Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
I
General Editor: James S Holmes
The Nature
of Translation
Essays on the Theory and Practice
of Literary Translation
1970
Publishing House
of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Bratislava
© Copyright 1970 for the authors by the
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Printed in Czechoslovakia
This book contains the papers presented at an International Con-
ference on Translation as an Art organized 29 and 30 May 1968 in
Bratislava. Planned by the Translators' Section of the Slovak Writers
Union, the conference was held under the auspices of the International
Federation of Translators (FIT) and under the high patronage of the
Commissioner for Culture and Information of the Slovak National
Council.
Preface
MOTES
ι Umlni pfekladu (The Art of Translation; Prague, 1963), p. 9; Levy retained these
comments unchanged when he prepared the manuscript for the German translation
of his book, Die literarische Übersetzung. Theorie einer Kunstgattung, tr. Walter Schamschula
(Frankfurt am Main and Bonn, 1969), p. 13.
a Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, An Essay on Translated Verse (London, 1684,
1685). The quotations given here (in the text of the second edition) are cited from the
modern reprinting in J . E. Spingarn (ed.), Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century (3
vols., Oxford, 1908-1909), II, 297-309, 356-358 (notes).
3 See Renato Poggioli's similar remarks in his The Poets of Russia, 1890-1930 (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1960), pp. xv-xvi (quotation p. xvi).
Contents
Preface vii
V I Concluding Essay
La traduction: ceuvre d'art et objet de recherches estheti-
ques I.ASZLÖ D O B O S S Y 211
EDWARD BALCERZAN
zone des deux langues et l'appel au reel. Ce qui est intraduisible, d'ordi-
naire peut etre interprets.
Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz raconte les ennuis que rencontrerent les
traducteurs polonais au cours de leur travail sur le Canto general (PiesA
powszechna) de Pablo Neruda:
Qiiand Neruda ecrit: «las mariposas de Muzo», il faut preciser «les bleus papillons
Muzo»; lorsqu'il ecrit: «jacarandä», il faut ajouter «arbre violet de jacarandä». Car
pour le poete qui voit tous les jours [done connait par l'examen immediat du monde
reel] le bleu eclatant et l'arbre de «jacarandä» couvert de fleurs violettes, cette couleur
est renfermee dans le nom meme; nous, nous devons l'expliquer ä notre lecteur.·
De I'interpretation linguistico-stylistique et de la
reinterpretation litteraire du roman PalQ P a r y z
Pal$ Paryz (Je de Bruno Jasienski 11 est une des rares oeuvres
brüte Paris)
de la litterature europeenne qui existent non seulement dans plusieures
12 Edward Balcerzan
i jazda w kol^jke! Ciepla, cuchn^ca krew» (p. 188). D'abord les jeunes
filles juives evoquent les souvenirs erotiques de Solomin. Quelle que
soit la fagon d'apaiser «l'extase de la faim», Solomin — ce qui ne resulte
que du texte de la traduction — lie avec cet apaisement une certaine
absence de mepris, pour ainsi dire. Traduction: « V momenty zazdy
ekstaza — evrecki» (p. 110). Dans un autre cas, l'image des jeunes
filles juives n'evoque qu'un seul sentiment: cruaute. Cette fois, Solomin,
dans la version russe, emploie un autre mot: «zydovocki». Traduction:
«2ydovocki: dulo k visku — i w ocered'. . . Lipkaja, vonjucaja k r o v ' »
(p. 110).
Les deformations disseminees de la structure narrative de Ja zgu
Pariz sont amenees aussi par l'echange de la phraseologie. L a oil il n'y
a pas la possibility d'employer le caique phraseologique du type: «za-
mienil si§ w sluch» (p. 302)/ «obratilsja ν sluch» (p. 172) ou bien —-
dans le meme passage — «wszystko jak ζ nut» (p. 302) / «vse kak po
notam» (p. 172), s'impose la necessite de l'usage des equivalents relatifs
aux idiomes. Et, de nouveau, les effets sont divers: tantot cet echange
appauvrit le champ des valeurs stylistiques du texte, tantot il l'en-
richit.
Dans l'original nous retrouvons la representation caricaturale, par
moments touchant au grotesque, des Americains, membres du club
«American Express». Par exemple, «Les fauteuils en silence ont approuve
de la tete» (p. 274). Apres avoir consulte Lingslay, les gentlemen-
marionnettes discutent, conformement au plan trace, le prix que leur
coütera l'evasion du Paris empeste et lorsque Tun d'eux dit: « I ile tez
my za ni^ bekniemy?», le mot «bekniemy» participe, evidemment,
ä la caricature; dans son champ de valeurs stylistiques se trouve «jak
barany». A u lieu de l'expression idiomatique «beknac za cos» la tra-
duction emploie l'equivalent phraseologique «vo skoFko obojtis'»
(p. 146) et tout l'effet de la caricature se perd.
Les changements dissemines, sporadiques, fragmentaires des sens
ι6 Edward Balcerzan
Remarques finales
II est facile de dire que les deux versions de ΡαΙξ Paryz sont des cas
exceptionnels. II convient cependant de se demander si la version russe
de 1934 se situe encore dans le cadre des problemes de la traduction,
ou si, au contraire, eile se situe dejä dans le cadre des problemes etrangers
ä la theorie et ä la pratique de I n t e r p r e t a t i o n . II ne nous reste q u ' ä
repeter notre these principale. Le changement du systeme de signes,
aussi bien de la langue naturelle que de la langue d'une tradition litte-
raire, est une interpretation dans le cadre de la traduction. Bien sür,
dans plusieurs cas le decodage du texte de T x en T 2 ne mene pas ä une
transformation si radicale. Souvent le systeme T 2 n'entre pas dans les
signes de l'affabulation (comme c'est le cas de la version russe de 1934).
L'ingerence du systeme T 2 embrasse pourtant les signes paralleles
ä l'affabulation et, en premier lieu, eile concerne l'attitude du sujet
litteraire, dans la prose du narrateur, dans la poesie du «moi» lyrique.
Les systemes d'evenements qui sont apparemment identiques, sont
«vus» autrement et eclaires par l'aspect interieur du texte.
U n e autre manifestation frequente de l'interpretation dans le cadre
de la traduction est Γ abrege du texte original, elimination de fragments
qui, dans le syteme T 2 , par les idees qu'ils expriment sur le monde et
la vie, semblent particulierement choquants.
L'ensemble des operations d'interpretation par l'auteur-traducteur
constitue u n certain noyau de transformations. Autour de ce noyau
s'etend un vaste ensemble de changements moins distincts, doux, subtils,
et p o u r t a n t sans cesse presents dans le travail d ' u n interprete de romans,
de poesies ou de drames.
Certes, on peut attendre de notre part la critique de l'interpretation
dans la traduction: defaut ou privil£ge du traducteur? Ä cette question
il est impossible de donner une reponse non-equivoque. Surtout on ne
La traduction, art d'interpreter 21
NOTES
L'auteur de cette etude a elabore et precise un grand nombre de ses idees dans un livre
paru apres la conference de Bratislava: Styl i poetyka tw6rczoki dwujezycznej Brunona
JasieAskiego. Ζ zagadnieA teorii przekladu (Style et poetique des oeuvres litteraires ecrites en
deux langues par Bruno Jasienski. Les problemes theoriques de la traduction; Wroc-
law, Varsovie et Cracovie, 1968; Ζ dziejöw form artystycznych w literaturze polskiej
[L'histoire des genres dans la littirature polonaise], X I ) .
La traduction du point de vue de Γ interpretation
JOSEF ÖERMÄK
. . . theils aus dem Geist der Sprache, aus deren Elementen sie zusammengesetzt ist,
als eine durch diesen Geist gebundene und bedingte, aus ihm in dem redenden lebendig
erzeugte Darstellung; sie will auf der andern Seite gefasst sein aus dem Gemüth des
redenden als seine That, als nur aus seinem Wesen gerade so hervorgegangen und
erklärbar.
Le travail de traduire . . . nous fait en quelque maniere chercher ä mettre nos pas
sur les vestiges de ceux de l'auteur; et non point fa^onner un texte ä partir d'un autre;
mais de celui-ci remonter ä l'epoque virtuelle de sa formation, ä la phase oil l'etat de
l'esprit est celui d'un orchestre dont les instruments s'eveillent, s'appellent les uns les
autres, et se demandent leur accord avant de former leur concert.
L'embleme delie, l'hieroglyphe subtile qui regne dans une description entiere et qui
depend de la distribution des longues et des breves . . . dans les langues ä quantite
marquee, et de la distribution des voyelles entre les consonnes dans les mots de toute
langue: tout cela disparait necessairement dans la meilleure traduction.
Von diesem Wissen um lebendige Einheit ist das Verhältnis unserer Übertragung zum
Text bestimmt. . . [denn] wir . . . dürfen [nur] das geschmiedete Werk der Ganzheiten
betrachten und nachformen. Wobei unter Nachformen nicht das geistwidrige Unter-
La traduction et l'interpretation 41
MOTE
La plupart des citations donnees dans la presente itude se trouvent dans 1'excellent
livre de Rolf Kloepfer, Die Theorie der literarischen Übersetzung. Romanisch-deutscher Sprach-
bereich (Munich, 1967; Freiburger Schriften zur romanischen Philologie, X I I ) , [Note
du redacteur].
La perspective de la representation litteraire
et le probleme de la traduction
HANA JECHOVÄ
La realite fictive representee dans une oeuvre litteraire existe dans des
contacts multiples et complexes avec le narrateur de m e m e qu'avec
le lecteur. En signalant les formes les plus simples et les plus remar-
quables de ces contacts, il faut dire que le narrateur peut s'identifier
en partie ou tout ä fait a la narration, c'est-ä-dire qu'il peut presque
disparaitre dans la narration — ou, au contraire, l'auteur peut accentuer
la distance entre le narrateur et la narration. Le narrateur reste ä cote
de la realite decrite, il la presente, il la commente meme parfois, mais
il preserve sa propre entite. Tres souvent, une oeuvre litteraire, et
surtout une oeuvre moderne, ne represente pas une seule optique de
narration.
En empruntant la terminologie cinematographique, on pourrait dire
que la realite fictive litteraire serait filmee par plusieurs cameras qui
avancent et reculent, installees tantot a une distance considerable,
tantot dans u n rapprochement intime. Le narrateur peut se confondre
avec l'intrigue presentee ou il peut s'en eloigner et la modulation sub-
tile et nuancee de sa position dans la perspective de l'oeuvre est l ' u n
44 Hana Jechovä
concretes dont le contenu est plus important que l'accent emotif et qui
appartiennent presque ä la terminologie officielle de divers domaines
de la vie publique (par exemple «conformement ä la loi»). La camera
de la narration est braquee sur des objets assez eloignes, mais en meme
temps, Tangle de vue est aigu et cela permet d'en voir un grand nombre
de details concrets et uniques. L'auteur en vient presque ä se servir de
noms propres (le Palais Royal) ou du moins d'expressions donnant
la determination precise de la situation presentee (par exemple «vers
la fin du mois d'octobre 1829», «L'escalier du tripot designe sous le
nom du numero 36»). Cette minutie et cette clarte de la description,
accentuant les contours des objets, soulignent en meme temps la distance
entre le narrateur et Tintrigue. On voit trop clairement la realite, les
contours de la situation decrite semblent etre fermes, le narrateur ne
peut pas les franchir et il reste ä cote.
L'optique de la narration change un peu dans le passage suivant.
