Poetic Translation Research Articles

В творческой лаборатории переводчика: особенности поэтического перевода А.А. Ахматовой

The article considers the translation activities of the famous Russian poet Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1889–1966), for the first time her translation method is studied in solving the problems of poetic translation from the Ossetian language. The author of the article traces the ways of reflecting the author's intentions in the translation, the communicative equivalence of the source texts. It is concluded that the concept of adequate and free translation manifests itself in the transfer of poetic works of Ossetian authors. A. Akhmatova uses various translation transformations in the process of creating a secondary text-lexical, syntactic, stylistic; strives for equivalence not at the level of individual lexemes, but at the level of the text as a whole. The translator retains the ideological and artistic peculiarity of the original even where the thought is conveyed by his own poetic means (expansion of the content of the original text, semantic transformation). The language of translation is distinguished by figurativeness, in some places Akhmatova saturates the translated text with additional stylistic means of the translating language, close to the artistic perception of the recipient (metaphorization). The translator resorts to intentional historical stylization by archaizing the language to imitate the temporal remoteness of the context of an authentic work. The plan of expression of the translated text does not always coincide with the original; Akhmatova does not always preserve the equirhythmicity of poetic texts. The formal side in the text variants differs in the types of consonance at the end of the lines and in the rhythmic structure.

The Song of Earendil from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: Translation Issues

This article is concerned with translation issues of The Song of Earendil by J. R. R. Tolkien, the poem included in The Lord of the Rings and incorporated into the narrative with Bilbo as the internal author and Frodo as the listener. The first part of the research provides detailed analysis of the poem contextual role as well as its perception by the characters and the reader. Imbued with various details and proper names, The Song highlights Еarendil’s voyage, one of the most essential narratives in Tolkien’s mythology (the Legendarium), however left beyond the bounds of The Lord of the Rings and not completely understood by the reader or Frodo, for the latter is listening to the Song being in a most peculiar, dreamlike state of mind evoked by elven singing he previously attends to. Frodo’s mood correlates not only and not so much with the poem’s narrative, but with its style and poetic features, especially the verse form and the rhyme scheme. The latter uses triple assonances as additional rhyme, connecting the clauses of the odd lines with the first halves of the subsequent even lines and bringing forth a notably melodical, ‘elvish’ impression.In this respect, the verse form of The Song of Earendil takes on particular importance in relation to poetic translation; and retaining the main metrical and phonoaesthetic features of the poem seems necessary for achieving translation equivalence as well as maintaining the effect derived from the context of the novel. These features are considered using the example of four Russian translations of the Song (by A. A. Kistyakovsky, I. B. Grinshpun, S. A. Stepanov, and V. G. Tikhomirov). Comparative analysis of these translations shows a tendency for the translators to change the verse form significantly either by using more fluent rhyme schemes and stanzaic structures (as Kistyakovsky or Tikhomirov do), or by simplification (e.g. Grinshpun) and neutralisation of some other poetic features (like the use of proper names). The most consistent, although partial, representation of the original poetic form, can be found in Stepanov’s translation only. As for some other translation solutions regarding verse form and vocabulary, they appear to be non-equivalent. At the end of the article, the author presents his own translation of The Song of Еarendil, aimed at retaining the above listed features of its poetic form.

Introduction: On Anne Carson’s Euripides

This essay serves as an introduction to Anne Carson’s Euripides. It discusses Carson’s ongoing engagement with the tragedian, from Grief Lessons to her latest experimental H of H Playbook and The Trojan Women: A Comic, drawing attention to Carson’s cross-pollinating approach to Euripidean tragedy and antiquity more broadly, as well as the characteristic blending of academic and artistic styles that inform her translation poetics. The introduction includes details of the themes explored in the special issue, together with summaries of the eight ‘takes’ that make up the collection.

“So, come on, and learn the character of every culture”: A New Poetic Translation of Georgics II by Virgil

Virgílio é reconhecido por muitos ainda hoje como um dos maiores poetas de todos os tempos. Contudo, seu reconhecimento deve-se sobretudo à Eneida, bem como às Bucólicas, já que poucas são as pessoas que conhecem sua obra intitulada Geórgicas. Apesar disso, durante uma parte considerável da história da recepção de Virgílio, o valor das Geórgicas foi amplamente reconhecido, contando entre seus admiradores nomes importantes como os de Montaigne, Dryden e Leopardi. Proponho aqui uma breve introdução crítica para quem queira conhecer não apenas esse importante poema virgiliano, mas alguns aspectos fundamentais da cultura romana de modo geral. Encerro a exposição com uma proposta de tradução poética de Geórgicas II para o português contemporâneo, na qual exploro questões apontadas na introdução crítica.

