwritten English.

Overall, Unger’s translation successfully recre-ates the intimate conversational tone of Molina’snovel. In addition, by including Spanish culturalterms, Unger stays true to Molina’s technique ofweaving English into the text of her novel. Althoughat times the diction level is uneven, it can be arguedthat Molina’s original diction level is intentionallyuneven, and thus, Unger’s translation faithfullyreflects this deliberate tonal disparity. In essence,Unger succeeds in capturing both the interculturaland intracultural nuances of Molina’s original work.

Works Cited

Garcia, Kay S. Broken Bars: New Perspectives FromMexican Women Writers. Albuquerque:University of New Mexico Press, 1994.

Rabassa, Gregory. “No Two Snowflakes Are Alike:Translation As Metaphor.” The Craft ofTranslation. John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte,editors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1989.


The Station Hill Blanchot Reader. Lydia Davis,Paul Auster, and Robert Lamberton, trans.Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1999. 527 pp. ISBN 1-886449-17-1 From the original French texts:Editions Gallimard 1941–1969, Editions de Minuit1951–1983, and Editions Fata Morgana 1973.

Joanne H. Stroud, Reviewer

The Station Hill Blanchot Reader, published in1999, brings together the literary essays and parts ofmost of the books of fiction of Maurice Blanchotthat Station Hill has translated over the past 20years. For the reader unfamiliar with Blanchot, bornin France in 1907 and author of some 35 books offiction and literary and philosophical discourse, thiscollection provides an easy access. His enormousimportance for contemporary literature and thought,like that of his fellow countryman, GastonBachelard, is just now being recognized by English-speaking readers. A chronology of his works inFrench and lists of his works and secondary litera-ture in English may be found on the Web athttp://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/blanchot/blanchot_mainpage.htm.

When one picks up the Station Hill Reader, it isdifficult to decide which to read first, the fiction orthe nonfiction sections. Although they are listed sec-ond, I found myself first reading the literary essays,with their provocative and subtle discussions of howwriting means. Many of these are from The Gaze ofOrpheus and Other Literary Essays, translated bril-liantly by Lydia Davis. Blanchot’s line of thought inmany of these is dense and complicated, so it isgreatly to her credit that she is clear and precise inrendering them from French into English. Blanchot’scomplicated sentences could have become tediousinstead of intriguing. In “Literature and the Right toDeath,” Blanchot questions why one writes at all.Here is part of his musing: “Let us suppose that lit-erature begins at the moment when literaturebecomes a question.” The “why” of writing is onlythe writer’s personal problem until the page is writ-ten. But “as soon as the page has been written, thequestion which kept interrogating the writer while he was writing—though he may not have been

aware of it—is now present on the page; and nowthe same question lies silent within the work, wait-ing for the reader to approach—any kind of reader,shallow or profound; this question is addressed tolanguage, behind the person who is writing and theperson who is reading, by language which hasbecome literature.” The baroque sentence above isjust one example of how easy it would have been tocompletely lose the interest of the reader without theskillful control of the material by the translator. Inthe process of putting words to page, the work hasgone, Blanchot reminds us, from “what Hegel callsthe pure joy of passing from the night of possibilityinto the daytime of presence.” Blanchot enjoys dis-cussing the process of writing.

As in the essay “Literature and the Right toDeath,” Blanchot’s meta-text in his works of fictionoften is the subject of how death plays into the dailyliving process. Thomas The Obscure, a work of fic-tion that I would call a novelette but that he calls anecrit, blurs the line between the living and the dead.I kept being reminded of the poet W. B. Yeats’s lineabout living each other’s life and dying each other’sdeath: “Birth-hour and death-hour meet,/ Or, asgreat sages say,/ Men dance on deathless feet.”Time, eternity, and the obscure separation betweenreality and imagination are also subjects of equalprofundity that Blanchot has the courage to pursue.The awareness of death, unique to the human race,both unites us with others and at the same time,reminds us that we are always actually alone:

