Comments on: The Nine Lives of Translated Literature

By: Hap

Hap — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:55:30 +0000

@S.L. Crow I think you make a good point. For the purists, obviously maintaining the purity of the piece, whether opera or Shakespeare, requires maintaining the original language, regardless of whether or not it is easily understood or appreciated in modern times through modern language.

One of the greatest difficulties in the translation process, I think, is maintaining the true form of the work. Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter for many of his works, a feat not easily replicated, and made more difficult by the need to maintain his meaning, his wit, and the rhyme using modern vernacular. Another example would be Dante’s Divine Comedy. I have a translated text (unfortunately not in front of me, as I would very much like to name the translator) that juxtaposed the original Italian and the English side by side on each page. Reading the English, you get a very good sense of Dante’s meaning, as seen through the eyes of the translator. But if you read the Italian, it becomes something entirely different. Trying to replicate the rhyming scheme from the original Italian to modern English, or even modern Italian, I imagine would be an extremely difficult, lifelong task.

While modern translations of works by Shakespeare like “Shakespeare for Dummies” (of the _____ for Dummies publications) may make it more accessible to the average person who has difficulty with the nuances of Early Modern English and allow them to appreciate Shakespeare’s charm and his stories, these translations also remove them from appreciating the extraordinary difficulty in must have taken in writing such works as he did. For me, that’s where the greatest appreciation for the piece and the author comes from.

By: e.lee

e.lee — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:36:34 +0000

updates would be a very good idea-for example, Beowulf has not suffered

By: S.L. Crow

S.L. Crow — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:36:42 +0000

This controversy actually reverberates through many artistic disciplines. It’s most prominent, I think, in opera. Numerous opera “purists” resent operas produced in a modern idiom or even in translation. But it seems to me that allowing for these variations to the art renews its vision. And if its only advantage were that reviving the art for modern ears acts as a gateway into the arts for those who may not have otherwise experienced it, then that is completely worth any “corruption” that may be taking place!

By: Catherine Daly

Catherine Daly — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:27:23 +0000

There are plenty of translations of old and middle English works into modern English, and plenty of Shakespeare translations, adaptations, too.

Beowulf, Morte d’Arthur, Pearl, Gawain, all of Chaucer…

By: Kent Richmond

Kent Richmond — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:14:12 +0000

You may be interested in reading John McWhorter’s article in the January 2010 issue of American Theater magazine. He makes a similar point about Shakespeare translations in other languages and calls for serious translations of Shakespeare’s plays into more contemporary English. Here is the link to the article: http://tcg.org/publications/at/jan10/shakespeare.cfm

In the late 1990s, I read a similar article by McWhorter and have since complete verse translations of five Shakespeare plays (Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado). If interested, you can see excerpts from my translations at http://www.fullmeasurepress.com

Kent Richmond

By: Levant Savant

Levant Savant — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:59:31 +0000

not Lost in Translation?

By: Tanya Paperny

Tanya Paperny — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:08:47 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Judith! I can only imagine how many misunderstandings occur like the “ejaculation” one…

By: Judith van Praag

Judith van Praag — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:40:04 +0000

Tanya,
How wonderful to find your blog (thanks to SheWrites! Thanks for the heads up on the Nine Lives of Literature (great title).
Kamie Wicoff does indeed bring an interesting point or even concern to the foreground. It makes me realize how privileged I am as an ESL reader ; )
Indeed, while adaptations of English classics for film or stage productions are created, the books themselves remain locked in the time frame of their conception.

At a recent library function Nancy Pearl related how disgusted a patron had been with a book Pearl had recommended. Why? Already on the first pages the word “ejaculation” had appeared, repeatedly. “I asked you for a book without any reference to sex,” she said.
Imagine her surprise when Pearl explained that “ejaculated” had a different meaning in the author’s times…