THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة

موضوع: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2011-05-21, 5:04 pm

THE ART OF TRANSLATION

To
discuss the art of literary translation is to a large extent to mystify
it if we disregard the unruly manner in which it has been practiced
throughout history. For although writing between two different languages
has always been integral part of national literatures and the exchanges
between them, the most striking, the truly captivating thing about it
is its variations rather than any single characteristic or aspect.
This
cannot be overstressed. Even though we have grown accustomed to the
fact that translation is today a field of academic study, no different
than, say, applied linguistics or sociology, translating literature has
always been perceived and practiced in a variety of manners and styles,
following a variety of literary and writerly traditions. The very idea
that an academic course could be an inlet into writing would strike even
an early twentieth-century aspiring poet as absurd. Compare with the
practice of Antoin Galland who translated liberally the Arabian Nights
into French and into a ninetieth-century best-seller, the very man to
whom we owe the notion of les belles infidèles; or with Mallarmé, or
Cloveaubriand who out of admiration for sublime forms and imagery found
in the works of E. A. Poe and Milton respectively translated them to
international notoriety.

Let us also remind ourselves that
mastery of the foreign languages out of which these literati translated
was not in the least a consideration. Translation in the whole of the
nineteenth century in France, for instance, was being done entirely by
established authors with a vivid interest in foreign literatures but
with no linguistic training to speak of. Nor was it necessary back then
to compare the source-text to the target-text in order to judge the
quality of the translation, as seems to have become the norm in
Eurocentric letters after the 1830s. As a matter of fact, it seems that
the less 'professionally' - to be anachronistic - these authors
translated, the more effective their work was. Not only did they
translate - widely and eclectically for that matter - but they also
prefaced their translations, wrote extended reviews and critical pieces
and at times went out of their way to promote them ardently in the
receiving culture. The history of translation and literature is full of
instances of authors, reviewers and scholars who 'campaigned' for
previously unknown foreign authors through translation: Voltaire for
Hamlet, Hugo for Shakespeare, Kafka for Conrad, Zide for Taha Hussein,
Giono for Melville, and the list goes on.

In other words,
literary translation was for a very long time considered to be a
literary workshop for writers of prose and poetry, a kind of a rite de
pmindage and an invaluable exercise in literary writing. This type of
translation puts the emphasis not so much on linguistic equivalence - as
the modern perception would have it - but rather on eclectic affinities
between the two writers in dialogue, the translated and the
translating; on experimentation with forms, structures and creative
devices that the foreign work makes explicit, and which would stretch
the target-language usages and conventions once appropriated; finally,
on discovering genres, traditions, narrating styles and voices and
importing them to their own writing, both translational and
non-non-translational. This is why influential writers from the likes of
Goethe down to Pound, Paz and Nabokov, have insisted on the
irreplaceable value of acknowledging the Other embodied in a foreign
work to be translated. Without any doubt, literary writing is enriched
in ways unimaginable were it to contend itself with resources found in
national language and literature alone, were it not, that is to say, for
the activity of translation.

The distinction between
contemporary and past ideas about the art of literary translation does
not need to polarise our understanding of it. Interestingly, the
standardisation of literary translation we are experiencing today, which
is so typical of the institutionalisation of translator training, led
to a similar emphasis on the creative potential of translation, even
though from a different path. Theory might be a large part of most
Western-European translation curricula, still in need of some
justification for some. But such an approach, cautious in establishing
links with the past and ongoing debates on core issues of translation,
has led to a renewed valorisation of the source-text.

Whether
focussing on belles-lettres or applied and communicative approaches to
translation, there is more consensus today about the need to maintain
the foreign essence in form and content of the source-text.
Foreignisation makes all the rage today for reasons that do not have
only to do with the ideological stakes of emerging categories of the
population which, although very much part of a society’s diverse pool of
creative forces, were until recently eclipsed by history – women,
ethnic minorities, gays. Foreignisation has become central to
translation debates because it is seen as a means to fertilise the
native literary ground. This potential might seem destructive in terms
of conventional traditions but it is hugely enriching in terms of
creativity and can only come forth in translation.

LITERARY TRANSLATION AS A PROFESSION

'What a splendid art! And what a sad profession!'
Georges Bizet, on music

Taking
into account the common ground in approaches to literary translation
that might seem and indeed are historically very different, it is useful
to look at the untapped potential in contemporary translation
apprenticeship. To be sure, linguistic mastery as a prerequisite for the
profession goes hand in hand with market-led communicative ideals
underpinning the design of applied translation studies today.

This
state of affairs means that the focus is more on formal linguistic
equivalence than on literary savvy and on a type of literary
cosmopolitanism that, in its anarchy, has given us some unexpected
literary insights and bodies of work from various peripheral cultures.
Important works in Russian, Cuban, African and regional European
languages, not to mention Latin and ancient Greek clmindics, were all
made accessible to wider audiences, they were all made ‘literary’,
thanks to the labours and insights of translators. They were travellers,
readers and critics of foreign literatures before they were
translators. In contrast, translators today are more often than not
contracted to work on specific titles given by publishers instead of
taking it upon themselves to introduce authors and works, ask for their
translation and explain their importance, relevance and cultural
background. The underpinning idea here is, in the words of one
commentator, 'more correct doesn’t mean better loved'.

Being
part of a literary school or a literary movement seeking inspiration in
other languages, mentoring by seasoned writers, the tradition of
literary salons, these are all types of apprenticeship which the history
of literature makes evident. Dominant in the past, they have been
disappearing as new cultures of reading and writing emerged in the wake
of mmind publishing markets. To some extent, these developments have kept
translators from becoming what modern markets could really use today:
translators as cultural mediators, as ambmindadors of foreign literatures
and cultures. In the manner of Valéry Larbaud or Bruce Chatwin, they
can act as facilitators of cultural exchanges, or follow Marguerite
Yourcenar’s example, whose advice to translators was to reconstruct the
library of the author they were translating.

Past translation
traditions, such as the Portuguese in nineteenth century, and even
contemporary practices in languages of limited diffusion in Europe,
illustrate how intertwined translation is with literature and criticism.
Here, translational writing springs directly from experiences including
the sudden illumination which comes from contact with unexpected forms
and devices in foreign works, the rapture of such discoveries and the
desire to communicate them. Forms of literary cooperation may include
either groups of scholars working on a major work (aka 'gang
translation'), such as the Bible or the English translation of Proust’s A
la recherche du temps perdu, 'a quarto mani', or a duo consisted of a
linguist expert and a field expert, all suggest different ways of
managing a translation project. These are crucial considerations as more
and more people are trained today to become translators, but find
themselves thrown into literature without having a broad-ranging
understanding of it, nor the cosmopolitan curiosity necessary to
appreciate the marvels of foreign literary traditions.

It is
evident how important it is for translators to make the best of
opportunities to delve deeper into the culture out of which they are
translating, to indulge in literary flaneurism, to take advantage of all
forms of socialising with fellow translators and writers in their first
and second languages, to publicise and share their work experiences and
insights. There is a wealth of means to achieve all this despite
handed-down preconceptions about translator’s solitude

موضوع: رد: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2011-07-13, 9:24 pm

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موضوع: رد: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2011-08-20, 6:42 pm

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شكر جزيلا
abdomasry

موضوع: رد: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2013-12-11, 8:44 pm

موضوع: رد: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2013-12-11, 8:44 pm

xvcbvnv

موضوع: رد: THE ART OF TRANSLATION فن الترجمة 2014-05-18, 9:33 pm

Thanks so much

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