lingua franca?
January 18, 2010 10:35 PM Subscribe
What poetry is untranslatable?
Someone once wrote that you can't translate true poetry. I took that to mean that some ideas were peculiar to certain languages, like Eliot or Shakespeare just don't have quite the same effect in any language other than English. The Divine Comedy in Italian, Rilke in German, Japanese haiku, that sort of thing. What are other examples?
Someone once wrote that you can't translate true poetry. I took that to mean that some ideas were peculiar to certain languages, like Eliot or Shakespeare just don't have quite the same effect in any language other than English. The Divine Comedy in Italian, Rilke in German, Japanese haiku, that sort of thing. What are other examples?
Doug Hofstadter wrote a really fun book about this (well, and about a lot of other stuff, as is his way). I think reading that book would give you way more of a grounding in what this question actually means than the answers you'll get here, because it's a loaded question that depends a lot on how you define your terms.
Since reading the book, I've translated a good bit of verse for my own amusement, which is something I would never have undertaken before. I guess what I took away from it is that "translation" is a very slippery concept to define, and it means pretty much what you and, if available, the original author, and, if applicable, your intended audience, want it to mean. I've very conveniently chosen only to translate poems by people who are dead, and have only rarely shared my translations with anyone.
Someone in this thread will probably mention that many Germans refer to their language's Shakespeare translations as being in "the original German" because apparently those are some dope translations and many consider them to be better than the originals.
posted by crinklebat at 10:43 PM on January 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
Since reading the book, I've translated a good bit of verse for my own amusement, which is something I would never have undertaken before. I guess what I took away from it is that "translation" is a very slippery concept to define, and it means pretty much what you and, if available, the original author, and, if applicable, your intended audience, want it to mean. I've very conveniently chosen only to translate poems by people who are dead, and have only rarely shared my translations with anyone.
Someone in this thread will probably mention that many Germans refer to their language's Shakespeare translations as being in "the original German" because apparently those are some dope translations and many consider them to be better than the originals.
posted by crinklebat at 10:43 PM on January 18, 2010 [3 favorites]
Someone in this thread will probably mention that many Germans refer to their language's Shakespeare translations as being in "the original German" because apparently those are some dope translations and many consider them to be better than the originals.I had been restraining myself from mentioning "Shakespeare in the original Klingon", but now I can no longer do so.
posted by Flunkie at 10:47 PM on January 18, 2010 [2 favorites]
"It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music." -Voltaire
And yeah, read the Hofstadter. You've asked a very big question that needs a very big answer.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:50 PM on January 18, 2010
And yeah, read the Hofstadter. You've asked a very big question that needs a very big answer.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:50 PM on January 18, 2010
Poetry depends quite a bit on the feeling and sound of particular words. The most basic example is rhyming -- it only works because the words sound like each other, thanks to some bit of linguistic fate. But there are countless other aspects to poetry where the meaning and sensation of a poem depends on that specific word in that context, and no other word would do.
So you take a poem in its original language and, in order to translate it, you change all the words! No matter how similar the languages are and no matter how lucky you are, there are going to be differences in what the poem is like if it's put into a different language.
So, really, in this sense, all poetry is untranslatable. Sure, most of the time, you can get close enough to the original meaning that it works, but, for any poem, a close enough analysis will yield some slight difference in meaning (whether those differences are negligible or not). If someone wants to say that "true" poetry is what cannot be translated, I take it they mean "good" poetry, in which the words in the poem are used in such an exquisite way that no close approximation can do the original justice.
I guess what I'm saying is: can you explain what you're looking for a bit better?
posted by Ms. Saint at 10:57 PM on January 18, 2010
So you take a poem in its original language and, in order to translate it, you change all the words! No matter how similar the languages are and no matter how lucky you are, there are going to be differences in what the poem is like if it's put into a different language.
So, really, in this sense, all poetry is untranslatable. Sure, most of the time, you can get close enough to the original meaning that it works, but, for any poem, a close enough analysis will yield some slight difference in meaning (whether those differences are negligible or not). If someone wants to say that "true" poetry is what cannot be translated, I take it they mean "good" poetry, in which the words in the poem are used in such an exquisite way that no close approximation can do the original justice.
I guess what I'm saying is: can you explain what you're looking for a bit better?
posted by Ms. Saint at 10:57 PM on January 18, 2010
Best answer: James Joyce is untranslatable. (I'm talking about Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:01 PM on January 18, 2010
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:01 PM on January 18, 2010
You might also contend that written poems that rely heavily on the lexical characteristics of the original language are poor candidates for translation into languages with different writing systems. The Red Wheelbarrow might be an example of this.
posted by tss at 11:10 PM on January 18, 2010
posted by tss at 11:10 PM on January 18, 2010
I don't think its so much about specific words not having direct analogues in other languages, though that may be the case, but more about the exacting precision with which poets choose their words. Their choices take into account not just the strict denotations of words, but the sound, cadence, and connotations of words, which is to say nothing of phrases and idioms.