Defending the last bastion

AbstractGrowing interest has been noted in applying AI-powered machine translation (MT) to literary translation, hailed as the last bastion of human translation. Despite achieving considerable progress in this field, research has either ignored or underestimated the particularity, complexity, and cultural significance of literary translation, which can be examined from a sociological approach. Drawing on the sociological theories of Bourdieu, Latour, Callon, and Baudrillard, the present paper analyses the innate nature of literary translation and highlights three fundamental issues that need to be addressed in applying MT to literary texts. First, the poetics of literary translation is built on human translators’ long-acquired habitus, thus, in the case of MT, an algorithm comparable to the creative human habitus must be derived if MT aspires to take on the role of the human translator. Second, literary translation constitutes a dynamic network connected by various human and non-human actors, thus the aspects not included in the interlingual transference of MT should be compensated through more effective interactions between the machine and other actors. Third, the cultural-ethical issues related to MT should be thoroughly examined because the present MT of literary texts is a machine simulation of the psychological human translation, which undermines both the meaning generation of literary translation and the knowledge accumulation of cultural production. Therefore, literary translation must be handled by qualified human translators until we can undoubtedly ensure that MT can be effectively and safely applied to literary texts.

Поэтическая трансляция как герменевтический диалог переводчика с исходным текстом (опыт интерпретации разновременных переводов «Казачьей колыбельной песни» М.Ю. Лермонтова)

The article discusses the comparative hermeneutic analysis of the semantic-derivational worldview of the translators who render the classical poetic text in different historical periods. The relevance of the study is stipulated by the increased attention to the sociocultural determination of meaning generation within the framework of the cognitive-and-discursive paradigm that dominates in the modern community of linguists and translators. Cossack Cradle Song and its five translations into German carried out in different periods served as the practical material. The article aims to establish the features of multi-temporal Russian-German translations of the poem and the source text as a single semantic space that reflects the worldview of the author of the original text, variably explicated by different translators through the language of the target text. According to the research hypothesis, poetic translation reflects the translator's hermeneutic interaction with the original text, which generates the personal meaning of the translated text. The findings of the linguo-stylistic analysis of the Cossack Cradle Song at the semantic, meta-semiotic, and meta-metasemiotic levels, reveal that the compensation technique plays the leading role in the process of translating the poetic text studied in this article, contributing to the achievement of expressive and impressive equivalence of the original and the translation in the process of explication of invariant content-factual and content-conceptual meanings, as well as the subjective-personal determinism of translation decisions, which does not contradict the intentions implied by the author of the source text.

Пунктуационная грамматика в переводе французского поэтического текста

The aim of the study is to identify the problems of conveying the punctuation organisation of the text in French-to-Russian poetic translation. The analysis of works by P. Verlaine, J. Cocteau, J. Prévert shows how the poets use poetic punctuation in the arrangement of their works and what role it can play in the expressive-stylistic explication of the author’s thought. In poetry translation, it is necessary to take into account discrepancies in the functioning of punctuation in different languages. The semantic and communicative context is organised in the French language with the help of punctuation means, in Russian, the role of punctuation marks increases in utterance organisation. In Russian, unlike French, the role of punctuation means increases significantly due to linguistic peculiarities. The study is novel in that it is the first to introduce the notion of punctuation grammar as a tool necessary for the adequate translation of modern poetic works that are arranged according to the author’s punctuation outside the generally accepted language norms, which leads to an ambiguous understanding of the text and requires additional efforts from the translator in their work. Punctuation grammar uses various means depending on the meaning of the work, style, graphic arrangement techniques for the organisation and holistic perception of the text. As a result of the study, it has been shown that in order to ensure the semantic-expressive explication of the author’s thought, some deviations from the rules are allowed, becoming the norm of poetic speech.

THE POETICS OF RESERVE: ON GREEK MODERNISTS (IN MEMORY OF IRINA IGOREVNA KOVALJOVA)KOVALJOVA I.I. IN CAVAFY’S WORKSHOP AND OTHER STUDIES OF GREEK MODERNISM. M.: MGU, 2006. 200 P.KOVALJOVA IRINA. MY POETS. SELECTED TRANSLATIONS FROM ENGLISH AND GREEK. M.: ITAKA - KOMMENTARII, 2006. 108 P.