Therefore it is accurate to say that when Ispeak: death speaks in me. My speech is awarning that at this very moment death isloosed in the world, that it has suddenlyappeared between me, as I speak, and thebeing I address: it is there between us as thedistance that separates us, but this distance isalso what prevents us from being separated,because it contains the condition for allunderstanding. Death alone allows me tograsp what I want to attain; it exists in wordsas the only they can have meaning. Withoutdeath, everything would sink into absurdityand nothingness. (380)


It is death that humanizes us and that as the mostimportant ingredient in identity, focuses us. In hiswords, Blanchot explains why the compelling issueof ultimate death defines the life and the work:

And there is no question that we are preoccu-pied by dying. But why? It is because whenwe die, we leave behind not only the worldbut also death. That is the paradox of the lasthour. Death works with us in the world; it is apower that humanizes nature, that raises exis-tence to being, and it is within each one of usas our most human quality; it is death only inthe world—man only knows death because heis man, and he is only man because he isdeath in the process of becoming. But to dieis to shatter the world; it is the loss of the per-son, the annihilation of the being; and so it isalso the loss of death, the loss of what in itand for me made it death.(392)

Blanchot is concerned with how languagebecomes communication, often commenting on thedifficulties of expression. Blanchot did not addresshimself directly to the problem of translatingBlanchot, but in his essay on Heraclitus, he didspeak about the fundamental impulse to “make theobscurity of language respond to the clarity ofthings.” (L’Entretien infini,122) In referring to theabove essay, Robert Lamberton reminds us thatBlanchot insisted on “the absolute refusal of theduality of language” and “the absolute opacity oflanguage and the impossibility of translation.”Although Lamberton did not correspond withBlanchot in his lifetime, Lydia Davis did. In acharming way, Blanchot complimented her and“insisted on the importance of her contribution andon the fact that Death Sentence was, finally, herbook.” Lamberton, in hoping to have remained faith-ful to the text itself (ital), speaks of Blanchot’s“deliberate smokescreen to foil the efforts of bothreader and translator, both condemned to try todetermine in the context of what tradition of lan-guage, of what sort of discourse his own invention issituated.” I am sure that by now you are aware of themany subtle challenges in Blanchot’s writing and

can appreciate the task of these three translators. Inaddition to addressing difficult subjects, Blanchotexplores and glorifies paradox. His metaphors areoriginal and surprising. He always demands theclosest attention of the reader.

The Station Hill Blanchot Reader is well servedby all three of its fine translators. Perhaps it isbecause individually they are also writers of renownthat they can perform this difficult task. Here iswhat George Quasha has to say in his PublishersPreface: “[W]e feel indebted to the three remarkablewriter/translators to whom our opportunity here toread Blanchot in English literally owes everything:Lydia Davis, Robert Lamberton, Paul Auster. Inaddition to graciously carrying out the notoriouslyhard work of translating Blanchot—with celebratedbrilliant results—they have always been supportiveof each other’s work and of the difficulties of inde-pendent publishing.” Indeed, these translations andthis publication hold many labors of love for whichwe, the readers, can feel much gratitude.

Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources.Translated and introduced by Anna Silvas.University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1999. Paperback. 293 pages. ISBN 0-271-01954-9

Patricia Schoch, Reviewer

Anna Silvas’s commentaries and translations in thiscollection of 12th-century Latin documents makesignificant contributions not only to the field ofmedieval studies but to the field of translation stud-ies as well. The volume, which chronicles the lifeand times of the German nun Hildegard of Bingenwas originally published in hard cover, in 1998, aspart of the Brepols Medieval Women Series on thehistory of women’s contributions to western culture.Silvas introduces her collection of translations withexplanations of the historical context and signifi-cance of each. She also comments on the many


challenges she encountered while translating thesewritings by the medieval authors who were in vari-ous ways connected to the life of Hildegard ofBingen.