You mention Rilke above, and an example from him may serve to illustrate this problem. German and English are relatively close in the language tree, so moving from one to the other is easier than tranlations between other languages (say, from English to Japanese). Nevertheless, a quick Google search reveals no fewer than four different translations for his Eighth Elegy (and there is a new translation on the shelfs now that is purported to be the best yet):
posted by eggplantplacebo at 11:13 PM on January 18, 2010 [5 favorites]
You mention Rilke above, and an example from him may serve to illustrate this problem. German and English are relatively close in the language tree, so moving from one to the other is easier than tranlations between other languages (say, from English to Japanese). Nevertheless, a quick Google search reveals no fewer than four different translations for his Eighth Elegy (and there is a new translation on the shelfs now that is purported to be the best yet):
All other creatures look into the OpenThese convey the same basic message (though I'm not sure why that last one's fucking with his line breaks), which might be good enough for something like a Hollywood movie or mass-market novel. But poems, literature, and art films all use language so deliberately that these little differences can lead to variations in interpretation. An "unobstructed world" is a much different concept than "the Open," as the former clearly defines its subject while the latter is more abstract. "Encircling" has a military connotation, "barriers" is neutral, while "snares" and "traps" evoke primal hunting. An accurate reading of the poem's tone and the subtleties of its message depend upon a thousand smaller interpretations, but given these variations in translation, we can never feel sure that our reading of the poem is accurate. (Not that you can feel sure about the interpretation of an untranslated poem, but at least its not impossible.)
with their whole eyes. But our eyes,
turned inward, are set all around it like snares,
trapping its way out to freedom.
---
It is with all its eyes that the creature sees
that which is open. Our eyes alone,
as if reversed, are stationed all around it
as traps, encircling its free departure.
---
The creature gazes into openness with all
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
---
Animals see the unobstructed
world with their whole eyes.
But our eyes, turned back upon
themselves, encircle and
seek to snare the world,
setting traps for freedom.
---
posted by eggplantplacebo at 11:13 PM on January 18, 2010 [5 favorites]
Translation generally concerns itself with meaning, poetry with structure. The problem with translating poetry is that, unless you are incredibly lucky or incredibly skillful or more likely both, you end up either breaking the meaning or the structure.
In some ways Jaberwocky is a lot easier to translate since all you have to do is make up nonsense words that evoke the same feelings in a speaker of X as words like brillig and slithy do in Carroll's English speaking audience.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:19 PM on January 18, 2010
In some ways Jaberwocky is a lot easier to translate since all you have to do is make up nonsense words that evoke the same feelings in a speaker of X as words like brillig and slithy do in Carroll's English speaking audience.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:19 PM on January 18, 2010
You know, I hesitate to even answer this question for fear of being annoying. But what the hell. I'm a born-n-bred, mid-western 1970s english speaker, who learned French and then African French in 2001-7. Cred established: some things are simply not translatable. Or at least not directly.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 11:27 PM on January 18, 2010
posted by hapax_legomenon at 11:27 PM on January 18, 2010
In some ways Jaberwocky is a lot easier to translate since all you have to do is make up nonsense words that evoke the same feelings in a speaker of X as words like brillig and slithy do in Carroll's English speaking audience.
But this has its own set of difficulties. Part of what everyone seems to be driving at with regards to translation generally (and not just poetry) is that every word, phrase, syllable etc. in a poem is freighted with layers and layers of contextual significance that depend heavily on the language environment of the poet or the reader. We've all heard the (apocryphal?) one about how the Chevy Nova had an awful name for Latin American countries---"no va" meaning "won't go" or whatever. Well, suppose my poem in English mentions that I drive a Chevy Nova. Shouldn't I drive a Chevy Nova in Spanish, too? I mean, I wrote "Nova" specifically, not, say, "Chevette". But I don't want to imply that my car won't go.