Theimportant part of critical works and poetic translations of the poet and philologist Irina Igorevna Kovaljova (1961-2007), who worked at the Department of Classical Studies of the Faculty of Philology (MSU), is devoted to the understanding of Greek poetical modernism, as well as to presenting it to Russian readers. The books published in the course of the last year of I.I. Kovaljova’s life reveal a mature view of such poets as C.P. Cavafy, G. Seferis, M. Sachtouris. I.I. Kovaljova studies the distance between the word said and unsaid in Cavafy’s poems, reflects on Seferis’s attitude towards literary and cultural tradition (keeping in mind the experience of Anglo-American poetic modernism), describes quite a special mythopoetics of Sachtouris. As a poet I.I. Kovaljova implements her scientific ideas when translating the poets named above into Russian (it is most obvious in her translations of Sachtouris). It seems that I.I. Kovaljova’s achievements in the sphere of reception of Greek modernist poetry are still to be fully understood and used by her disciples and colleagues.

Образ китайской поэзии в переводах В. Перелешина

The research aims to determine how the image of Chinese poetry is created in V. Pereleshin’s translations and to identify the key features of his cultural dialogue with China. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the image of Chinese poetry in translations by V. Pereleshin, mainly involving the materials of his anthology of translations of Chinese classical poetry “Poems on the Fan” and autographs of translations of Chinese poems. The peculiarities of Pereleshin’s translations are revealed in terms of the poetic form, translation adequacy, the manifestation of the creative individuality of the translator and in terms of the range of themes of Chinese poetry. The paper substantiates that the compliance with the miniature genre of Chinese poetry and the strict rhyming of Russian poetry is a distinctive feature of Pereleshin’s poetic translations. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the paper is the first to conduct a detailed comparative study of the image of Chinese poetry in translations by V. Pereleshin as a representative of the Far Eastern branch of Russian literature in the synthesis of two scientific approaches: Russian literary criticism and studies of the Chinese literary tradition. As a result, it has been proved that the vivid image of Chinese classical poetry created by Pereleshin gives a general view of the form, content and range of themes of shi and ci poems and leads to the understanding of the cultural dialogue of Russian émigré poets with China.

VERSE INNOVATIONS OF APOLLON GRIGORIEV AS A TRANSLATOR: ACCENTUAL VERSE, VERS LIBRE, PROSE MINIATURE, PROSIMETRUM, NEW SYLLABICS

The article deals with innovations in the fi eld of versification technique used by Apollon Grigoriev in his poetic translations from German, English and Ancient Greek. These are accentual verse (dolnik), metrical composite, free verse, new syllabics, as well as prose miniature used to translate lyrical poetry, and prosimetrum, with the help of which the poet sought to accurately convey the rhythmic features of the works by Heine, Goethe, Shakespeare and Sophocles.

Lyres, harpes, luths et cithares : l’instrumentarium du psaume 136, Super flumina Babylonis

Les versets initiaux du Super flumina évoquent le silence contraint des Israélites exilés à Babylone, qui laissent en repos leurs kinnors et refusent de chanter pour leurs vainqueurs. Entre 1700 et 1820, les nombreuses traductions, imitations et paraphrases poétiques déploient, pour orchestrer ce bouleversant silence, tout un instrumentarium dont l’analyse éclaire, par-delà la plus ou moins grande habileté des poètes, l’évolution de la conception de la poésie lyrique.

Lending an Ear to Mozart’s Operas. Stanisław Barańczak’s Poetic Translation Experiments

The paper Lending an Ear to Mozart’s Operas. Stanisław Barańczak’s Poetic Translation Experiments examines the issues of intermediality, in particular the relationships between music and literature in mixed creative genres fusing disparate media of expression. The brief study discusses the connections and inter-dependencies between the music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Italian libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte, their translation by Stanisław Barańczak and his unique quasi-translation (‘fonety’). The article presents interdisciplinary interpretations of selected vocal translations (excerpts from the libretti of ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Marriage of Figaro’) and ‘fonety’ – Barańczak’s own genre created at the boundary where linguistic witticisms and vocal translation meet. The Italian text by Da Ponte is often treated as quasi una musica – as a sound material free from the referential ballast of language (semantics). Barańczak offers the music lover a new means of aural reception in the buffo style, illuminating a path to discovering anew the artistic potential of musical masterpieces.

Поэма А.А. Ахматовой «Реквием» в диалоге культур: проблемы перевода на осетинский язык

The article provides a comparative analysis of the poem by A.A. Akhmatova (1889–1966) “Requiem” in the original and in the translation of the Ossetian poet A.M. Kozachi (1937–2021) to identify similarities and differences in lexico-semantic means, figurative system and symbolism. The purpose of the study is to trace the representation of the semantic space of the original in poetic translation. The author shows the main types of translation strategies in the transfer of idiostyle features, gives an assessment from the position of reflecting the emotional message of the original in translation as a whole. The search for invariant correspondences in the target language showed the translator’s desire for more emotional identity with the original and partly for stylistic one. With the help of functional equivalents A.M. Kozachi managed to reflect in the translated text the personal experiences of the lyrical female character, to convey the confessional pathos of the poem. The absence of equivalents in the target language to convey some poetic images forced the translator to resort to associative substitution. The folklore, Orthodox symbolism found in the text is sometimes translated by non-literal lexical means. Since this or that symbol could not always evoke similar associations in the recipient, the translator resorted to semantic adaptation.