Hildegard is one of the best-known women ofthe Middle Ages, along with Joan of Arc, Eleanor ofAcquitaine, and Heloise. During her lifetime,Hildegard gained widespread fame as a prophet,preacher, author, composer, healer, scientist, exor-cist, church reformer, founder of two convents, andadvisor to princes and popes. A mystic, she experi-enced visions beginning at the age of three. Whenshe was eight years old, her parents, wealthy noblesof Bermersheim in Rhenish Hesse, placed her in themonastery of St. Disibodenberg to be educated inthe Benedictine manner with the anchoress Jutta vonSponheim. Hildegard succeeded Jutta, after Jutta’sdeath in 1136, as abbess of Disibodenberg. At theage of 42, after five more years of seclusion,Hildegard had a particularly disturbing vision. Sheset about corresponding with St. Bernard ofClairvaux and Pope Eugenius and began her publiccareer after receiving the pope’s permission to beginwriting her first visionary work, Scivias (Know theWays). Although her sainthood has never been offi-cially recognized by the Catholic Church, efforts forher canonization were already under way whenHildegard died in 1179, at the age of 81.

Silvas, a faculty member in the Department ofClassics and Religion at the University of NewEngland in New South Wales, Australia, and herselfa member of the Benedictine order, views Hildegardand Jutta as “inspiring sisters and foremothers”(xiii). In 1984, Silvas became involved in translatingthe Vita S. Hildegardis, one of the official docu-ments preparing the case for Hildegard’s canoniza-tion, written shortly after she died. Silvas’s transla-tion of the Vita S. Hildegardis first appeared in fourinstallments in Tjurunga, an Australian BenedictineReview, between 1985 and 1987. When Brepol pub-lished a major critical edition of the Vita S.Hildegardis by Monika Klaes in 1993, Tjuranga edi-tors asked Silvas to revise her translation and pub-lish it as a book. In the preface to Jutta andHildegard, Silvas explains that rather than just revis-ing her translation, she decided to expand its scope

to include other documents supplementary to theVita S. Hildegardis. The result was Jutta andHildegard: The Biographical Sources (xi).

Silvas’s work in this book centers around hertranslations of three documents: the recently discov-ered vita of Hildegard’s spiritual mother, Jutta ofSponheim; a letter containing an unfinished vita ofHildegard by the monk Guibert of Gembloux; andTheodoric of Echternach’s official hagiography, VitaS. Hildegardis. Also included in the book is whatSilvas calls “a penumbra of supporting documents”that contribute to our knowledge of the lives of Juttaand Hildegard (xviii). Selections from theChronicles of Disibodenberg reveal significantevents, from 975 to 1160 A.D., in Germany and atthe monastery that was the home of the two holywomen. The Acta Inquisitionis, completed in 1233,formally authenticates Hildegard’s sanctity and rep-resents ongoing efforts toward her canonization.Silvas also uses shorter sources to establish the his-torical and social context of Jutta’s and Hildegard’slives. She includes legal charters issued by theArchbishops of Mainz for the monasteries ofDisibodenberg, Sponheim, and Rupertsberg; the oneknown letter of the monk Volmar, Hildegard’s secre-tary and provost; and Eight Readings, a contempla-tive work derived from Theodoric’s Vita S.Hildegardis. Except for the Vita S. Hildegardis,Silvas’s translations of these biographical sourcesrepresent the first time any of them have been trans-lated into English.

Appendices to the collection include maps ofthe Holy Roman Empire during the 12th centuryand of the Disibodenberg, Rupertsberg, andSponheim abbeys. Along with the maps, there aresketches of the ground plans of the Abbey ofDisibodenberg and the ruins of Rupertsberg Abbey.There are also genealogical tables tracing bothHildegard’s and Jutta’s family histories. Silvas alsoincludes a comprehensive bibliography that sepa-rately lists primary sources, translations, dictionar-ies, background studies, and selected detailed stud-ies on various facets of Hildegard’s life. In addition,Silvas uses detailed footnotes throughout the text tocreate a rich subtext of factual information. Forexample, in the Chronicles of Disibodenberg’s men-


tion of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV’s excommu-nication, footnote 32 provides in-depth informationof Henry’s problems with the papacy. It reads:

Henry had been excommunicated underPopes Gregory VII, Urban II and Paschal II.When in Rome in 1111, Henry V wrung fromPaschal II not only the imperial crown andthe concession of lay investiture, but also theposthumous absolution of his father who haddied excommunicate. On his return toGermany he held a memorial service for hisfather on 7 August, 1111, whose body wasthen interred in the Salian family vault inSpeyer Cathedral. (18)

These appendices and notes, along with the intro-ductions’ histories of the physical survival of each ofthe documents, constitute a compendium that isvaluable, in itself, for research in medieval, religion,feminist, and translation studies and should be wel-comed by scholars in each of those fields.

It is Silvas’s comments on her translationprocess that are of particular interest in this venue.She states in her introductory remarks to the collec-tion that she has avoided a “loose, overly ‘interpre-tive’ approach to translation,” and she emphasizesthat she tried to maintain the “different character ofeach author” as she brought each work into modernStandard English (xxiii). Throughout the book, sheshares her insights on translating the medieval docu-ments, often comparing the different styles of Latinshe encountered. For example, she speculates thatVolmar is the author of Jutta’s hagiography The Lifeof Jutta the Anchoress, a work that was probablyinstigated by Hildegard herself. Silvas writes:

Striking confirmation that the author isVolmar comes with [the] phrase, Quaedampulcherrima specia hominis—“a certain mostbeautiful form of a human being.” This is aclassic “Hildegardian” turn of phrase, bywhich in her later writings [with Volmar asscribe] Hildegard referred to figures in herown visions. (49)

Silvas describes the style of Latin in The Life of

Jutta, which documents Hildegard’s early childhoodand the culture of the medieval Benedictinemonastery, as “well-schooled, cultivated and dis-tinctly monastic.” She compares this with the “high-ly skilled classicism” reflected in the Latin inHildegard’s vita by Guibert (58).

Many of Silvas’s translating challenges hingedon issues of medieval Latin grammar. She observesthat Volmar’s writings sometimes contain tangles ofconstruction that broke down in her Modern Englishtranslations, especially when she encountered suchissues as the ungrammatical use of the reflexivesuus-a-um and the mixture of statement and unful-filled condition. Other translation problems arosewith missing elements of infinitives and auxiliaryverbs, which, Silvas notes, could have been over-looked by the manuscript’s copyists. She also offersvaluable observations on general translating chal-lenges she encountered in the work. “In the way ofmedieval Latin, ablative gerundives seem to be usedas a kind of present active participle, and indeedgerundives are used a great deal. Sometimes a nar-rative is constructed with a series of ablativeabsolutes using gerundives in present tense,” sheexplains (59).

Silvas encountered some of her greatest trans-lating challenges in Guibert’s Letter to Bovo, writtenat Rupertsberg just before Hildegard died. Guibertcame to Hildegard’s Rupertsberg abbey in 1177 toserve as her scribe after the death of Volmar. Heremained for a year after Hildegard died, reluctantlyreturning to Gembloux in 1180 (89). His letters backto Gembloux reveal much detailed information ofHildegard’s life with his Letter to Bovo, written in1177, which contains an unfinished vita ofHildegard that Silvas speculates was based on theLife of Jutta. Silvas writes that Guibert is a “skilledLatinist,” a “master rhetorician not loth to displayhis art,” and that his trademark is a “very elaborateperiodic style” in which he revels. She writes:

He will weave a single sentence of paragraphlength with subordinate and sub-subordinateclauses and phrases, holding the main verb atarm’s length to the very end, while along theway acquitting himself perhaps of two con-


current story lines, or a story line and two orthree parallel commentaries. . . It is a goodexample of form expressing meaning, provid-ed one manages to steer all the way to theend! (96-97)