Anyway, while it may be easier to make new nonsense words fit the meter, you still have to be intimately familiar with the language to know what sounds work to "evoke the feelings" that Jabberwocky does in the original English-ish. At least real words have a denotation you can pin them to. Fake words are just floating out there in a nebulous sea of aural, lexical, etc. connotations.
posted by tss at 11:42 PM on January 18, 2010
But this has its own set of difficulties. Part of what everyone seems to be driving at with regards to translation generally (and not just poetry) is that every word, phrase, syllable etc. in a poem is freighted with layers and layers of contextual significance that depend heavily on the language environment of the poet or the reader. We've all heard the (apocryphal?) one about how the Chevy Nova had an awful name for Latin American countries---"no va" meaning "won't go" or whatever. Well, suppose my poem in English mentions that I drive a Chevy Nova. Shouldn't I drive a Chevy Nova in Spanish, too? I mean, I wrote "Nova" specifically, not, say, "Chevette". But I don't want to imply that my car won't go.
Anyway, while it may be easier to make new nonsense words fit the meter, you still have to be intimately familiar with the language to know what sounds work to "evoke the feelings" that Jabberwocky does in the original English-ish. At least real words have a denotation you can pin them to. Fake words are just floating out there in a nebulous sea of aural, lexical, etc. connotations.
posted by tss at 11:42 PM on January 18, 2010
As tss mentions, it's all about the power of each and every word. Good poetry is written by someone who thinks about that one word there, on that line, and if they should have a different word there or not. And they do it for every line, multiple times. (That, or they're just that good that the words they choose are poetry from the get go)
Each word has a set of connotations both in reference to the poet and the culture they are from. Each reference a poem makes, whether to a fashion trend, a political event, even popular culture is referred to in its language in a way unique to the language it came from. In some ways, one reason Eliot can seem so daunting to people is that his work is filled with references to his life at the time he was writing, and the things he was reading, hence the footnotes that we're forced to sift through to find the meanings of his work. And that's a poem I'm reading in its original language! If every line has a subset of meanings, unique to its culture, then every line has that battalion of footnotes waiting to take our eye away from the line on the page.
As an example, Donald Hall's poem Distressed Haiku, in listing things that are impossible, mentions the Red Sox winning 100 straight games, and this is years before they broke their World Series drought. To grasp how impossible that is, you'd have to understand baseball, have a passable knowledge about the woebegone nature of the team, and to some extent empathize with a beleagured fanbase. How do we translate baseball? The Red Sox and Buckner and people rooting for a team their whole lives, dying without seeing them win a pennant? And that's just one small line of the poem. Does not understanding that one line keep you from getting the gist of the poem? Probably not, but poetry isn't about gist, it's about communicating meaning and understanding through the power of carefully chosen words.
While I do sometimes read translated poetry, I read it understanding that the idea is the author's, but to a large extent, the poetry is the translator's.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:04 AM on January 19, 2010
Each word has a set of connotations both in reference to the poet and the culture they are from. Each reference a poem makes, whether to a fashion trend, a political event, even popular culture is referred to in its language in a way unique to the language it came from. In some ways, one reason Eliot can seem so daunting to people is that his work is filled with references to his life at the time he was writing, and the things he was reading, hence the footnotes that we're forced to sift through to find the meanings of his work. And that's a poem I'm reading in its original language! If every line has a subset of meanings, unique to its culture, then every line has that battalion of footnotes waiting to take our eye away from the line on the page.
As an example, Donald Hall's poem Distressed Haiku, in listing things that are impossible, mentions the Red Sox winning 100 straight games, and this is years before they broke their World Series drought. To grasp how impossible that is, you'd have to understand baseball, have a passable knowledge about the woebegone nature of the team, and to some extent empathize with a beleagured fanbase. How do we translate baseball? The Red Sox and Buckner and people rooting for a team their whole lives, dying without seeing them win a pennant? And that's just one small line of the poem. Does not understanding that one line keep you from getting the gist of the poem? Probably not, but poetry isn't about gist, it's about communicating meaning and understanding through the power of carefully chosen words.
While I do sometimes read translated poetry, I read it understanding that the idea is the author's, but to a large extent, the poetry is the translator's.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:04 AM on January 19, 2010
And the Chevy Nova is not the only car that amuses Spanish speakers :)
posted by flabdablet at 12:20 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by flabdablet at 12:20 AM on January 19, 2010
I don't really read poetry but when I had to study some of it in French courses.. Mallarmé, Verlaine, Rimbaud.. quite a lot of it seemed near impossible to translate. You can't preserve the structure of it, which is very precise, or the sound of it, and so often there's not a word or phrase in English that matches the ambiguity or double-meaning of an original word or phrase.
posted by citron at 12:31 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by citron at 12:31 AM on January 19, 2010
Two examples of how, or why, translators run into difficulties:
1) The cultural context can provide completely opposite subtexts.
I studied a set of Chinese poems once that had been translated into German. In one Chinese poem, the most important line was about a monkey, who was sitting under a full moon. In the Buddhist tradition, the monkey is most frequently identified with the mind (as in the "monkey mind" that can't sit still), and, relatedly, the Monkey King, who is a hero kind of like Odysseus: he is always smarter and trickier than anyone else around him.