Le discours direct, employe par le vieillard dans le vestiaire, rapproche,
par une nuance subtile, la camera de la narration de l'intrigue decrite.
A la description concrete et precise de la situation unique, objective et
presque depourvue d'accents emotifs, succede une generalisation impre-
gnee d'indignation et de revolte psychique. La realite y est comme
presentee par une autre camera dont l'angle de vue est beaucoup plus
obtus. Cette camera est toujours assez loin de l'intrigue, elle ne vise pas
cependant un objet concret et unique, mais plusieurs phenomenes qui
par leur nombre et leur repetition, parfois, evoquent une situation
complexe concernant les gens en general. La representation d'un objet
permet une precision plus frappante que revocation d'un complexe
de phenomenes. Les contours des objets representee dans le passage
tendant vers une certaine generalisation semblent etre legerement
effaces. (L'auteur emploie des expressions avec une signification plus
large, par exemple «par une atroce epigramme en action», parfois,
il se sert d : expressions marquees de caracteres emotifs, par exemple
46 Hana Jechovd
des rebords eleves du pont de navire dans une image evoquant presque
la construction technique du bateau: Puis, q u a n d ils les deposent sur les
rebords eleves d u pont du navire — «Kdyz potom postavi je na palubni
luby» pour «Ä peine les ont-ils deposes sur les planches». Le terme de
«luby» (les rebords eleves du pont du navire) est en tcheque assez rare
dans ce contexte et il n'evoque pas chez le lecteur une image precise;
le plus souvent, le terme de «luby» signifie l'eclisse (partie du violon).
Chez Holan, il peut s'agir aussi d'une contamination metaphorique
navire—violon. Dans la meme traduction, l'image simple «Laissent
piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches», est transposee en «A vläci
zalostne svych velkych kridel ruby» (Iis trainent deplorablement les
revers de leurs grandes ailes). Dans la premiere strophe, la distance
entre l'intr ; gue et le narrateur etait plus faible dans les traductions que
dans le poeme original, mais dans les strophes suivantes, cette distance
ne diminue pas aussi nettement chez les traducteurs tcheques que chez
Baudelaire. Dans les traductions, la camera de la representation litteraire
n'est pas fixe au commencement pour s'avancer lentement d'abord,
puis de plus en plus plus vite. Des le premier vers eile s'avance et recule
en devoilant plutot quelques details significatifs et precis que l'atmos-
phere generale.
L'apparition d u Poete provoque meme dans certaines traductions
un rapprochement visible de la camera de la situation decrite. Mais
meme dans ce cas, la plupart des traductions sont plus eloquentes que
le poeme original et sous certains aspects m e m e ä cause de cela, la con-
tinuity de l'idee unique qui enflamme l'oeuvre de Baudelaire n'est pas
transposee d ' u n e maniere suffisamment claire et evidente. Chez Haasz,
le Poete est semblable au souverain d u regne des nuees («Α Bäsnik
podoben j e vlädci rise mracne»), chez Holan, le Poete est semblable
au prince qui brille dans des nuees («Bäsnik se podobä princi, jenz
ν mracich sviti») et il se soucie aussi peu des fleches que des illusions
(«dbä stiel j a k iluzi»). Chez Nezval, on parle du p£lerin represente
56 Hana Jechovä
NOTES
FRANTISEK MIKO
c
Le caractere expressif du texte, joint aux moyens thematiques et lin-
guistiques par Iesquels il se realise, forme ce qu'on appelle le style. Du
point de vue de la valeur, il n'y a rien dans la langue et dans le theme
qui ne releve pas du style.
La langue elle-meme, il faut la traiter sur deux plans: (1) comme
chiffre (aspect linguistique); (2) comme le moyen, comme le medium
de la caracteristique expressive (aspect stylistique).
Ce double aspect du probleme semble disparaitre des qu'on aborde
une traduction concrete. Car le processus de la traduction parait homo-
gene. Mais en soumettant ä l'analyse des points critiques du texte
traduit, on demontrerait facilement que les difficultes rencontrees
etaient soit purement linguistiques, soit purement stylistiques, soit enfin
(mais peu nous importe ici) linguistiques et stylistiques a la fois.
Quelles sont les consequences de l'echange du code? La partie de la
caracteristique expressive, qui est en rapport direct avec la facture du
sujet, passe intacte dans la traduction. Ici encore nous laissons de cote
le fait que, dans le contexte litteraire, social et chronologique nouveau,
la valeur et la facture thematique subissent certaines modifications.
Ce n'est la ni la faute du traducteur, ni son merite. L'original n'y peut
rien, ni le texte de la traduction non plus. Dans le jugement total porte
sur la traduction, ces considerations ont leur place. L'aspect historique
est ici indispensable. Mais c'est plutot Γ affaire d'une «dramaturgic»
du traducteur, celle des rapports externes du texte plutot que celle de
sa structure immanente. Pour en rendre compte, il faudrait distinguer
le caractere adequat «transcendant» et «immanent» de la traduction.
La theorie de l'expression et la traduction 65
entre autres pour la bonne raison que loin d'etre un but, elle n'est
qu'un moyen —, si, toutefois, elle sait l'etre!
En passant dans un autre «medium», la caracteristique expressive
elle-meme ne saurait, cependant, etre le critere de sa propre identite.
Ce critere, ce chainon commun, c'est ailleurs qu'on le trouve. De meme
que les valeurs d'un autre genre, Celles de l'expression ne fonctionnent
pas isolement, mais en se definissant mutuellement par leurs opposi-
tions et affinites qui en forment ensemble un systfeme uni, avec une
tolerance correspondante pour les concretisations individuelles. La
caracteristique expressive du texte — le style — a done son origine dans
le systöme expressif sur lequel s'appuie toute genese pratique du style
dans le langage donne. Tandis que les conventions expressives — les
soi-disant normes stylistiques — sont caracteristiques de chaque langue
— puisque chaque langue possMe son hierarchie propre des styles —
le systeme expressif, pensons-nous, est le meme dans chaque langue,
done le meme pour toutes les langues. C'est, pour ainsi dire, un des
«universaux» stylistiques. Cela s'explique par le fait que les categories
d'expression ne sont rien d'autre qu'une differenciation de la fonction
de la langue, d'une segmentation selon les differentes utilisations fonction-
nelles de la langue. L'inventaire de ces utilisations, les possibilites de
l'expression, sont communes pour toute l'humanite, les diverses langues
n'etant differentes que par les combinaisons des diverses categories
qu'elles utilisent et par leur frequence. Le degre de la sociativite
(politesse, ethos, faveur, convention) de l'expression differ era par
exemple en fran9ais de celui qu'on pourra constater en russe ou dans
toute autre langue. Mais, inevitablement, on trouvera la sociativite
comme un chainon du systeme expressif determinant la valeur d'autres
chainons de ce systeme dans chaque langue.
Le systfeme expressif est done, ä notre sens, le moyen permettant de
comparer la situation expressive de la langue de l'original avec celle
de la langue de la traduction et de «mesurer», dans ce sens, le texte
6 8 Frantisek Miko
c
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«facticit^» = expression appuyie sur les faits
favorabiliti = expression de la faveur pour quelqu'un
convention = expression comme une pure convention sociale
&ium6rativite = inventaire, liste, vocabulaire etc.
La theorie de l'expression et la traduction 69
mais aussi dans le sujet. Mais leurs realisations sont dans la langue
beaucoup plus transparentes, plus detaillees et plus consequentes, ce
qui nous am£ne ä construire le systeme expressif ä partir de la langue,
renforijant ainsi l'importance de 1'aspect linguistique dans les problemes
qui nous occupent.
II faut toujours considerer les deux poles de chaque categorie, son
aboutissement positif et son aboutissement negatif (coherence—inco-
herence, largeur—brifevete etc.).
Par l'iconicite de l'expression nous entendons l'accentuation de la
capacite representative dans la langue. Sa manifestation la plus generale,
c'est l'emploi de la troisifeme personne des pronoms et des verbes, mais
non de la premiere et de la deuxieme qui temoignent de l'operativite
de l'expression. Cette expansion formelle modeste de ces categories
expressives les plus generates n'est explicable que par leur caractere
general precisement. Mais elles se realisent en meme temps dans chaque
proposition! Ce sont des proprietes expressives dites triviales q u ' o n ne
considererait meme pas comme faisant partie du style. Cependant, les
differences entre l'operativite et l'iconicite sont pleinement fonctionnelles
et dans les communications on les enregistre toujours avec soin. Le
probleme du narrateur dans la prose moderne n'est pas etranger ä ce
probleme, de meme que la difference entre le lyrique et l'epique etc.
II est, d'ailleurs, parfaitement concevable que l'iconicite au sens large
du mot soit commun ä la fois au style litteraire et au style scientifique.
La difference ne vient qu'apres: le premier se sert de l'expression animee,
le second de l'expression conceptuelle.
Nous considerons comme animatifs tous les moyens linguistiques
qui entraxnent la participation intime du lecteur au contenu du discours.
Une expression conceptuelle n ' a d m e t pas cette participation, impli-
quant, au contraire, le modelage notionnel des mots, de leurs sens et de
leurs aspects syntaxico-mcrphologiques. Sont animatifs, p a r exemple,
tous les moyens lexicaux evoquant des situations concretes de la vie.
72 Frantisek Miko
MOTES
image, une tension ä l'interieur de l'identite, mais ne la supprime pas. O u bien l'identite
cesse d'exister, la traduction cesse d'exister aussi et c'est la creation originale qui com-
mence, c'est-ä-dire «une variation sur le thtaie de l'original». En disant «l'identite»,
nous songeons, evidemment, ä Celle de la valeur et non celle du texte. La traduction
et l'original sont deux textes diffdrents.
En derniere analyse, il ne s'agit pas de savoir si le traducteur est ecrivain ou non,
mais bien si la traduction refait l'original. II faut que le traducteür soit un auteur sans
cesser d'etre traducteur. Ce n'est possible que s'il existe une affinite entre l'auteur et le
traducteur et que ce dernier soit «disponible» (Poggioli, pp. 141-142).
8 On pretend que cet effet est tres variable et subtile, c'est-ä-dire difficile ä identifier
(cf. par exemple Dudley Fitts, «The Poetic Nuance», dans On Translation, p. 34).
J e ne veux aucunement negliger ou sous-estimer les difficultes qui sont manifestes, mais
on ne considere pas assez, me semble-t-il, au moins les faits suivants:
(1) La langue est un moyen de communication, elle l'est meme dans les composantes
les plus subtiles de sa realisation dans le texte. Pour l'ecrivain, il s'agit, quelque effort
qu'il deploie pour le cacher, de rester en contact avec la «communaute», et non seule-
ment avec l'individu, ou avec lui-meme.
(2) Pour assurer la communicabilite de son message, l'auteur, de meme que le lecteur,
suppose l'objectivite du signe esthetique, et, partant, celle de sa fonction, de son «sens».
Autrement, la communication serait impossible.
(3) Ce sont les donnees empiriques qui nous permettent de connaitre. Chaque discipline
doit considerer cette base empirique fournie par son objet et s'y limiter. Quelque
subjective qu'elle soit, elle est empirique, c'est-ä-dire la seule source directe de la con-
naissance dont elle est le point de depart. Pour la discipline qui s'occupe des belles-
lettres, c'est l'ensemble des faits esthdtiques empiriques qui lui offre ce point de depart.