To translate Guibert’s prose into comprehensibleEnglish, Silvas had to divide such sentences intotwo. She notes that, to break Guibert’s sentencesapart, she bypassed various “colouring particles”and the participial form of certain verbs. Shedescribes “long pondering and consultation neededto unravel” the dividing of one particularly complexsentence, which contained word-plays and rhymes—pungerent quam ungeret—and a variety of sub-plotsand sub-sub-plots. She finally found a way to dividethe sentence, but did so “very reluctlantly, only as alast resort” (97). Silvas’s translation resulted in twolengthy but certainly comprehensible English sen-tences:

Instead, just as salt when sprinkled in suitablemeasure tempers the acrid taste of anything itseasons, and just as an excellent wine exhila-rates its drinkers by its natural dryness ratherthan repels them, so whenever this consum-mately prudent virgin was associated withanyone through friendship or conversation,she did not less stimulate her hearers thansoothe them by her words and writings fittedto the occasion, for she had a vivid quality,devoid of flattery. Thus, as I say, she causedthe minds of all who came into contact withher to ferment with the leaven of divine right-eousness. (113)

Silvas saves her discussion of the nuances of bring-ing select words from their medieval texts intoEnglish for her translation comments in the intro-duction to the Vita S. Hildegardis, which forms thecentral core of the book. “After ‘living’ with thesedocuments over a period of time,” she writes, “thetranslator may be allowed to offer some observationson translating… .” Among the words she targets isvisio, which can refer to particular instances of suchparanormal experiences as visions and revelations or

to the visionary gift itself—a type of “waking clair-voyance which can be tapped at will.” Silvas notesthat she maintains the double meaning of visio withthe single English word “vision” (129). She includesa detailed discussion of both anthropological andreligious issues involved in translating various Latinterms for “woman”: virgo, which connotes a senseof the holy; puella, for a girl, a young woman, anunmarried or newly married woman, or a maiden;matrona for a married woman; and mulier or feminaas a generic term for woman. She includes the sametype of discussion for translating homo, whichHildegard often uses in reference to herself as anobject of divine revelation. Silvas describes hertreatment of homo when it is in juxtaposition withspiritual beings, either explicitly or implicitly, asrequiring a specific, rather than broad, translation.

Here the distinctly human character of“homo” must be brought out … In suchcases, standard English is followed…and thesingular homo is translated as the generic (i.e.inclusive) “man” without article. When homois used of a particular person, then in the caseof a woman, notably Hildegard, I translate itas “human being” or in one particularly hier-atic situation… “human creature”….(131)

Silvas expands her translator’s insights with similardiscussions of words such as frater, soror, cenobium,monasterium, obsessa, and amicita.

From a translator’s perspective, Silvas’s com-prehensive work would have been made even morecomplete if it had included, perhaps in anotherappendix, facsimile reproductions of a sampling ofthe original 12th-century manuscripts with whichshe worked. Notwithstanding this single possibleaddition, Jutta and Hildegard: The BiographicalSources succeeds in its mission to bring thesemedieval documents into eminently readable stan-dard English. In so doing, it also represents a multi-faceted achievement in a variety of fields as dis-parate as medieval and feminist studies. In this way,Silvas’s Jutta and Hildegard: The BiographicalSources could be considered a reflection of the vast-ly multifaceted life of Hildegard of Bingen herself.


First Cause/Primera Causa. By Tino Villanueva.Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Horowitz.Illustrations by Tino Villanueva. Bilingual Edition:Spanish/English. Cross-Cultural Review, 1999.Paper: ISBN 0-89304-177-7.

James Hoggard, Reviewer

Although he has a reputation for being one of thefew American poets who write notably well in bothSpanish and English, Tino Villanueva does not usu-ally translate his own work. He is, however, gener-ous and exacting with his translators. To my ownpleasure I found that out first-hand when I startedworking on his Crónica de mis años peores (LaJolla: Lalo, 1987), a collection of meditative poemson his youth that I translated as Chronicle of MyWorst Years (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1994). Ishould also point out that, when it was still in type-script, I saw his most recent volume, PrimeraCausa, published now in a bilingual edition with atranslation, First Cause, by Lisa Horowitz. I men-tion these matters for two reasons: I knowVillanueva’s work well, and I also know how atten-tive he is to his translator’s efforts, sometimes evento the extent that the translation process becomesnot only a collaborative effort but also, in severalrelatively minor places, a revision of the originalwork. One should keep that latter element in mindwhen assessing what Lisa Horowitz has done in herconsistently effective translation. Getting nit-pickyabout some of the translated phrases would likely beunfair and even inaccurate when one considers thepossibility that a translation can become, at least inpart, a revision—if the writer is an active participantin the process.