In the German version of that poem, the word "ape" was used instead--an approximately equivalent word to "monkey"--but in the Western/ European tradition, the ape is most commonly identified with people's baser instincts and uncontrolled sexuality. This gives the poem an entirely different feeling even though the word-by-word translation doesn't look that different. That can be true of almost any translation, but in shorter works like poetry, the problem becomes more acute.
2) The structure of two different languages can be really, really different, and that affects how poems are put together.
For example, in Latin all verbs are conjugated and all nouns are declined, so rhyming is really easy because so many words have the same endings. Therefore, rhyming has no part in formal Latin poetry. But word order in Latin can be rearranged with no loss of meaning, so there are all sorts of rhetorical devices that depend on the poet arranging the words just so and still staying within the given meter.
When you translate Latin into English, you can't translate half of those structural rhetorical devices, because they're ungrammatical in English, so some translators make every line rhyme instead.
posted by colfax at 12:37 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
1) The cultural context can provide completely opposite subtexts.
I studied a set of Chinese poems once that had been translated into German. In one Chinese poem, the most important line was about a monkey, who was sitting under a full moon. In the Buddhist tradition, the monkey is most frequently identified with the mind (as in the "monkey mind" that can't sit still), and, relatedly, the Monkey King, who is a hero kind of like Odysseus: he is always smarter and trickier than anyone else around him.
In the German version of that poem, the word "ape" was used instead--an approximately equivalent word to "monkey"--but in the Western/ European tradition, the ape is most commonly identified with people's baser instincts and uncontrolled sexuality. This gives the poem an entirely different feeling even though the word-by-word translation doesn't look that different. That can be true of almost any translation, but in shorter works like poetry, the problem becomes more acute.
2) The structure of two different languages can be really, really different, and that affects how poems are put together.
For example, in Latin all verbs are conjugated and all nouns are declined, so rhyming is really easy because so many words have the same endings. Therefore, rhyming has no part in formal Latin poetry. But word order in Latin can be rearranged with no loss of meaning, so there are all sorts of rhetorical devices that depend on the poet arranging the words just so and still staying within the given meter.
When you translate Latin into English, you can't translate half of those structural rhetorical devices, because they're ungrammatical in English, so some translators make every line rhyme instead.
posted by colfax at 12:37 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
No poetry is untranslatable.
The problem with suggesting that some poetry is untranslatable is that the corollary is that some poetry is translatable and that this, therefore, implies there is some how we can determine correct translation.
But poetry is not like this. It's not like a set of instructions on how to operate a vacuum cleaner, in this latter case it is easy to test the translation—after reading the translation can some one operate the machine correctly?
Poetry, by its nature, is susceptible to multiple meanings and affects. These are conveyed in multiple ways: through word choice, rhythm, sonority, structure, line breaks etc.
The observation that that can be no direct translation of poetry is a banal one, therefore. No one is really expecting to do this. It misses the point of translating poetry: not to produce a direct translation but rather to create something that stands up in its own right as its own work.
Even bilingual poets who translate their own work will sometimes produce multiple translations, or translations that differ markedly in line breaks, or word choice for example.
How close something is to the original is really a creative choice. So that conveying meaning, for example, might be better done by radically breaking with the original structure. If someone undertakes a translation of an archaic poem they need not be constrained by sticking to direct equivalents of archaic words etc. Its a perfectly valid choice, for example to arrive at modern equivalents, even going so far, for example, as to introduce modern objects that were not around at the time of the original.
You might want to know that translating a poem in a language you do not speak is sometime set as an exercise. There are poets who have undertaken this as a serious enterprise leading to published work. The poem you produce without access to other translations might be different form the one you produce with access to them, but neither can necessarily be said to be more valid.
No poetry is untranslatable because there can be no definitive criteria to establish translatability, or success of translation. Nor can there be a definitive version of a poem. There can only be multiple attempts at translation, each of which succeeds or fails largely on its own terms. Different poems will present different challenges, but the ways to meet them are limited only by the imagination of the person undertaking the translation, just as the creator of the original faced his or her own challenges.
posted by tallus at 12:40 AM on January 19, 2010 [3 favorites]
The problem with suggesting that some poetry is untranslatable is that the corollary is that some poetry is translatable and that this, therefore, implies there is some how we can determine correct translation.
But poetry is not like this. It's not like a set of instructions on how to operate a vacuum cleaner, in this latter case it is easy to test the translation—after reading the translation can some one operate the machine correctly?