(4) Enfin, cet ensemble de faits esthetiques empiriques entre, plus ou moins evidemment,
en connexion avec les faits observables directement, c'est-ä-dire avec le texte et sa
segmentation. C'est lä d'ailleurs qu'il faut chercher la vraie cause de l'orientation
linguistique intdgrale qui est aujourd'hui celle de l'histoire litteraire et celle de la theorie
de la traduction. Cependant, il ne faut pas, bien sür, pousser l'objectivisme jusqu'ä
faire du texte Ia seule base empirique. D'ailleurs, par des tests on peut se rendre compte
du degre de communicabilite.
(5) Dans la mesure qu'une partie du texte ou de la valeur demeure non-identifiable,
il faut se borner au degri d'objectivite que l'etat actuel de notre discipline peut nous
garantir. C'est ce que nous ne perdons pas de vue. Vouloir davantage, ce serait etrc
peu modeste, mais il serait de meme trop modeste d'exiger moins.
9 Pour la poesie, cf. Jackson Mathews («Third Thoughts on Translating Poetry»,
La theorie de l'expression et la traduction
dans On Translation, p. 66). Cf. aussi Jakobson, p. 238. J e ne voudrais pas que mon
insistence sur la traduisibilit^ de principe füt mal interpritee: le traducteur tout aussi
bien que son lecteur sont bien persuades de l'identitd de la traduction et de l'original
et c'est dans cette conviction qu'ils l'abordent. Chaque decalage est une «deception»
pour le lecteur. II s'agit done d'une identity comme postulat, le r&ultat concret etant
ä ^valuer comme identite non r^alisie, comme l'identit^ «non remplie», mais non
comme une «difference»,
ίο Catford, pp. 32 ss.
Ii Cf. mon ouvrage Estetika vyrazu. Teöria vyrazu α Styl (L'esthetique de l'expression.
La theorie de l'expression et le style; Bratislava, 1969).
i a Cf. la definition du style dans Robert Bloch, Linguistic Structure and Linguistic Analysis
(Washington, 1955), p. 42.
*3 Poggioli, p. 137.
The Concept "Shift of Expression" in Translation Analysis
A N T O N POPOVIÖ
Both the translator and the reader are children of their generation, which displays
its own character in its manner of perception and expression. A n d the older the work
we translate and the more distant the culture which produced it, the more crucial is
the question of how to preserve the temporal and national features of the original and
to make them accessible to the actual perception of the present-day reader.·
This tension also exists with respect to the hierarchy of genres in the
various periods. T h e victim of this process is the translation itself, which
complies with genre requirements even at the price of shifts in com-
position and theme. By way of example we may mention the translation
adaptations in the period of transition from Romanticism to Classicism,
when the Romantic system was passing through a critical stage marked
by shifts in the hierarchy of genres and by phenomena like genre re-
newal, which was expected to counteract the crisis.7
Every conception of translation of any real significance and consistency
finds its principal manifestation in the shifts of expression, the choice
of aesthetic means, and the semantic aspects of the work. 8 Thus in
a translation we can as a rule expect certain changes because the question
of identity and difference in relation to the original can never be solved
without some residue. 9 Identity cannot be the only feature characterizing
the relation. This conclusion is inevitable if we consider the force of
historical factors and the impossibility of repeating an act of translation
as a creative process. T h e theory of the unreproducibility of works of
art by translation fails to pay due attention to the question of the rele-
82
vancy of identity and difference with respect to the original. Jiri Levy
correctly pointed out that only a "naturalistic" translator searches for
corresponding expressions in the recipient language. 10 T h e dominant
point of contact between the original and its translation is the act of
creation and its reproduction with the use of other material, and for
this reason the constant in this relation is its concretization in the per-
ceiving mind, that is to say, the resulting impression, the perception
by the reader. T h e demand of functional faithfulness concerns also the
question of the specific character of the recipient nation and time.
In this regard as well, the translator will not strive to preserve all the
singularities, but will try to find suitable equivalents in the milieu of
his time and his society.
T h e uniqueness of a literary translation as a stylistic achievement
and the dual character of the style imply the existence of two stylistic
norms in the translator's work: the norm of the original and the norm
of the translation. T o be sure, in attempting a characterization of stylistic
features we shall not concern ourselves with the dualism of these two
norms 11 or think of the appurtenance of single elements to either norm,
but we shall strive above all to identify these norms in the stylistic unity
of the translation. Let us try to answer the question how this new unity
originates. It stands to reason that this tracing of the stylistic unity of
a literary translation presupposes an identification of the individual
elements which participate in the coexistence of the two stylistic norms
in the translation. This identification must occur in the context of the
literature and literary conventions relevant to the original and its time
as well as in that of the literature and literary conventions character-
izing the period of the translation.
How can this dual character be detected in the style of the translation?
First of all it is necessary to stress that the existence of the two stylistic
norms in the translation can be conceived of as an interrelation between
a constant and a tendency. T h e norm of the original, that is to say its
83
have some fixed idea of their patterning. W e may, for example, take
as our starting point the conception of style based on expression which
has been Worked out by Frantisek Miko in his studies. 14 Miko's aim
is to establish a link between the stylistic means as the lowest component
of the stylistic system and the idea of style as a unifying agent. This link
he finds in the category or quality of expression. T o be able to know what
actually takes place in the style of a work of art we must break it down
a n d sort out the individual qualities of expression which together mani-
fest a certain pattern. These qualities of expression, if conceived of as
purely abstract concepts outside any specific style, form a system within
which their individual aspects ccmplement a n d link one another (subjec-
tivity, emotionality, expressiveness, appeal, a n d so on). T h e system of
qualities of expression has its own intrinsic order a n d hierarchic gra-
dation. F r o m the most general categories corresponding to the two
basic qualities of language (operativity a n d iconicity, the ability to
state and the ability to depict), the system moves through the mediating
categories (sociativity, subjectivity, animativity, conceptuality) to
specific qualities that do not permit of further analysis (emotionality,
pathos, convention, and the like). Every category following in sequence
is at the same time a differentiation of its predecessor.
This theory of expression provides a starting point for a systematic
evaluation of the shifts of expression that occur in a translation, and so
forms a basis for the objective classification of differences between the
translation a n d its original. T h e structural identification of each stylistic
means in the two texts is an important step towards an evaluation of
the nature of equivalence from the point of view of translation theory.
A method of ordering the means of expression enables us to arrive at
an accurate evaluation of the linguistic means in their context, that is
to say, not in isolation, but in their relation to the entire system of
expression. W i t h this system we can undertake a theoretical investi-
gation of the conformities and differences that emerge when a work
85
NOTES
JAMES S HOLMES
validity, has in other words the advantage of being able to solve them
within the same linguistic system on which the poem itself draws. T h e
second form, the critical essay written in another language, shares with
the first the fact that, as an essay, it is essentially indeterminate 4 in
length, a n d also in subject matter: the critic can run on for as long as
he cares to, and bring in whatever material he thinks relevant, to deal
with even the shortest poem. At the same time this second form manifests
a n u m b e r of traits also characteristic of forms three a n d four: in a very
real if special sense it "translates" the poem into another linguistic
system as well as providing a critical interpretation of it. Form three, the
prose translation, embraces a number of sub-forms, varying from the
verbatim (interlinear, "literal", "word-for-word") 5 and the rank-bound®
translation to the unbound "literary" translation attempting to transfer
more elusive qualities of the original poem; 7 all these sub-forms, though,
share the fact that (like forms one a n d two) they use prose as their
m e d i u m a n d (like form four) are essentially determinate in length a n d
subject matter.
Verse Translation and Verse Form 93
Form four, the verse translation, is like all the previous forms inter-
pretative in intent, and like form three determinate in length and
subject matter; at the same time it is fundamentally different from them,
and like the remaining three forms, in the very basic fact that it makes
use of verse as its medium, and hence manifestly aspires to be a poem in
its own right, about which a new fan of meta-literature can take shape.
Forms five, six, and seven, the imitation (in John Dryden's sense),8
the poem drawing from the original in an indirect, partial way, and the
poem only vaguely, generally inspired by the original, are like the verse
translation and unlike the first three forms in their medium, but unlike
forms three and four in the increasing indeterminacy of their length
and subject matter, and unlike all the first four forms in the absence of
interpretation of the original as one of their major purposes.
As this brief morphology re-emphasizes, all translation is an act of
critical interpretation, but there are some translations of poetry which
differ from all other interpretative forms in that they also have the aim
of being acts of poetry — though it should immediately be pointed
out that this poetry is of a very special kind, referring not to Barthes's
"objects and phenomena . . . external and anterior to language", but
to another linguistic object: the original poem. I have suggested else-
where that amidst the general confusion in the terminology of translation
studies it might be helpful if for this specific literary form, with its double
purpose as meta-literature and as primary literature, we introduced
the designation "metapoem". 9
By virtue of its double purpose, the metapoem is a nexus of a complex
bundle of relationships converging from two directions: from the original
poem, in its language, and linked in a very specific way to the poetic
tradition of that language; and from the poetic tradition of the target
language, with its more or less stringent expectations regarding poetry
which the metapoem, if it is to be successful as poetry, must in some
measure meet.
94 James S Holmes
This complex series of relationships gives rise to various tensions that are
absent, or at least less emphatically present, in other kinds of translations.
One primary source of tension lies in the problem of choosing the most
appropriate form of verse in which to cast the metapoem. 10
What should the verse form of a metapoem be? There is, surely, no
other problem of translation that has generated so much heat, and so
little light, among the normative critics. Poetry, says one, should be
translated into prose.11 No, says a second, it should be translated into
verse, for in prose its very essence is lost.12 By all means into verse, and
into the form of the original, argues a third. 13 Verse into verse, fair
enough, says a fourth, but God save us from Homer in English hexam-
eters.14
^ The attention of critics for this problem, if not their overconfidence
in the universal validity of their own solutions to it, is understandable,
for in the intricate process of decision-making which translation is,15
the decision regarding the verse form to be used, made as it must be at
a very early stage in the entire process, can be largely determinative
for the nature and sequence of the decisions still to come. It is, then,
perhaps worth our while to lay aside prescription in favour of description,
and to survey systematically the various solutions that have been found.
Traditionally, translators have chosen between four approaches to
the problem. (A fifth has been simply to sidestep it, by rendering the
poem in prose. Technically, this might be considered as a kind of nil-
form solution, but it would seem more satisfactory to keep to the classi-
fication proposed above, relegating the product of this approach to
Verse Translation and Verse Form
form three and concerning ourselves here only with form four, the
translation which chooses to render poetry as poetry.)
The first traditional approach is that usually described as retaining
the form of the original. Actually, since a verse form cannot exist outside
language (though it is a convenient fiction that it can), it follows that
no form can be "retained" by the translator as he moves from a source
language to his target language. For this reason it is also preferable to
avoid the term "identical f o r m " : no verse form in any one language
can be entirely identical with a verse form in any other, however similar
their nomenclatures a n d however cognate the languages. W h a t in
reality happens is that, much as one dancer may perform a pattern of
steps closely resembling another's, yet always somehow different, be-
cause the two dancers are different, in the same way the translator
taking this first approach will imitate the form of the original as best
he can, constructing German hexameters for Greek, or English terza
rima for Italian. 1 6 This approach, which might therefore best be described
as one of "mimetic form", can be formulated as follows:
Each of these four types of metapoetic form, the mimetic, the analog-
ical, the organic, and the extraneous, by its nature opens u p certain
possibilities for the translator who chooses it, and at the same time
closes others. The effect of the analogical form is to bring the original
poem within the native tradition, to "naturalize" it. Pope's Iliad, in
rhymed couplets, becomes something very much like an English poem
about English gentlemen, for all the Greek trappings of the fable. It
follows that the analogical form is the choice to be expected in a period
that is inturned and exclusive, believing that its own norms provide
a valid touchstone by which to test the literature of other places and
other times. Periods of this kind tend moreover to have such highly
developed genre concepts that any type of form other than the analog-
ical would be quite unacceptable to the prevailing literary taste. It
is understandable, then, that the analogical form was the dominant
metapoetic form during the neo-classical eighteenth century. 1 8
The mimetic form, on the other hand, tends to have the effect of re-
emphasizing, by its strangeness, the strangeness which for the target-
language reader is inherent in the semantic message of the original
poem. Rather than interpreting the original in terms of the native
tradition, the mimetic metapoem requires the reader to stretch the
limits of his literary sensibility, to extend his view beyond the bounds
98 James S Holmes
Would have allowed. At any rate, the extraneous form has h a d a te-
nacious life as a kind of underground, minority form alongside the
other possibilities ever since the seventeenth century. R a t h e r than a period
form, it has been a constant across the years, resorted to particularly
by metapoets who lean in the direction of the imitation.