In his two collections immediately previous toPrimera Causa—Crónica de mis años peores andthe American Book Award–winning Scene From TheMovie Giant (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone, 1993)—Villanueva kept his dramatic situations vivid whilehe meditated on concerns associated with his youth.In Crónica, details about the migratory farmwork-er’s life are sharply presented; and in Scene (writtenin English), that same attention to event is intense.In Primera Causa/First Cause, however, we find

Villanueva turning almost altogether meditative ashe examines his own experience with writing andmemory. Without belaboring the matter, he employsliturgical points of phrase and concern, somethinghe has done in other works as well. In fact, his workreflects a subtly sacramental approach that some ofhis most supportive readers have missed. The resultof the liturgical points of reference is an evocationof the sacred, even the prophetic, in his sensibility.Rather than giving us the fully polished evocation ofsacramental matters in Primera Causa/First Cause,however, Villanueva takes us into the stages of ger-mination, during which will and discipline areadmittedly often more prominent than inspiration.

The third of the ten poems in the chapbook,“Teoría de la redención” (“Theory of Redemption”),illustrates Villanueva’s dual motifs of prophecy andcraftsmanship when he refers to the

…estancias de me historiaque me están llamando,a la vez que me cargo encima estos recuerdoscon voluntad de epifanía

…chapters of my history calling me, while I take on layers of memorywith a will that’s bent on epiphany.

Something similar, but even subtler, occurs in“Primera causa que me nombra” (“First Cause ToName Me”) when he uses versículos instead of ver-sos to suggest a liturgical quality of intent. In hertranslation, however, Horowitz goes for a seculartone by using verses instead of versicles. Never-theless, because in usage neither word is associatedexclusively with the secular or religious, Horowitzhas certainly done no violence to the text; and here,as well as elsewhere, her choices are defensible.

Throughout this rather short but richly contem-plative collection, Villanueva sees language in waysthat are parallel to Martin Heidegger’s understand-ing, articulated both succinctly and provocativelywhen he says in What Is Called Thinking? (WasHeisst Denken?): “Language speaks.” A concept likethat is worth noting because in Villanueva’s book,


language is not considered primarily a tool for nam-ing concepts and phenomena but is seen, as inHeidegger, as a dimension of perception itself. Theten poems in this collection are not about things“over there” off the page so much as they are aboutthe process of reflection dramatized on the page.

Several phrases in “Que me valga la memoria”(“May Memory Help Me”) illustrate ways in whichVillanueva sees language as a framer of conscious-ness: “no puedo prescindir / de las palabras” (“Ican’t get along / without words”); “El pensamientoes largo, así sucede — / apenas recuerdo y lo escri-bo” (“Thinking is a process, long and slow — /remembering, bit by bit, and writing as I go”). Theform of the rhyming couplet in Horowitz’ version(slow /... go) does not seem accidental or arbitrarybut an appropriate echo of the prominently placedlong o’s in the Spanish. A similar stylistic echo isfound at the end of “Más la voz que el tiempo”(“Voice Over Time”) when Horowitz matchesVillanueva’s half-rhyme “se ha ido / ... el tiempo”with “stayed behind / ... over time.” Althoughappearing with some frequency in both the Spanishand English versions, the musical qualities of soundare more subtle and irregularly placed than promi-nent and formal, just as they often are, for example,in the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Horowitz,then, is being fair in her translations; she does nottry to impose an alien music on her subject.

