"A translator is not free": J.R.R. Tolkien's Rules for Translation and Their Application in Sir Orfeo

Abstract

"A translator is not free":J.R.R. Tolkien's Rules for Translation and Their Application in Sir Orfeo Curtis A. Weyant Amidst a description of many difficulties related to the translation of the Middle English poem Pearl, J.R.R. Tolkien complained in a letter to his aunt, Jane Neave, that "a translator is not free" (Letters 317). While he did not delineate a set of rules by which translators are shackled, over the years of his career as a professor, author, language inventor, and, indeed, translator, Tolkien occasionally offered thoughts about what constitutes a good translation, and in some cases he even prescribed rules—or at least guidelines—which translators should follow to produce a worthy translation. Some of these thoughts are revealed in letters like the one to his aunt, while others are found in the notes of his translations of texts in Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and other languages. Still others can be discovered in the narrative and apparatus of his fictional works, such as Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings. Pulling together these diverse thoughts on translation scattered throughout Tolkien's writings affords an opportunity to better understand his varied works, both popular and academic, in a new light. It should be stated up front that Tolkien did not write a single set of instructions or rules for translation. The translation guidelines which he did formulate were penned at different periods of his life, often while pursuing disconnected projects. Nonetheless, regardless of the audience, there is some consistency among these disparate statements about translation. While Tolkien made no known attempt to codify a grand unified theory of translation, he nonetheless seems to have worked from a common set of translating principles that changed little, if at all, throughout his life. This paper pulls together Tolkien's various statements of advice, practice, and occasional criticism related to the work of translation into three broad subject areas: archaic words, nomenclature, and style. Following the discussion of these subject areas is an analysis of Tolkien's application of these rules, pulling examples from his translation of the Breton-derived Middle English lay Sir Orfeo. [End Page 63] Tolkien the Translator It is possible to view Tolkien's career and writings, both academic and popular, holistically as a lifelong engagement in various aspects of translation. As Joan Turville-Petre has noted, Tolkien "showed his pupils that the prime purpose of edition and commentary is to free the text from obscurity" (vi); translation is in a sense both edition and commentary wrapped in a single package, since it provides a version of a text along with an interpretation of that text inherent in the translation choices made along the way—even when notes or other information about those choices are not readily available to the reader. The combination of edition and commentary can be observed in Tolkien's translations of Anglo-Saxon poems like Exodus and Beowulf ; his translations of Middle English texts like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo ; and of course, the translations of works written in his own invented languages and scattered throughout the various editions and posthumously published drafts of his legendarium. The work of the translator starts well before the final published translated text, as it requires the serious consideration of individual words and phrases, the assimilation of new developments and ideas about the source material, and deliberation over how best to preserve the sense and style of the original work while also making its content accessible to readers who otherwise are unable to decipher it. As such, various phases of Tolkien's career can be viewed as focusing primarily (though never solely) on particular aspects of translation. His early work as a lexicographer, writing definitions for the Oxford English Dictionary and assembling a glossary for use with Kenneth Sisam's compilation of Middle English texts, demanded an in-depth study and understanding of etymologies and the nuances of how word forms, definitions, and connotations changed over time. As a professor at Leeds and Oxford, his lectures, academic articles, and commentaries on the finer points of language in texts like the Finnesburg Fragment, Ancrene Wisse, and The...