Yet the mimetic a n d analogical forms, too, must be viewed not
solely as period forms, b u t also as literary constants which have continued
to exert an influence long after their heyday. H e n r y Francis Cary
translated the Divine Comedy in analogical blank verse in the dominantly
mimetic nineteenth century, a n d m a n y a translator has tried his h a n d
at mimetic terza rima in the basically organic twentieth. In fact, the
mimetic and analogical forms are still so m u c h alive today that in recent
years two distinguished contemporary translators have each given us
English renderings of b o t h the Iliad a n d the Odyssey, one, R i c h m o n d
Lattimore, translating in hexameters, the other, Robert Fitzgerald,
in blank verse. I n the organic mode, on the other h a n d , our time has
produced only two books of the Iliad by Christopher Logue a n d the
passages from the Odyssey in Ezra Pound's Cantos.
Now when we had gone down again to the sea and our vessel,
first of all we dragged the ship down into the bright water,
and in the black hull set the mast in place, and set sails,
and took the sheep and walked them aboard, and ourselves also
embarked, but sorrowful, and weeping big tears. Circe
of the lovely hair, the dread goddess who talks with mortals,
sent us an excellent companion, a following wind, filling
the sails, to carry from astern the ship with the dark prow.
We ourselves, over all the ship making fast the running gear,
sat still, and let the wind and the steersman hold her steady.
All day long her sails were filled as she went through the water,
and the sun set, and all the journeying-ways were darkened.
Verse Translation and Verse Form ΙΟΙ
NOTES
ι Roland Barthes, "Criticism as Language", in The Critical Moment: Essays on the Nature
of Literature (London, 1964), pp. 123-129, quotation p. 126. Cf. Rene Wellek's similar
remark regarding criticism: "Its aim is intellectual cognition.lt does not create a fic-
tional imaginative world such as the world of music or poetry." (Rene Wellek, "Literary
Theory, Criticism, and History", in his Concepts of Criticism [New Haven, 1963], pp.
1-20, quotation p. 4).
2 In order to avoid confusion with other, more common meanings given to the term
"meta-language" in contemporary linguistics and philosophy.
3 These forms, of course, constitute only a segment from a larger arc which also includes
the paraphrase and other derivative forms in the original language.
4 In the mathematical sense of determinacy: a work of meta-literature is indeterminate
in length and/or subject matter when its length and/or subject matter are not restricted
by the length and/or subject matter of the work of original literature which occasions
it, and is determinate when it is so restricted.
5 The term "literal translation" has a long lineage, but is less accurate than might be
required of a technical expression: even the closest translation does not usually follow
the original at a rank lower than the word. "Word-for-word translation", a term with an
even longer lineage (deriving as it does from Cicero), is a more accurate, but also more
awkward, designation for the same thing. Would "verbatim translation" or "lexical
translation" not be more satisfactory terms than either of these two?
6 O n the term rank-bound translation, see John C. Catford, A Linguistic Theory of
Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics (London, 1965; Language and Language
Learning, V I I I ) , esp. pp. 24—25; the term derives from the grammatical system pro-
posed by Μ. A. K ; Halliday in his "Categories of the Theory of Grammar", Word
Verse Translation and Verse Form 103
Translations", in his Pencillings: Little Essays on Literature [London, 1923], pp. 128-137,
quotations p. 129.)
12 See e.g. Alexander Fraser Tytler, who in his Essay on the Principles of Translation
(London, n.d. [first published 1791]; Everyman's Library), formulated one of the
chief arguments against the prose rendering: " T o attempt a translation of a lyric poem
into prose, is the most absurd of all undertakings; for those very characters of the orig-
inal which are essential to it, and which constitute its highest beauties, if transferred
to a prose translation, become unpardonable blemishes." (p. 111).
13 Perhaps the ablest defence of this point of view in English, in theory if not in prac-
tice, was that of Matthew Arnold, who demanded a Homer in English hexameters —
though he immediately proceeded to point out that they must be "good English hex-
ameters": see his series of lectures On Translating Homer (London, 1861). In other lan-
guages, if not in English, this point of view is today still frequently advocated as the
only possible one; see e.g. the remark (in connection with the work of one of the trans-
lators for the Russian English-language review Soviet Literature) that "Like most of our
other translators of poetry she considers it essential to convey in English the rhythm and
rhyme pattern of the original. The tradition of rhymed metric verse is fully alive in
modern Soviet poetry and even though free and blank verse may be predominant in
the West we feel it would be wrong to make Soviet poets fit an alien standard." (Valen-
tina Jacque, " O u r Translators", Soviet Literature [Moscow], 1968, No. 6, pp. 175-180,
quotation p. 178).
14 T h e attitude of almost every critic over the past hundred years to touch on the con-
troversy between Arnold and Francis Newman (see Arnold's lectures mentioned in
note 13 and Newman's Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice [London, 1861]) has
been to despair of creating a hexameter capable of serving as a feasible English metre
for Homer. Only the recent translations of Richmond Lattimore have brought a change
in this attitude.
15 Cf. the last article by Jiri Levy, his "Translation as a Decision Process", in To
Honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, 11 October 1966
(3 vols., T h e Hague, 1967), II, 1171-1182.
16 T h e analogue of dancing is borrowed from W. Haas, who uses it to describe the
transfer of meaning in the process of translation as a whole: see his " T h e Theory of
Translation", in G. H. R, Parkinson (ed.), The Theory of Meaning (London, 1968), pp.
86-108, reference p. 104. Haas's study was originally published as an article in Philos-
ophy (London), X X X V I I (1962), 208-228.
17 There is also a kind of "pseudo-mimetic" or "mock-mimetic" approach in which
the translator looks more at the names of forms than at the forms themselves. Various
Verse Translation and Verse Form 105
translators, for instance, have felt called upon to translate the French Classical play-
wrights into English alexandrines, guided (or misguided) by the belief that they were
in some way "equivalent" to French alexandrines, which in fact they are not, either
in form or in function. This pseudo-mimetic form is only one of a number of sub-forms,
mixed forms, and variants that have been neglected here in favour of a series of major
categories which are at best Weberian ideal-types and cannot be considered to do full
justice to the wide diversity of actual practice.
18 Here and in the following remarks I have based my observations primarily on the
literary history of translation in the Western European languages (though even there
the French, with their predilection for translations into prose, are something of an excep-
tion) ; I am not sure that what I have to say applies with equal force to the Slavonic
literatures. Outside the European tradition, of course, it would not seem to apply at
all. In the translation of non-European verse iruo European languages, incidentally,
the additional problems have always served to reduce the ranks of the mimeticists;
to understand why, one has only to think of the issues involved in translating the seman-
tic content of, say, a Chinese poem within the strict confines of a mimetic form.
19 The Odyssey, tr. Robert Fitzgerald (New York, 1961), Book X I , 11. 1-20.
20 The Odyssey, tr. Richmond Lattimore (New York, Evanston, and London, 1967),
Book X I , 11. 1-19.
21 Ezra Pound, Seventy Cantos (London, 1950), Canto I, 11. 1-16 (first published in
book form in A Draft of XVI Cantos [London, 1925]). Some of the semantic differences
in Pound's version are a result of the fact that he relied heavily on Andreas Divus'
humanist translation (1538) into Latin: on Divus see Pound's essay "Translators
of Greek: Early Translators of Homer", in his Literary Essays, ed. T. S. Eliot (London,
1954), pp. 249-275, esp. pp. 259-267 (the section on Divus was first published in
1918).
The Problem of Verse Rhythm in Translation
V I K T O R KOCHOL
GIVI R. GACHECHILADZE
the two, by analogy with the synthesis between the two creative indi-
vidualities involved in the process of translation.)
W h a t I a m concerned with here is the problem of comparative
versification, without whose solution no poetic translation is possible.
Apart from the fact that the solution of this problem will offer the trans-
lator greater possibilities of versification in his native tongue as com-
pared with the metres of other languages, the comparative point of
view m a y in general reveal new aspects of a problem now m u c h under
study, a n d may even result in a reappraisal o f t h a t problem. A discussion
of Georgian verse on a comparative plane may enable us to m a k e
certain generalizations along these lines.
T h e peculiarity of the Georgian language lies chiefly in its rhythmico-
melodic structure. Studies of Georgian articulate speech show that
its dynamic stress is very weak, movable, phrasal rather than verbal,
and subject to semantic influence. 1 I n polysyllabic Georgian words
the force of expiration is evenly distributed over all the syllables with
the exception of the last two, which are weaker than the others, a n d
it is apparently this that creates the impression of a general dactylic
levelling in the language. T h e same may be said of disyllabic words,
in which the first syllable is stronger than the second when the w o r d
is used in isolation; in a phrase, however, such words are subject to the
rule governing polysyllabic Words.
This suggests an analogy with French, in which the force of expiration
is likewise evenly distributed over all syllables except the final stressed
syntagm, this producing the impression of stress on the final syllable
of each French word. If stress of this kind is possible in an individual
word, it presumably occurs only if the word constitutes a syntagm in
connected speech, whereas elsewhere in French connected speech there
is phrasal stress analogous to that in Georgian.
In Georgian versification, as in French, 2 the type of verse is determined
by the number of syllables. However, in Georgian the verse line is
Givi R. Gachechiladze
Octosyllabic Metres
Decasyllabic Metres
Tetrakaidecasyllabic Metres
The concrete material of living languages reveals that word stress is not deformed under
the influence of metrical accent. The choice of this or that metre is not free, but restricted
according to the phonetic structure of a given language; thus in English after the loss
of the syllables of inflection, the majority of the words of Germanic origin were reduced
Georgian Verse and Comparative Versification 117
languages correspond to each other, for every translator knows that metres
that are equal in quantitative respects may have a very different aes-
thetic value in their qualitative characteristics. However, long practice
has established some traditions. Thus, notwithstanding all the impreci-
sions peculiar to the syllabo-tonic system, Shakespeare's iambic pentam-
eter can be translated into many languages in the same metre and his
verse reproduced in a fairly adequate way. Yet the corresponding
decasyllabic Georgian verse, which may have " k n e e " combinations
of 5 + 5 or even 4 + 4 + 2 , is absolutely unacceptable for the translation
of Shakespeare, not only because of the polysyllabism of Georgian
words, but because of the intonational disparity. It is for this reason that
Shakespeare is translated into Georgian only in tetrakaidecasyllabic
verse, with 5 + 4 + 5 "knees".
But whereas the problems are not all too complex in the rendering
of regular metres, free verse, which has found its way into modern
literature, is in need of its own poetics and its own correspondences
with foreign originals. In English and Russian, free verse may be based
on stress a n d a stress-based rhythmic and phonetic structure devoid
of rhyme a n d measure, without being wanting in poetic composition,
rhythm, and imagery. But what of the problem of free verse in a language
characterized by weak word stress? How to avoid turning such verse
into prose, or, to quote the poet David Samojlov, "into a dull, semi-
prosaic cud"? 1 2 Here again one must consider the example of French
a n d the peculiar metrics of Georgian verse.
French verse inherited from the Latin the tradition of unrhymed verse
which received its final sanction from Classicism, a n d possibly from that
manner of written rather than oral expression, that striving after per-
fection in writing (here again influenced by the visual perception of
Latin texts) which according to the late E d m o n d Cary, the prominent
theoretician of translation, is to be seen as the source of this historical
peculiarity of French prosody and translation poetics. 13 Does not this
Georgian Verse and Comparative Versification 121
NOTES
VILIAM TURÖÄNY
(2) L'autre divergence consiste dans les vers aux rimes de trois syllabes.
Des quatre exemples qui se trouvent dans YEnfer, il y en a trois ä rime
glissante, ayant l'accent sur l'antepenultieme (XV. 1—3; XXIII.32—36;
X X I V . 6 2 - 6 6 ; XXV111.80-84), qui se rapportent au motif des rives et
du pont ecroule, par exemple:
Dans les deux cas, done dans le cas de la rime monosyllabique et dans
le cas de celle de trois syllabes, l'ampleur d u vers change aussi (selon
la metrique italienne c'est toujours l'hendecasyllabe): dans le premier
type, l'hendecasyllabe est rendu par un vers decasyllabique, dans le
deuxieme par u n vers dodecasyllabique. Le role d u rythme change
devrait etre assume, surtout dans le vers decasyllabique, par u n autre
element, eventuellement sur u n autre plan, hors du plan rythmique,
si, dans la traduction, nous faisons alterner regulierement la rime femi-
nine et la rime masculine partout ailleurs aussi. Par ce fait, l'hende-
casyllabe et le decasyllabe se relayeraient automatiquement, et, dans un
tel entourage heterogene, u n decasyllabe de plus (surnormatif) perdrait
son efficacite primitive, beaucoup plus sensible sur le fond des hende-
casyllabes. L'alternance mentionnee des deux series de trois decasyllabes
successifs nous suggererait plutot une certaine maladresse de la part
du traducteur a u lieu de nous rappeler qu'il s'agit de faire ressortir
la divergence.
Ajoutons encore qu'il ne serait pas tout ä fait exact d'attribuer la
frequence de la rime feminine dans l'ancienne poesie italienne uni-
quement au genie de la langue. En face des 85 pour cent des mots
accentues sur la syllabe penultieme, dans l'ensemble d u vocabulaire
italien, on trouve dans la Divine Comedie de Dante, une proportion de
98 pour cent de rimes feminines, e'est-a-dire qu'on est en droit de parier
d'une certaine stylisation de cet element et de son «information esthe-
tique». U n e selection consciencieuse des mots pour les registres de rimes
se manifeste aussi par le phenomene qu'il n'y a pas de rencontre de
mots differemment accentues (par exemple «testa» — «maestä»;
c'est-ä-dire dans le premier mot l'accent porte sur la syllabe penultieme
et dans le deuxieme m o t sur la finale). Du point de vue de notre sylla-
bisme slovaque, il est surprenant de constater que dans le vers syllabique
oil la disposition des accents n'obeit pas ä des regies fixes, il y a u n accord
des ictus dans les parties qui riment, qui est, en effet (avec le nombre
130 Viliam Turcäny
sont lies les Clements des differents types nationaux de vers du texte
original et de la traduction.
Le merite de Levy et de Vladislav consiste, entre autres, en ceci
qu'ils ont attire l'attention sur les elements identiques quant ä leur
forme, mais divergents quant ä leur fonction, dans les differentes langues
et dans la tradition des litteratures respectives. Si l'ceuvre d'art est
consideree comme un organisme vivant, comme un systeme d'elements
varies, il est evident qu'un element, malgre une apparente identicite
de la forme, aura une valeur differente dans une traduction, done dans
un systeme necessairement different. La place de l'element ne peut
etre etudiee que dans un systeme qui, surtout en tant qu'un ensemble,
doit etre l'equivalent de l'original. Levy a done parfaitement raison
d'admettre d'exprimer une certaine qualite rythmique, qui pour des
raisons linguistiques ou autres, propres ä la traduction litteraire, ne
peut etre rendue, en recourant ä une solution sur un plan different
(par exemple sur celui du vocabulaire). Cependant, il est egalement
evident que, lä oü Dante parle explicitement de rimes «rüdes» (bar-
bares) , il faudrait respecter la «rudesse» dans cet element aussi (bien que
1'expression «le rime» puisse designer meme ici des vers entiers et non
seulement des rimes). Seule une analyse plus poussee permettrait de
decouvrir comment la «rudesse» mentionnee se manifeste dans l'original
et de juger si on pourrait produire la meme impression dans la langue
dans laquelle on traduit. Chez Dante, les rimes «rüdes» sont caracterisees,
avant tout, par une consonne redoublee dans une position intervocalique
(«chioccia» — «roccia» — «noccia» etc.), ce qui ne pourrait se realiser
en slovaque, et, a part de cela, dans de pareils cas, aueune «rudesse»
ne serait sensible (par exemple «ranny» — «panny» — «manny»
etc.). Cette rudesse serait encore moins perceptible dans un autre type
de vers, qui s'appuie, le plus souvent, sur un groupe de deux consonnes
intervocaliques («s'allegra» — «negra» — «integra»). Dans notre
traduction, 1 nous avons recouru, dans les vers correspondants, soit ä un
132 Viliam Turcäny
NOTE
ι Dante, Peklo (Inferno), traduit par Jozef Felix et Viliam Turcany (Bratislava, 1964).
IV
BOHUSLAV ILEK
camel. In all such cases the translator will go other ways in looking for
an equivalent expression. There are, of course, not such severe require-
ments in translating a farce as there are in translating a tragedy.
I believe that the quality of translation has been better during the
last ten or fifteen years than it was before the war. Nevertheless, in the
translation of symbolic expressions a n d images the reader can still find
many errors. Let us look at some of them.
In the first place, the image is not infrequently left out. For example,
in a translation of a poem by Lu Hsün, " A n A u t u m n N i g h t " , we read
simply that "Somebody l a u g h e d " instead of the original metaphorical
expression " T h e laugh of the midnight silence was to be h e a r d . "
In the second place, the image is many times destroyed by explication.
Vitezslav Nezval, for instance, says in one of his poems " A pisni naslouchä
jiz za ozvenou skal dohrälo dite fletnou" (He listens to a lay played
on a flute by a child hidden behind the echo of the cliffs); in a translation
we read " H e listens to a lay echoed by the cliffs."
I n the third place, a Worn, banal image is often given in the place
of a fresh and new one. I n Shakespeare's Hamlet Laertes warns his sister
to " K e e p . . . / O u t of the shot and danger of desire" (I.iii.34—35).
Instead of this impressive image we read in a new Czech translation
something like "you must bridle your feelings." Nezval's forceful
aphorism " V kazdem ζ näs drimä lidoop" (In each of us slumbers an
ape) is much more expressive than the translation " I n each of us there
is a ravenous savage."
I do not mean to deny the right of translators to make use of the
techniques of substitution a n d compensation. But it is necessary to
distinguish between motivated a n d non-motivated changes. I would
regard as non-motivated any change due to insufficient interpretation
of the original. Every good translator is aware of the limits of his licence
to make changes in the poetic text. Non-motivated changes heavily
affect the unity and vigour of the poetic work. As a n example of moti-
138 Bohuslav Ilek
DUSAN S L O B O D N f K
NOTES
ι Dans l'article «Concluding Statements: Linguistics and Poetics», dans Style in Lan-
guage (red. Thomas A. Sebeok; Cambridge, Mass. et N e w York, 1960), pp. 350-377.
a «O vzfahu näreci a spisovn6ho jazyka» (Sur le rapport des dialectes et de langue
ecrite), dans Kultlira spisovnej slovenliny (La promotion du slovaque ecrit; Bratislava, 1967),
pp. 29-34.
3 Paris, 1965.
De la specification de la traduction de l'ceuvre dramatique
JAN FERENCfK
/ 1 livre — lecteur
auteur — traducteur
\ l l interpr£te — spectateur ou auditeur
II se pose une question: Est-ce que, dans les deux cas, le traducteur
proc^de de la meme mani^re et le schema (la chaine) se realise-t-il
dans le meme ordre chronologique que celui que nous avons mentionne
plus haut? II faut, des maintenant, repondre par la negative, tout au
moins dans la plupart des cas.
146 ]άη Ferencik
R A D U LUPAN
ALOYS SKOUMAL
In various essays dealing with the theory of translation one comes across
a recurrent theme, or rather a recurrent metaphor. It is a metaphor
of a distinctly sartorial character. It would be a rewarding task to study
the history of this metaphor in detail, linking it with Thomas Carlyle's
philosophy of clothes.
To my knowledge, the first use of the metaphor occurs in Francois
de Malherbe's Discours sur Godeau. This is what Malherbe says (as quoted
by Rolf Kloepfer in his remarkable study Die Theone der literarischen
Übersetzung) :x "il est besoin d'une haute suffisance, et d'une longue
meditation pour empecher qu'un auteur ne paroisse ridicule sous des
habits qu'il n'a pas accoutume de porter . . ." 2
Next comes a note by Virginia Woolf, occasioned by reading Russian
authors in mediocre English translations:
. . . without any disrespect to the translator we have grown intolerably weary in reading
Dostoevsky, as if we were reading with the wrong spectacles or as if a mist had formed
The Sartorial Metaphor and Incongruity 155
between us and the page. We come to feel that every idea Is slipping about in a suit
badly cut and many sizes too large for it. For a translation makes us understand more
clearly than the lectures of any professor the difference between raw words and written
words; the nature and importance of what we call style. Even an inferior writer, using
his own tongue upon his own ideas, works a change at once which is agreeable and
remarkable. Under his pen the sentence shrinks and wraps itself firmly round the
meaning, if it be but a little one. The loose, the baggy shrivels up. 3
Compared with Virginia Woolf's "suit badly cut and many sizes too
large", the "ample folds" of my next author's "royal robe" may appear
considerably nobler, but when all is said and done it comes to the same
thing. In his "Aufgabe des Übersetzers" Walter Benjamin lays stress on
that which is more than mere communication in translation:
. . . was an einer Übersetzung mehr ist als Mitteilung. Genauer lässt sich dieser we-
senhafte Kern als dasjenige bestimmen, was an ihr selbst nicht wiederum übersetzbar
ist. Mag man nämlich an Mitteilung aus ihr entnehmen, soviel man kann, und dies
übersetzen, so bleibt dennoch dasjenige unberührbar zurück, worauf die Arbeit des
wahren Übersetzers sich richtete. Es ist nicht übertragbar wie das Dichterwort des
Originals, weil das Verhältnis des Gehalts zur Sprache völlig verschieden ist in Original
und Übersetzung. Bilden nämlich diese im ersten eine gewisse Einheit wie Frucht und
Schale, so umgibt die Sprache der Übersetzung ihren Gehalt wie ein Königsmantel
in weiten Falten. 4
NOTES
GYÖRGY RAD0
L'idee fondamentale des fantaisies que je vous presente est nee il y a dix
mois ä Budapest: dans les hautes spheres des sciences exactes il se tenait
une reunion pour discuter les questions de la traduction machinale,
et Tun des savants s'abaissa jusqu'au «genus irritabile vatum», c'est-ä-dire
jusqu'ä la boheme des traducteurs: les traducteurs litteraires. C'etait
un sympatique Bulgare, Aleksandr Luckianov. II nous demontrait
avec la logique implacable des mathematiques (en tout cas d'une
mathematique destinee aux bohemes) les possibilites absolues des
ordinateurs: qu'il n'y a aucun element linguistique, culturel, historique,
psychologique dont ne pourrait etre alimentee une telle machine.
