In Translation: A Sampler

Abstract

poetry, while also teaching and writing about that process, have turned up a good few in stances of what our ancient art and practice can and sometimes cannot achieve. Here are some samples? proverb, aphorism, axiom, poem, couplet, auto translation, dictum, graffito, exhortation, pun, Na tive American prayer, sacred commentary?from Italian, German, Spanish, French, English, Yokuts, and Hebrew, for whatever use they may serve: ob ject lesson, cautionary tale, warm-up, energy bar. We need all the help we can get, so it matters to see how others have fared, faltered, seen the light, missed the boat. Literary translation: an ongoing task, and often thankless. Yet it's a tide that tosses up star tlingfinds. Poetry, like these United States, would seem to have its own Declaration of Independence claim ing certain unalienable rights, among these the right not to be alienated. At the same time, an alien, an other, a foreign voicing may arrive at some fresh vi tal sense of things, enriching its own language as it goes: the King fames Bible, Chapman's Homer, Beck ett's Beckett. On reading himself in French, fames Thurber remarked, You know, I lose something in the original! Short of that, the full process of trans lation can still bring on fullest understanding. Besides, monolingual America cannot do without hearing the world's writers in English. Woody Allen has an exchange that goes something like this: