Leticia de la Paz de Dios Translation Theory

Translation Criticism: Pablo Nerudas Walking Around. For this assignment I decided to use two of the translations of the poem Walking Around, by Pablo Neruda, one of his best known poems in the Spanish speaking countries. The translations are by Ben Belit and by W.S. Merwin, and they are very different in their approach to the text and the method used by the author. Therefore, their analysis and comparison are the center of this paper. The first translation, by Ben Belit, is very evidently a sense for sense1 translation. As translators such as Cicero and Homer defended, this translation seems to aim at getting the same reaction from an English reader as a Spanish reader would have reading the original poem in Spanish. However, in doing so, the translator adapts and creates a language which is more appropriate for the target culture (translation focused on the reader)2 and it sometimes results in an excessive separation from the language created by the original author, Pablo Neruda. Being this approach to translation an essential aspect in Belits text, he sometimes misses some important elements of the original in his translation. In Nerudas poem, the verses metric is free, as it is in Belits translation, and also the number of lines in each verse. However, there are some literary figures used by Neruda in his poem that are omitted by Belit in his translation. A good example can be found in the line Sucede que me canso de ser hombre. This line is the first one in the poem, and it is repeated a number of times on it. And not only does he repeat this whole sentence, but we also see other sentences starting with Sucede que. This creates the literary figure of repetition and a form of anaphora, which is introduced by Pablo Neruda with a particular stylistic intention. This repetition is omitted in the text translated by Belit. This particular omission caught my attention, I have to admit, because as a native Spanish speaker I have the contextual information that in
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Jerome Scheleiermacher

Spain, for example, this very well known poem is not practically known by its actual title, Walking around, but by the first sentence, Sucede que me canso de ser hombre. This is so probably because the title is in English and Spanish speakers may prefer a sentence we can remember and know the meaning of in order to refer to that poem. But even not having this information into consideration, this is still an important sentence within the poem, and its omission in the translation is a risky decision. In the second translation, by W.S. Merwin, the translator maintains this repetition, translating it as It happens that, being this the beginning of several of the poems lines. Not only W.S. Merwin maintains this repetition, but his translation is performed following the strictest word for word methodology: terminology, literary figures, number of lines and other elements are faithfully present in the translation of the whole poem. Some other rhetorical figures are maintained in both translations, such as some metaphors or as synesthesia (e.g., El olor de las peluqueras me hace llorar a gritos is translated as A whiff from a barbershop does it: I yell bloody murder by Belit, and as The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud by W.S. Merwin). Belits translation creates, in other parts of the poem, new metaphors and looks for, as it was mentioned before, a similar reaction in the target reader, embellishing the language where the literal translation of a metaphor from the Spanish text would not work so well in the English language. W.S. Merwin, on the other hand, maintains the same metaphors and does a literal translation of them. In a similar way, Belit uses compensation as a translation technique. In the second verse he translates All I ask is a little vacation from things: from boulders/ and woolens,/ from gardens, institutional projects, merchandise,/ eyeglasses, elevators Id rather not look at them, when in Spanish the poem says: Slo quiero un descanso de piedras o de lana,/ slo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,/ ni mercaderas, ni anteojos, ni ascensores. Even though the strictest sense of the original verse is slightly changed, the general meaning and, again, the reaction and result for the target reader will be the same.

Nerudas poem is filled with metaphorical descriptions, adjectives and repetitions, and this gives the poem a particular tone and rhythm. The rhythm changes in Belits translation more than in W.S Merwins, but in the latter the rhythm might sound or result too plain in English. Taking as an example the last line of the poem: Lentas lgrimas sucias, we see a strong and important tone, which marks a good ending, a descending tone to the poem. W.S Mervin translated it as: slow dirty tears, with the same rhythm and tone. Belit, on the other hand, translated it as: slowly dribbling a slovenly tear, giving it a new and different sound and rhythm. When it comes to ambiguity, of which we can find a few examples in Nerudas poem (e.g., Hay pjaros de color de azufre y horribles intestinos, colgando de las puertas de las casas que odio), Belit gets to break it, thanks to his word choice, in his translation: There, trussed to the doors of the houses I loathe/ are the sulphurous birds, in a horror of tripes. W. S. Merwin, on the other hand, does, as in the rest of his translation, a word for word rendering. However, in his translation There are birds the colour of sulphur, and horrible intestines/ hanging from the doors of the houses which I hate. , the ambiguity is not only maintained but, in my opinion, increased. In conclusion, the two translations are opposite in their treatment of the source text and the importance given to content (Belit) or to form (W.S. Merwin). This proves how, in translation, some concessions have to be made and it depends on the translators preference about what the result of their translation they want it to be.

Works cited Neruda, Pablo. "Walking Around." Trans. Ben Belitt. in Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Stephen Tapscott. Austin: UT Press, 1996. Print. Neruda, Pablo. "Walking Around." Trans. W.S. Merwin. in Pablo Neruda. Selected Poems. Ed. Nathaniel Tarn. Middlesex: Penguin, 1975.