Proper Names and Register in Poetry Translation. The Effects of Transplantation in Eliot’s “The Naming of Cats”

Abstract

In literary translation, cultural adaptation or transplantation is a method that offers the readers of the target-text linguistical and cultural ease in their interaction with the text. Still, it could also prevent them from absorbing foreign cultural elements. (Re)translation could change the status of a text in that it could offer fresh perspectives that have never been offered before. In this study, we will analyse two Romanian (re)translations of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Naming of Cats”, focusing on the translation of proper names and on the differences in register and style that arise from different translation choices, to argue in favour of the idea that the transplantation of cultural elements can be just as valuable for the readers as preserving the foreign elements.