Plaute traducteur : poétique de la traduction ludique dans la comédie romaine

Considering contemporary literary standards, many studies of Roman comedy assume that Plautus is not a mere translator, or is more than a translator, because of his freedom in adapting Greek plays. However, rather than applying contemporary terminology to an ancient author, we reevaluate his relationship with the Greek source based upon his own theatrical poetics and the Roman conception of translation. We examine the transfer of Greek comedy to Roman games. By exploring the way Plautus presents his work in the prologues of his comedies and with examples from one play (Miles gloriosus), we aim at showing that the playwright plays with the process of linguistic and cultural translation which he exhibits to make his audience laugh. Between Greek source and Latin target, Plautinian uertere reveals a poetics of ludic translation.

Semiotic adequacy of poetic translation: definition of concepts

Semiotic adequacy of poetic translation: definition of concepts

譯莎「詩體」論

In China, there has long been controversy over the “Poetic Translation” and “Prose Translation. Those who insist on the “Poetic translation” style think that Shakespeare’s plays are poetic, so the Chinese translations should adopt the form of “poem”, as a result of which the translations can approach the original works and the “Real Shakespeare” in terms of language form and style, etc. while the “Prose Translation” fails to achieve this. The “Poetic Translation” sprang from the transplantation of “Blank Verse” starting with the distinguished translator of Sun Dayu, followed by Lin Tongji, Bian Zhilin and Fang Ping etc. What is the effect of the“Poetic Translation” Does it pursue “form” or resemble in appearance while losing the real expressions. The paper aims at searching for it.

Poetry of Witness and Translation: Claribel Alegría and Carloyn Forché

American poet Carolyn Forché is also a human rights activist and a poetic translator. This article defines her poetics of translation as expressed in the Introduction to her anthology Against Forgetting. Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993), and her translation of Claribel Alegría’s Flowers from the Volcano (1982). The article presents the term “translation of witness” which has a social-political objective in Central America beyond literary transmission in the target language. The theoretical framework is based on Antoine Berman and Lawrence Venuti.

Asad Muhammad Khan's Poetic Translations: An Analysis

Asad Muhammad Khan's Poetic Translations: An Analysis

Псалтирь царя Давида Симеона Полоцкого в контексте паралитургической и парафрастической традиции XVI–XVII вв.

The collection of poetic translations of King David’s Psalms, compiled by Symeon of Polatsk, is usually used in the scientific discourse under the descriptive title Psaltir’ rifmotvornaya. In this article, King David’s Psalter (1680) of Symeon is considered not in the context of the poet’s entire creative heritage, but in terms of the evolution of the European book tradition of paraliturgical discursive psalmic practices and the poetic paraphrase of the psalms, beginning with the German poets of the Renaissance Helius Eobanus Hessus and Ioannes Mylius Libenrodensis. Not only the artistic experience of Western and Central Europe but also of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is taken into account. Addressing the broader historical context allows us to move away from traditional scientific discussions about the degree of influence of Jan Kochanowski’s poetic paraphrases of psalms (Psałterz Dawidów, 1578) and to more adequately appreciate Symeon’s merits in the field of cultural transfer. The King David’s Psalter of Symeon is evaluated as a result of the interaction of the European book tradition of creating poetic paraphrases of biblical texts and the East Slavic singing culture. The functioning of this culture from the end of the 16th century and especially in the 17th century was greatly influenced by Polish spiritual songs (first of all, the poetic paraphrases of the psalms of Jan Kochanowski), as well as by the increased interest in polyphonic singing thanks to Nikolai Diletsky.

Die dialogische Natur des Duizhang

Abstract The Chinese poetic parallelism (Duizhang) as a central aesthetic instrument of classical Chinese poetry is extraordinarily difficult to translate. The meaning and association triggered by its structure must be lost in translation. The aim of the present work is to show, with the helpaw of Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogic theory, what is actually lost by translating a Duizhang couplet. That depends on how the mechanism of the Duizhang fulfills its aesthetic function. The answer to this question could advance the discussion how to understand Chinese poetics, how to promote poetic translation, and how to enrich the thesaurus of world literature.