Time and again in his work, Villanueva hasconveyed a curiously solitary voice, the speech ofone thinking in the context of oneself. There is amajor difference, though, between aloneness andloneliness. It’s the former that applies to Villanueva,but in many ways we would expect that from one soinclined toward the contemplative. What seemsespecially striking about his voice is the muscularquality of the sensibility. He even has what onemight well call a Protestant sense of will. All thesematters are strikingly present in “Teoría de la reden-ción” (“Theory of Redemption”). Links between theformal and aggressive in the poem’s opening linesshow this:

Cuán largoel viaje sobre la tierra,

sobre el terreno represado del recuerdopara arribar a este escritorio para contar ...

What a long journey, this one on earth— recovering the covered ground of memory— just to get to this desk to declare ...

In the poem’s concluding lines, he extends the earli-er-mentioned emphasis on will and an inclination toperceive remembered experience in terms of writingwhen he says:

Aquí mi voluntad se forjaráen el fuego del empeño de este puñoque marca este papel.

Horowitz’ version of those concluding lines seemsespecially crisp:

Here my will shall be forgedin the fires of persistence—this fistmaking its mark on this paper.

She seems sensitive to the fact that English rhythmsare often more angular than their equivalents inSpanish.

There are, though, questions one periodicallyhas. In “Imaginé un papel” (“I Pictured A Page”),Villanueva says in the third strophe: “Esbocé unaspalabras / sobre la imprimatura blanca.” One won-ders why Horowitz translated the opening phrase as“I scratched scant words” rather than “I scratchedsome words.” Scant here seems to suggest the com-mon notion that language is somehow inadequate,whereas Villanueva, throughout the collection,emphasizes that it’s language that gives definition toperception. Villanueva’s autobiographical speakerseems simply to be saying that, in the incident herefers to in the poem, he wrote down some words;he does not seem inclined to comment there on thecomparative efficacy of those words. In fact, thepoem’s conclusion identifies memory and expres-sion in terms of synonymity, not failed promise:“que cuando [la memoria] acaba, acaba siendo loque escribo” (“what, when [memory] ends, ends up


being what I write”).In spite of his sustained meditation, Villanueva

is alert enough to give us an incident that is symbol-ic of a context in which the relationship betweenlanguage and identity is seen by him as crucial. Thepenultimate poem “Asi dijo el señor” (“And ThenHe Spoke”) describes, as Villanueva has done inother poems — most notably in “Clase de historia”(“History Class”) from Crónica (Chronicle) —bigotry by schoolmen against Hispanic youth. Theschool principal announces over the loudspeakerthat he’s been hearing “demasiado español” (“toomuch Spanish”) from the students: “‘hablen enamericano en estos recintos’” (“‘you people bestspeak American on the premises’”). One can’t miss,of course, the sly irony that, thanks to the poet’s owntranslation, the bigoted gringo speaks his bile inSpanish. What brings about healing, though, is notan apology from the principal or an attack by thepoet, but an indication that subsequently the poetimmersed himself in Spanish-language poetry, andto exemplify that he gives us quotations from RubénDarío, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca,

and Octavio Paz. Through one’s reading, then, aswell as writing, language becomes both balm andguide. Villanueva’s own experience comes to illus-trate a cultural shift as well:

En la clara actualidad: lo marginadose ha movido más al centro;lo de afuera se transforma en lo de adentro.

Horowitz’ translation here seems especially apt:“These days, there’s no denying: the marginalized /are going mainstream, / outsiders are becominginsiders.”

Villanueva’s steady emergence as one whosynthesizes at least two cultural frames of referenceshows a largeness of sensibility. His generosity ofspirit suggests that he, from the beginning of hiscareer, has been living beyond the pettiness of lin-guistic guerrilla warfare; and in her translation ofthis consistently meditative volume, Lisa Horowitzhas approached her task judiciously. She andVillanueva both have a sharp sense of line.


Documents

TR 62 - 2translation.utdallas.edu/translation_reviews/TR62.pdf · 2015. 5. 21. · hand, we are experiencing a violent clash of lan- ... culture and how can I, the translator,