En d'autres mots: d'une fagon absolue une machine ä traduire est
realisable, bien que nous ne risquions pas d'etre prives de notre pain
dans un delai k prevoir, ajouta-t-il pour nous consoler. J e me herissai
devant cette idee d'une theologie des machines, nous eümes une breve
discussion ΐΓέ5 amicale avec le professeur Luckianov, et depuis ce temps-
lä, j'ai encore parfois des velleites d'opposition. Est-ce qu'il n'y a pas
des choses que la machine ne pourra jamais donner k la traduction, qui
i58 György Rado
et non seulement dans les traductions litteraires, mais encore dans les
traductions techniques et scientifiques: c'est l'intuition qui vous fait
consulter un dictionnaire.
«Poeta non fit, sed nascitur» —- c'est vrai, mais «translator fit nas-
citurque». Pour, devenir un poete-traducteur il faut avoir regu ä sa
naissance un don special, mais il faut aussi developper certains sens en
soi-meme: celui de la perception des elements de l'original, celui de la
reproduction equivalente etc., et, «last but not least», celui de Γ usage
du dictionnaire.
Personne ne possöde absolument une langue: on a des surprises
meme dans sa langue maternelle et a fortiori dans une langue etrangere.
Ainsi l'usage des dictionnaires est indispensable.
Mais les difficultes ne sont pas toujours evidentes. Parfois un mot
apparemment simple et comprehensible evoque ce vague soup9on, ce
«je-ne-sais-quoi» que le traducteur doit developper en lui-meme. Et,
alors, ce traducteur qui n'a pas besoin d'un dictionnaire dans des cas
beaucoup plus compliques, va le consulter pour verifier si ses doutes
etaient justifies.
Ce soup<jon, cette exigence de verification d'expressions apparemment
simples, c'est le «je-ne-sais-quoi» de la traduction. Et c'est ce qui fait
un art du metier du traducteur.
The Translator Looks at Translation
V.Y. LEVIK
Les philosophes disent que l'on connait tout par la comparaison. O n dit
encore que l'homme peut se representer un objet inconnu en l'assimilant
et en le comparant ä des objets connus. J'en doute. U n e fois, je devais
decrire ä des amis le «feijoa», un fruit bresilien. Je leur dis que par son
aspect, il rappelait un petit concombre, lorsqu'on le prend dans la
bouche, on dirait un citron, quand on commence ä le manger, on a le
goüt de la fraise, et lorsqu'on l'a deguste, il vous reste un arriere-goüt
d'amande am£re. Sceptiques, mes amis se taisaient et, il faut le recon-
naitre, il y avait de quoi.
Neanmoins, j e vais avoir recours ä la comparaison, car pour developper
mon theme «la traduction et la creation litteraires», cette methode, en
depit de ce que j e viens de dire, me semble la meilleure. Je ne parlerai
que de la traduction de poesie.
Le grand reformateur de la litterature russe, Aleksandr Puskin,
a cree dans son recit «Egipetskije noci» (Les nuits egyptiennes) l'image
d'un pocte-improvisateur. (Comme vous le savez, l'art d'improviser
sur un sujet donne etait tres ä la mode aux si^cles precedents. De nos
jours, il a presque disparu.) Puskin ecrit:
164 V. V. Levik
Comment? Ä peine la pensee d'autrui a-t-elle effleure votre ou'ie que dejä eile est de-
venue votre propriete, comme si vous l'aviez portee, choyee, developpee sans cesse . . .
Personne, sinon l'improvisateur, ne peut comprendre cette vitesse d'impressions, cette
etroite relation entre sa propre inspiration et la volonte d'autrui venant de l'exterieur.
Pour la traduction des mots et des metaphores, j'ai fait appel ä la traduction des pensees
et des scenes. II faut estimer que l'ouvrage [il s'agit de la traduction d'Hamlet] est une
oeuvre dramatique russe originale, parce que, en plus de la precision, de la difference
des lignes par rapport k l'original, il renferme surtout cette liberte voulue, sans laquelle
on ne peut se rapprocher des grandes choses.
VACLAV RENÖ
vent, avec un rare goüt et une culture sans pareille, plutot et surtout
l'esprit de l'ceuvre originale, le mouvement des idees, le rythme de
rim2.ginp.ti0n qui s'y revele; cependant elles refusent, presque par
principe, d'essayer d'interpreter egalement la forme prosodique de
l'original. Sans doute, seule la langue frangaise en fait un po£me «sui
generis». Et dans le principe meme, on peut y voir une humilite dis-
ciplinee envers «l'inexprimable», une resignation sage et premeditee.
Neanmoins, on se rappelle — excusez-moi d'etre un peu banal —
ce vers de Francois de Ma.lherbe que cite le fameux abbe Henri Bremond:
«Et les fruits passeront la promesse des fleurs.» Le grand critique appre-
cie avec enthousiasme l'harmonie magique de ces quatre anapestes, en
ajoutant qu'on ne pourrait y changer une seule syllabe, par exemple:
«Et les fruits passeront les promesses des fleurs», sans briser en meme
temps le vase . . . Et moi, j'ose ajouter: Helas, combien de vases precieux
ont ete ainsi brises, par le seul fait d'une resignation respectueuse qui
neglige la magie de la forme prosodique!
Mais il ne s'agit pas de comparer les deux methodes, celle que nous
appellerons «fransaise» et celle qui caracterise, entre autres, les traduc-
tions tcheques des poemes etrangers — pour decider laquelle est la plus
adequate. On ne sait que trop bien comment, par la methode «proso-
dique», on peut ecraser le charme de l'original, en comptant les syllabes
et en imitant les rimes. Ce que les deux methodes ont en commun (et
non seulement pour ce qui est des vers rimes), c'est une sorte de sub-
jectivite indispensable dans la recherche de la «seule solution adequate»
de l'interpretation. Car aucun systöme, aucune analyse, aucune statis-
tique d'une ecole formaliste, par exemple, ne saurait reconstruire,
independamment, la magie authentique d'un seul vers. II faut un don
d'esprit tout special, comme on a l'habitude de dire.
Mais la encore, il y a d'autres difficultes et d'autres differences. Si en
Tchecoslovaquie, par exemple, c'est la tradition et presque une r£gle
absolue que surtout les traductions de poesies sont 1'oeuvre d'auteurs
174 Vdclav Rene
LACESAR STANCEV
Ce bruit vague
Q u i s'endort
C'est la vague
Sur le bord;
C'est la plainte
Presque eteinte
D ' u n e sainte
Pour u n mort.
Sum υ polata,
fum zamirial —
bij vulnata
ν strumen val;
plac na cajka
zal na majka
sto se vajka
za umrial.
II m ' a fallu essayer bien des variantes avant d'adopter cette version
ä peu pres exacte quant ä la forme et la sonorite. J ' a i essaye egalement
plus de dix variantes avant d'arriver ä la version definitive du po£me
«La d a m e en noir» insere dans le recueil Poemes choisis d'Emile Ver-
haeren, traduits par moi et edites en 1965, egalement par Narodna
Kultura. Ces traductions, ma traduction de L'ecole des femmes de Moliere,
de Mithridate de Racine, ainsi que de vers de Paul Eluard, de Louis
Aragon etc. — j e les considere comme une partie importante de m a
modeste oeuvre poetique, qui comprend sept livres de poesies pour
adultes et un nombre cinq fois plus grand de livres, vers et poemes,
pour enfants et adolescents.
177
La traduction est pour moi un art fort souvent beaucoup plus difficile
que celui d'ecrire.
Oü faut-il chercher les origines de l'art de traduire? Nombreux
sont les contes et les chants qui emaillent le folklore des differents
peuples: les recits d'Orient, les legendes anglo-normandes, les sagas
scandinaves, les contes des peuples slaves, germaniques et romans eh
Europe, des peuples asiatiques et africains ont fait le tour du monde.
Les migrations des populations ont permis ä ces premieres oeuvres litte-
raires de se repandre. En faisant des recherches approfondies, nous
pouvons remonter aux sources d'une certaine creation populaire orale.
Assimilee par un autre peuple, eile a du subir des modifications parti-
culieres, conformement aux conceptions et ä la culture de sa seconde
patrie; ainsi, eile a ete «traduite» en une autre langue par des inter-
pr£tes inconnus qui peuvent avoir enrichi ou bien appauvri 1'original.
Dans l'Antiquite cet echange s'effectuait inconsciemment. De nos jours
il devrait etre tout ä fait conscient, puisque, dans la lutte contre l'oppres-
sion et la domination, les esprits lucides et sains de l'humanite doivent
s'efforcer de faire de tous les peuples une famille unie. Le traducteur
contemporain contribue ä repandre les idees dans le monde entier.
La connaissance mutuelle favorise le progres et la transformation de
1'univers.
II y a des traducteurs qui sont prets ä traduire tout ce qui leur tombe
sous la main. Nous pouvons les comparer ä des acteurs sans emploi et
qui acceptent d'interpreter n'importe quel röle. De pareils traducteurs
ou de pareils acteurs veg£tent habituellement dans la mediocrite. Tout
comme on trouve parmi les acteurs de grands comediens et de grands
tragediens qui se consacrent ä un seul genre et se forgent leur propre
style, il se trouve de meme parmi les traducteurs des createurs excep-
tionnellement doues qui cherchent et traduisent uniquement les auteurs
avec qui une certaine Sympathie les relie. Le bon traducteur traduit
ce qui l'empoigne, il fait son travail avec une telle maitrise que la
Lacesar Staniev
traducteur qui connait parfaitement les deux langues sans avoir aucun
sens de la poesie.
Traduire, c'est aimer: aimer la poesie, la litterature des autres pays
et les autres peuples eux-memes. La connaissance des litteratures etran-
geres rapproche les peuples. Traduire est un art epineux qui a la noble
mission d'ouvrir de nouvelles voies de rapprochement, des voies menant
ä la paix.
A titre de conclusion je voudrais citer le message que mon ami,
le celebre poete beige Maurice Careme, honore en 1967 ä Paris du
Premier Prix de Poesie, adressa aux enfants bulgares:
Vous savez qu'il faut des semences pour ensemencer un champ. Mais les hommes
sement aussi des reves. On doit trouver pour cela des semences de rive. Ces semences
sont tellement petites, tellement fines et legires que nul ne les voit. Le vent les empörte
et les repand partout.
Devenez, vous aussi, des semeurs de reves pour que la paix, le bonheur et la fraternite
regnent dans l'univers.
RANKA ΚΥΙΌ
Every true lyric poem is romantic, and at the same time a true Romantic
poem is lyricism of the highest rank. The difficulties encountered by the
translator in transferring a poem from English or another foreign
language into his own tongue become so much the greater the more
romantic or more lyrical the poem is.
