The Representation of National Character through Translation: Re-constructing Irish Cultural Images for a Greek Readership

Abstract

Twentieth-century Irish poetry in English is often considered the literary manifestation of a distinct Irish cultural identity. Not only had it been used as a vehicle for national emancipation during the Celtic Revival, playing a significant role in the formation of an Irish self-image, but it also later provided the canvas on which postcolonial tensions and the multiplicity of the Irish experience have been displayed. As such, it is rife with cultural images which discursively construct a particular national character. This paper focuses on the transmission of these cultural images in the Greek translations of four twentieth-century Irish poets, namely William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Seamus Heaney, and Brendan Kennelly. Using insights from imagology, the paper compares the literary representations of Irishness as they are constructed in the original compositions and reconstructed in translation, in order to explore how the imagined collective identity of the Irish is portrayed when translated for another culture. The comparison reveals that certain aspects of Irish cultural identity are maintained and even further stereotyped in the Greek translations, while others are under-represented, or domesticated to adapt to the target-culture norms.