On Vojislav Ilić: A Note from the Translators

Abstract

On Vojislav Ilić:A Note from the Translators Ian Kennedy and Pavle Pavlović Our Motivation The works of Vojislav Ilić are important because he is one of the first modern Serbian poets. However, Ilić's works are little-known in English. Therefore, we commissioned ourselves to prepare a translation of his iconic poem. Our Approach We had to make decisions on which features in the original had to be carried through in our translation. As always, some adaptations had to be made. These were: 1. The adaptation of the Serbian versification system to the English one—of the Serbian syllabic to the English accentuate-syllabic pattern. 2. The adaptation to English of Vojislav Ilić's complex syntax and his invoking inversion of the normal order of Serbian words, for the sake of emphasis or to satisfy his metrical plan. 3. The use of duplicated verbs (neigh-neigh, snort-snort) to conjure up an authentic impression of the horse's speedy movement. In the original version, it is the appropriate choice of verbs and adjectives (hrže, grabi) that give that impression. The use of duplicated verbs is a poetic license that he used to satisfy his metrical plan. In the following commentary, we make our list of translation priorities explicit and reveal our workflow. The Translators' Conundrums In translating poetry, it is almost always necessary to create the poem from scratch. This is because an original poet may have exercised his poetic license and made compromises [End Page 235] to pure prose in order to get the poem to scan and rhyme. As translators, we were faced with the usual conundrums as to what was important to the reader in the original, and what was not. Xuelai Qiu reveals three translations of the same Chinese poem.1 The results differ dramatically because of the differing (unspecified) priority lists of the translators, which have to be speculated upon by inspecting the products: the translated poems. We admit immediately that other translators will disagree with our list of priorities, and therefore those translators will come up with dramatically different translations. So, we will diverge and list our priorities upfront. Our priorities to ensure fidelity and authenticity were: 1. The translated poem must rhyme. (The actual rhyme scheme we used could be different from the original.) 2. The translated poem must have rhythm. (The actual rhythm scheme we used could be different.) • Any padding used by the original author to effect proper scansion may safely be omitted. • Any contraction used by the original author to effect proper scansion may safely be restored. • Any transpositions used by the original author to effect proper scansion may safely be restored. 3. The poem must have reason. By this we mean that the accepted or implied intended purpose of the original must be carried through into the translation, and the original payload must be delivered in the translation. 4. Literary devices such as alliteration will not be introduced into the translation unless they occurred naturally. 5. The general genre (in this case, a lyric poem) must be carried through. Anachronisms and neologisms must be avoided. 6. Any secret agendas of the original poet will not be speculated upon, and the original poem will be read at face value. Many poets are regarded as mystic because they made choices which were completely arbitrary, so imaginary reasons should not be sought. Does it matter what color the dog was? Does it matter if it is a dog and not a cat? Let's not debate whether a cat or a dog better represents faithfulness. 7. As we have no record of the process of creation of the original poem nor access to the intermediate versions, we have no knowledge of what the original [End Page 236] poet would have liked to include but had to discard, perhaps because the poet could not find a rhyme for a good line. So, we refrain from guessing what was most important to the original writer, as it is not visible in the product, his poem. Our Workflow Furthermore, we reveal our workflow. We soon realized that the task of going directly from the original to a translation was impossible with our skills...