The author of the original lyric had to undergo two phases before
he composed his poem: (1) the preparatory phase (that is, the phase
filled with feelings and thoughts that brought him to the moment of
inspiration), and (2) the creative phase (that is, a longer or shorter
phase in which, after having experienced inspiration, or while actually
under the influence of that inspiration, he created his poem). It would
seem to me, however, that a true translator of poetry who undertakes
the extremely serious task of transferring a great lyric poem from a for-
eign climate into that of his own tongue should pass through not
two but four phases if he is to carry out his responsibility as thoroughly
and as successfully as possible. These four phases can be termed: (1)
the preparatory or research phase, (2) the phase of identification or the
Translating English Romantic Poetry
actor's phase, (3) the doubly creative phase, and (4) the final or critical
phase.
The first of these phases, which I have called the preparatory, consists
in very careful research into the life of the poet in question, research
in which the greatest possible number of relevant details should be
collected to clarify the feelings and thoughts of the poet that preceded
and, as it were, occasioned the writing of the poem. T o do this, the true
translator should be a genuine scholar who is skilled in research and has
devoted much time (some devote even a lifetime) to the field of litera-
ture he translates from.
The second phase, the phase of identification, is reminiscent of the
phase in which a gifted actor, preparing for a major performance, comes
to live with the role of a character in a play to such an extent that he
identifies with it. In a similar way, the true translator of lyric poetry
identifies himself with the poet-creator of the original, whose feelings
and thoughts have become his own. T o be able to identify himself in
this way, the true translator should first of all have the greatest possible
special affinity with the poet.
The third phase is doubly creative, in the sense that it is both creative
and re-creative. In this phase the true translator of poetry, having
identified himself with the author of the original poem, and having
arrived through inspiration at a state of mind as close as possible to
that in which the poet created his poem, composes a poem in his own
language as if he were the poet of the original, keeping in mind both
the meaning of the original and its special music. The more thoroughly
he has gone through the preparatory phase, and the more completely
he has identified himself with the poet and his mood, the more the
original will become an intrinsic part of his own poetic personality,
and the less will he have to think of the meaning and the music of the
original, so truly will they be reflected in his mind. The translation will
be a new poetic work, and therefore creative; at the same time it will
Ranka Kuic
in. his mother tongue. In other words, the true translator of poetry will
follow the "law of the three kinds of faithfulness": his translation will
be true (a) to the meaning of the original, (b) to the music of the original,
and (c) to the spirit of his mother tongue.
they very rarely conform to the music of the original. Only the third law,
faithfulness to the spirit of the translator's mother tongue, is usually
observed in such translations: as the translators are creative poets
themselves, their newly made poems read smoothly.
A similar case can be found in Shelley, poezje wybrane (Shelley, Selected
Poems), a book of Polish translations of Shelley's poetry by various
translators which appeared in Warsaw in 1961. On page 55, under the
title "Chmura", there is a very free translation of Shelley's " T h e Cloud"
by the early nineteenth-century poet Adam Asnyk in which some of the
lines of the original are lengthened by as many as three syllables, while
others are not lengthened at all or only by one syllable; even the form
of the stanza is different and the Leonine rhyme is spoilt by being cut
into two lines. The indispensable first and second phases have again
been neglected.
French translations of the English Romantic poets, at least those
I have had an opportunity to cast an eye upon, fall as a rule into this
group if they were made by creative poets: the neglect of the two phases
can be detected in them at once. (These translations are not available
to me at the moment, and therefore I cannot analyse them here.)
O n the other hand, there have been a number of translators who
were attracted by the poetry of an English Romantic and tried to transfer
it into Serbo-Croatian although they themselves were not active poets.
Their efforts show a more or less faithful translation of the meaning of
the original (the first law) conditioned by a more or less serious study
of the life and works of the poet (the first essential phase). This is the
case in Okica Gluscevic's translations of Byron and Aleksandar Vida-
kovic's translations of Shelley: both translators were well acquainted
with the life and works of the poets they translated. However, although
the first law of faithfulness was observed, the second law was either
followed very carelessly or completely neglected. The music of the
original is totally absent in the translations by Gluscevic, who rendered
Translating English Romantic Poetry
V y f , v j l od nivy
prchdS do azuru
jak mrak ohnivy.
Mijtt zemskou chmuru
a vzlet&S zpivaje a zpivdt Ό letu vzhuru.
NOTES
ι In Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lyrika (Lyrics; Prague, 1960). See e.g. his renderings of
"The Cloud" (p. 135), "To a Skylark" (p. 168), "To Night" (p. 183), and "Love's
Philosophy" (p. 184).
a Besides this and the following examples of perfect translations, I might also mention
some of Zlatko Gorjan's versions, particularly his renderings of Serbo-Croatian poets
into English.
Foe's "Raven" and the Translation of Poetry
O. F. B A B L E R
Dante Alighieri, one of the most frequently translated poets in all the
world's literature, presents in the Seventh Chapter of the First Part of
his Convivio a condensed theory of verse translation: " E pero sappia
ciascuno che nulla cosa per legame musaico armonizzata si puo de la
sua loquela in altra transmutare, sanza rompere tutta sua dolcezza
e armonia." Which is to say: "Everyone knows that nothing which is
harmonized by the bond of the Muses can be altered from its own to
another language without destroying all its sweetness and harmony."
And he goes on to assert: " E questa e la cagione per ch£ li versi del
Salterio sono sanza dolcezza di musica e d'armonia; ch£ essi furono
transmutati d'ebreo in greco e di greco in latino, e ne la prima trans-
mutazione tutta quella dolcezza venne meno." "This . . . is the reason
why the verses of the Psalter are without the sweetness of music and
harmony; for they were rendered from Hebrew into Greek, and from
Greek into Latin, and in the very first change over all that sweetness
disappeared."
T h e prejudice that poetry is absolutely untranslatable, promoted here
Poe's "Raven" and the Translation of Poetry 193
pression of being so, and it should be faithful also to the form. Why not
fall under the spell of the model, why not try to imitate even its outward
features, even its syntactical construction, whenever it is possible?
Every language, every people, every literature, every literary genre
has its own peculiar forms, originating for very complex physiological,
historical, sociological, and intellectual reasons. If a translator, for
whatever reason, pays no attention to reproducing those forms, his
rendering neglects one of the characteristic traits of the source literature.
Even free verse has its own demands, in the cadence and colour of the
word chosen and the word placed, and still more has verse in fixed
forms.
The translator should be enough of a linguist and a literary critic
to be able to judge all basic devices and semasiological patterns of the
original poem, and it goes without saying that he should be enough of
a poet to make a new poem in his own language in place of the original
one. To repeat, the translator ought to be a poet as well as an interpreter,
and his interpretation ought to be an act of poetry. Or, to put it other-
wise, the translation of a poem, in spite of all its firm relations to the
original, should constitute a poem in its own right.
The essence of a poem is the complex of details that establishes it as
a literary work of art and distinguishes it from any other kind of commu-
nication. The particular structure of the source language and its specific
cultural context, of which the poem itself is a pattern and a model,
necessarily influence the translation, determining its stylistic peculiarity.
Though we are willing to admit that absolute adequacy on the part
of a translation is quite impossible, there can be very close approximation
in the realms of form, phonetic values, and factual information, but
only if the translation reflects a high degree of sensitivity to the linguistic
elements of the source language and the receptor language alike.
But let us now turn from such dictums to a concrete case of translating,
in order to see to what extent theory can find confirmation in the instance
ig6 O. F. Babler
rendered t h e m in this m a n n e r :
Denn es kann als sicher gelten, dass dem Menschen äusserst selten
ein Geschöpf aus Unterwelten fliegt auf seine Tür empor . . .
Poe's "Raven" and the Translation of Poetry igy
Poe's " R a v e n " , and some of its translations, are full of such examples
of the playful treatment of words.
I n Poe's case one is conscious only of the performance, not of the
effort. And in view of this seeming effortlessness it was one of the greatest
of literary surprises w h e n the poet published his essay " T h e Philosophy
of Composition", in which he retraced the modus operandi by which " T h e
R a v e n " was put together a n d made it manifest " t h a t no one point in
its composition is referable either to accident or intuition — that the
work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision a n d
rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."
W h a t Poe has given us in his "Philosophy of Composition" is surely
the most intrinsic, most penetrating, and most sincere account a poet
ever made of how he composed a poem. According to it, Poe determined
first the length, the province, and the tone of the poem. These initial
determining points do not concern the translator too much. But then
the poet proceeds "with the view of obtaining some artistic piquancy
which might serve me as a key-note in the construction of the poem —•
some pivot upon which the whole structure might t u r n . " A n d he decides
to employ a refrain or burden.
These points being settled, I next bethought me of the nature of m y refrain. Since its
application was to be repeatedly varied, it was clear that the refrain itself must be brief...
This led me at once to a single word as the best refrain . . . forming the close to each
stanza. That such a close, to have force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted
emphasis, admitted no doubt; and these considerations inevitably led me to the long
ο as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with r as the most producible consonant.
The sound of the refrain being thus determined, it became necessary to select a word
embodying this sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that
melancholy which I had predetermined as the tone of the poem. In such a search it
would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word "Nevermore" . . .
The next desideratum was a pretext for the continuous use of the one word "never-
more" . . . Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable
of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was
Ο. F. Babler
Here, at the climax of the poem, the translator must give proof of his
art, or a t least of his skill. T h e m a i n task for the Czech translator, as it
would also be, viribus diversis, for a n y other translator into his o w n
language, was to write verse as n a t u r a l in Czech as is Poe's in English,
a n d to give a plausible result without a visible sign of effort. T h e trans-
lation, in its m a n a g e m e n t of detail, its divergences, its additions a n d
subtractions, m a y not have exactly the same effect u p o n a Czech reader,
b u t this must not be j u d g e d a failure of translation. T h e i n c o m m e n -
surability between English a n d Czech becomes evident if we count the
syllables a n d measure the length of the single words. T h e fact is t h a t
a translator of a n English p o e m into Czech is b o u n d to use fewer words
than the original, even more so t h a n the translator w h o is working f r o m
G e r m a n , for instance, or f r o m Dutch, or even f r o m F r e n c h or Italian.
But enough of these abstract considerations: let us come to the objective
200 Ο. F. Babler
"Be that word our sign in parting", says the lonely lover in the next
stanza of the poem, and with those words I shall take my leave.
On Translating Joyce's Ulysses
ZLATKO GORJAN
on the various qualities specific to the languages from which and into
which it is translated.
T o discuss how I translated Joyce's "untranslatable" novel Ulysses
("untranslatable" in inverted commas: after all it had been translated
in other languages!) seems to me today, I would almost say, more
difficult than the very task of translating it. T o sum up, in a few sentences,
my experience, all those small achievements and great failures, the
continuous anxiety in the face of texts that in places seemed insuperable
(insuperable because of their particular music set against a special
linguistic, psychological, philosophical, a n d intimately Joycean back-
ground) ; to retell the long story, which is still so horribly clear to me
though to others it may perhaps, and rightly, seem insignificant; to
speak about my efforts to find adequate terms for Joyce's clearly defined
and strictly limited formulations in respect of both language and meaning
— all this seems to me impossible now, because what I experienced and
lived through is a thing of the past, a far-away but vivid dream.
T o translate Ulysses meant for me to dream, to experience and live
through Joyce's nightmarish and yet pellucidly clear, real, and realistic
d r e a m visions a n d dream thoughts, to follow his conscious and sub-
conscious penetration into the intricate processes in the mind of a simple,
the simplest, man, and to overcome those linguistic qualities of which
Goethe said: "Unübersetzlich sind die Eigenschaften jeder Sprache,
denn vom höchsten bis zum tiefsten Wort, bezieht sich alles auf Eigen-
tümlichkeiten der Nation, es sei nun in Charakter, Gesinnung oder
Zuständen." (The characteristic qualities of every language are untrans-
latable, because from the most sublime to the commonest word, every-
thing has a connection with the peculiarities of the nation, whether
in character, views, or conditions.)
T h e critic, who usually thinks the translation process itself is of no
concern to him and considers only the adequacy of the translation, that
adequacy about which so much has been written and yet about which
203
we still know so little, and about which there are innumerable diametri-
cally opposed opinions and definitions suggested by a diverse range of
poets, linguists, and philosophers (we may mention only Dante, Goethe,
Croce, and Ortega y Gasset) — this critic weighs the translation sen-
tence by sentence, putting the original on one side of the scales and the
translation on the other, often failing to think of the whole, the underlying
text.
I am not saying all this in order to excuse myself in the face of possible
criticism, but in order to point in advance to all those elements that go
into translation (I am referring first of all to the task of translating
Joyce's Ulysses) and then to the essence of creative translation as such.
When my Croatian version of Ulysses came out in 1955, only three
other translations existed: one in German, one in French, and one in
Swedish. The French version, by Auguste Morel and Joyce's friend
Stuart Gilbert, one of the leading experts on his works, was revised by the
writer Valery Larbaud and the author himself. The German translation,
by Georg Goyert, was also revised by the author himself. The Swedish
translation I do not know. I do know the French and German versions,
and I believe that I can discuss them with some authority.
Larbaud, who made his name with this translation, created what I
would describe as a new, latinized Ulysses. His rendering reads like some
of the best French prose, but to my view he touched up the harshnesses
and crudities, the deliberate crudities, which in the original produce
a special harmony, so characteristic, defiant, and challenging. I certainly
do not intend to belittle the great artistic achievement of Larbaud's
translation. It is a brilliant work. And I can well imagine how much
Joyce, the grand mocker, must have enjoyed reading with his friend
Larbaud page after page of this translation, ready to sacrifice an occa-
sional expression in favour of this "new" French Ulysses.
Goyert's translation comes much nearer to the original. 1 Goyert is
more of a linguist and less of a poet, and Joyce, in giving his authorization
204 Zlatko Gorjan
not make a mistake? Perhaps this is the golden mean between Larbaud
and Goyert, perhaps it is one possible solution to the problem of translat-
ing Ulysses?
Many illustrations of an interesting problem of translation are provided
by that terrifying and fantastic scene in the brothel. I avoided the most
outright street expressions which can be heard in Yugoslavia in everyday
speech and are sometimes used even by children, for such expressions
would not approach Joyce's juicy, Rabelaisian vulgarity.
A particular problem was the puns (which Goyert often left untrans-
lated): "Dun for a nun" (referring to coffins), or "What opera resembles
a railway line? — The Rose of Castille" (rows of cast steel — I could
use neither the Rose of Castille nor the railway and had to find some-
thing analogous), or "Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet", and so on.
Every day I applied a new method:
. . . before starting to work I would read a passage several times. In
this way I was able to get the feeling of the internal rhythm of Joyce's
text or sub-text in the fastest and safest manner;
. . . sometimes I would skip the "untranslatable" passages, puns, songs,
or individual "untranslatable" words and tackle the problem only the
following day or several days later;
. . . sometimes I refused to give up, writing down uncountable variations
of a word which had to be coined, until I found the form I felt came
nearest to Joyce's word;
. . . sometimes I translated at random individual passages, even entire
sections that attracted me by their unusualness, their beauty, or their
obscure meaning;
. . . there were days when I would sit helplessly before a passage, refusing
to move to another, trying stubbornly to fathom the problems;
. . . but there was not a single day when I did not take up Ulysses,
because I felt intensely that in translating this work I must remain in
unsevered contact with the author;
On Translating Joyce's Ulysses 207
. . . and all the time I was not writing anything else or dealing with
any other problems, and I simply refused even to consider the possi-
bility that the book was untranslatable, because such thoughts would
certainly have broken my will, my energy, and my enthusiasm within
the very first pages.
I may say that I was always fully aware of my deficiencies and failures,
but I was equally aware that this pioneering work was necessary and
useful. I kept thinking of all those translators, genuine creators, who
had experienced or were experiencing the same pains; I thought of
all those interpreters of prose and poetry who have devoted their artistic
and intellectual abilities to this important sector of cultural creativity,
the sector of translation.
As Hans Erich Nossack has remarked, there is a language beyond all
official jargon, a language which alone remains human. And to interpret
and recreate this language of supranational and supra-ideological unity,
of all that is human, is the task, difficult and responsible but also glorious,
of the translator.
NOTES
ι I shall not enter into the controversy between Arno Schmidt and Goyert in the
Frankfurter Zeitung (26 October and 6 December 1957). Schmidt was highly critical
of Goyert's translation, quoting dozens of what he believed to be imprecisely translated
passages; Goyert rejected his criticisms, invoking the authority of Joyce himself, w h o
had an excellent command of German: Joyce had revised the translation, he pointed
out, and had given his imprimatur to its publication.
2 I should not have been able to translate Joyce's Ulysses if I had not known his Dublirurs
and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; indeed one should not attempt even to read
Ulysses without having read the other two books beforehand.
3 Ivo Vidan, Pristupi Joyceovom "Uliksu" (Approaches to Joyce's Ulysses; Rijeka, 1959).
VI
Concluding Essay
LÄSZL0 DOBOSSY
NOTES
[In these notes, full bibliographical details have been given only for selected scholarly
articles and books related to the field of translation studies, and not for translations
or other publications.]
committee for translation studies, and is chairman of the Translators' Section of the
Georgian Writers Union. A translator primarily from the English, he is editor-in-chief
of the Georgian translation-in-progress of the complete works of Shakespeare. Outside
Georgia he is best known for his theory of "realistic translation" based on the general
theory of cognition and reflection. P U B L I C A T I O N S : Mkhatvruli targmanis theoriis
sakitkkebi (Problems of Literary Translation Theory; Tbilisi, 1959); Voprosy teorii chudo-
iestaennogo perevoda (Problems of Literary Translation Theory; Tbilisi, 1964 [Russian
translation of book above]); Mkhatvruli targmanis theoriis shesavali (Introduction to the
Theory of Literary Translation; Tbilisi, 1966 [Russian translation in the press: Tbilisi]);
"Realism and Dialectics in the Art of Translation", Babel (Avignon), X I I I (1967),
87—91. ADDRESS: ul. Dzerzinskij 14, Tbilisi 4, Georgia, USSR.
FRANS DE HAAN (Dutch, born 1935) studied French at the University of Amsterdam,
where he is now senior lecturer at the university's Institute for Translator Training
(IVT). He has translated books by Regis Debray, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, and
other contemporary social and political thinkers. His theoretical interest is focused on
the comparative study of the divergent use of lexical words (especially conjunctions and
prepositions) in various categories of texts in French and Dutch. A D D R E S S : Comenius-
straat 59, Amsterdam-Slotervaart, The Netherlands.
HANA J E C H O V Ä (Czech, born 1927), after having taught Polish literature from 1955
till 1968 at the University of Olomouc in Czechoslovakia, now lectures at the Institut
de Litterature Generale et Comparee of the Sorbonne. As a theorist she is particularly
interested in the problem of the literary denomination of the poetic image; she has
also translated various Polish Romantic poets into Czech, as well as scholarly works by
Roman Ingarden and others. P U B L I C A T I O N S : Rozbor literdrniho dila ζ hlediska pfimeho
a nepfimeho zobrazeni skutecnosti (The Analysis of the Literary Work as Direct and Indirect
Representation of Reality; Prague, 1965); Bdsnicky obraz ν dilech Julia Slowacke'ho (The
Poetic Image in the Writings of Juliusz Slowacki; Prague, 1966). ADDRESS: Grand
Hotel des Balcons, 3, rue Casimir Delavigne, Paris VI, France; Kastanovä 7, Olomouc,
Czechoslovakia.
R A N K A KUI<5 (Serbian, born 1925) holds degrees from Belgrade, Bristol, and Lju-
bljana, a n d is now professor in the Department of English of the University of Belgrade,
where her special field is the English Romantic poets. Among her translations into
Serbo-Croatian are volumes of verse by Shelley (1964), Coleridge (1969), and Yeats
(1969). P U B L I C A T I O N S : Revolucionarna misao P. B. Selija (The Revolutionary T h o u g h t
of P. B. Shelley; Belgrade, 1968); "Prevodjenje lirske poezije" (How to Translate Lyric
Poetry), Knjizevne Novine (Belgrade), 8 J a n u a r y 1966, p p . 4 - 5 ; „Sekspirovi soneti"
([How to Translate] Shakespeare's Sonnets), KnjiZevne Novine, 11 J u l y 1966, p p . 2 - 3 ;
" T h r e e Levels of Reality in Coleridge's 'Christabel' a n d a n A n a t o m y of Christabel's
Psyche", in Cetrdeset gidna Katedre Anglistike u Beogradu (Forty Years of the Chair of
English at Belgrade; Novi Dani, 1969), pp. 127-197. A D D R E S S : Bulevar Revolucije
167a, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
108, 1968, pp. 75-111; "Zur Psychologie der literarischen Übersetzer", in Rolf Ita-
liaander (ed.), Ubersetzen (Frankfurt am Main and Bonn, 1965), pp. 27-31; "Approach-
ing the History of Translation", Babel (Avignon), X I I I (1967), 169-173; "Zagad-
nienia wersyfikacji w wegierskich przekladach wiersky Mickiswicza" (Versification
Problems in the Hungarian Translation of Verse by [Adam] Mickiewicz), in Studia
ζ dziejöw polsko-wigierskich stosunköw literackich (Studies in the History of Polish-Hungarian
Literary Relations; Wroclaw, Warsaw, and Krakow, 1969), pp. 337-354. A D D R E S S :
Petöfi Sändor u. 9, Budapest V, Hungary.
VACLAV RENÖ (Czech, born 1911) has published eight books of verse and a number
of plays. Among his translations are volumes of poetry by Rilke (1937), Mickiewicz
(1947), Petrarch (1964), Coleridge (1965), and Norwid (1968), and plays by classical
authors, Shakespeare (ten plays), Moliere, Schiller, and Hebbel. A D D R E S S : Loosova
2, Brno-Lesnä, Czechoslovakia.
ALOYS S K O U M A L (Czech, born 1904) has lectured in the theory and history of
translation at the University of Prague, and is a founder of the Czechoslovak translation
journal Dialog (Dialogue). T h e translator of some fifty books and a dozen plays into
Czech, he is also a practising essayist and critic. His translation of Joyce's Ulysses (the
second in Czech) will be finished in 1971. A D D R E S S : Archangelsks 2, Prague 10,
Vrsovice, Czechoslovakia.
of works by Racine, Moliere, Boileau, Verhaeren, and filuard. ADDRESS: c/o Bul-
garian Writers Union, ul. Anzel Kantsov 5, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Valery, Paul, 29, 32-33, 41, 151, 193 Zaymus, Gustav, 125
Vallery-Radot, Louis Pasteur, 158-159 Zhgenti, Sergi M., 122
Velasquez, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y, Zirmunskij, Viktor Maksimovic, 116-
166 117, 123
Vergil, 127, 155, 193 Zluktenko, J u r i j , 10, 22
Verhaeren, fimile, 176, 224 Zukovskij, Vasilij Α., 167