Poetry, by its nature, is susceptible to multiple meanings and affects. These are conveyed in multiple ways: through word choice, rhythm, sonority, structure, line breaks etc.
The observation that that can be no direct translation of poetry is a banal one, therefore. No one is really expecting to do this. It misses the point of translating poetry: not to produce a direct translation but rather to create something that stands up in its own right as its own work.
Even bilingual poets who translate their own work will sometimes produce multiple translations, or translations that differ markedly in line breaks, or word choice for example.
How close something is to the original is really a creative choice. So that conveying meaning, for example, might be better done by radically breaking with the original structure. If someone undertakes a translation of an archaic poem they need not be constrained by sticking to direct equivalents of archaic words etc. Its a perfectly valid choice, for example to arrive at modern equivalents, even going so far, for example, as to introduce modern objects that were not around at the time of the original.
You might want to know that translating a poem in a language you do not speak is sometime set as an exercise. There are poets who have undertaken this as a serious enterprise leading to published work. The poem you produce without access to other translations might be different form the one you produce with access to them, but neither can necessarily be said to be more valid.
No poetry is untranslatable because there can be no definitive criteria to establish translatability, or success of translation. Nor can there be a definitive version of a poem. There can only be multiple attempts at translation, each of which succeeds or fails largely on its own terms. Different poems will present different challenges, but the ways to meet them are limited only by the imagination of the person undertaking the translation, just as the creator of the original faced his or her own challenges.
posted by tallus at 12:40 AM on January 19, 2010 [3 favorites]
Poems that really heavily on pun like wordplay or ambiguos grammer are pretty much impossible to translate.
There are Chinese poems that can be read either forward or backward, that I think fall into this category.
I also read somewhere that there is an epic Sanskrit poem that was written to include two distinct stories depending on how one parses the sentence structure. Can't seem to find it now.
posted by afu at 12:41 AM on January 19, 2010
There are Chinese poems that can be read either forward or backward, that I think fall into this category.
I also read somewhere that there is an epic Sanskrit poem that was written to include two distinct stories depending on how one parses the sentence structure. Can't seem to find it now.
posted by afu at 12:41 AM on January 19, 2010
It isn't exactly poetry in the purest sense, but: the Talmud, and the writings of many of the Rabbis, are virtually untranslatable in certain senses, because they are so self- and other-referential on the most basic level. Maimonides' Guide Of The Perplexed is a prime example of this: even aside from the fact that it was written in Hebrew with Arabic script, nearly every phrase and often single words (!) are references to some passage or other in the Talmud or the Torah, and Maimonides gives no divisions or chapter headings, so the only thing that exists is a long stream of sentences. There are some good translations, but the translator has to be content with simply pointing out the more obvious references to other texts, and often she or he cannot succeed in catching them all. The Talmud's particular problem is that it doesn't announce who is speaking in any given section, or which interpretation is correct; it's like a massive logical puzzle, with each apparent section presenting various logical possibilities in a way that must be solved.
But this is true of all really great texts - every word matters, because every word has a particular significance, and unfortunately you can't translate every word into a word with the same significance.
posted by koeselitz at 1:28 AM on January 19, 2010
But this is true of all really great texts - every word matters, because every word has a particular significance, and unfortunately you can't translate every word into a word with the same significance.
posted by koeselitz at 1:28 AM on January 19, 2010
tallus, I'd argue that you prove my point. That you can't argue that a translation is good enough, or bad enough, that you can't be able to say that this or that is a good translation is why you can't have good translations.
Or, to use your example, of bilingual poets produce more than one translation, I'd argue that each and every poem they create is a new poem, or variation on a theme, but the original poem, it's wording, it's flow, it's essence is still untranslated/untranslatable. In other words, no poetry is translatable because there is no definitive criteria, because each attempt at translation succeeds as new poetic work on its own terms.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:33 AM on January 19, 2010
Or, to use your example, of bilingual poets produce more than one translation, I'd argue that each and every poem they create is a new poem, or variation on a theme, but the original poem, it's wording, it's flow, it's essence is still untranslated/untranslatable. In other words, no poetry is translatable because there is no definitive criteria, because each attempt at translation succeeds as new poetic work on its own terms.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:33 AM on January 19, 2010
I have translated Chinese poetry into English for publication (for example, some of the poems in this anthology), just to plant my own small flag in justification of the poorly informed ramble that follows.
I've not read the Hofstadter book linked above but it seems scanning the reviews that he's addressing the variety of issues that arise. One is that there are certain effects achieved in poetry and certain other types of literature that are the result of much more than the mere semantic content of the piece. Even if in translation you can approximate rhyme schemes or other prosody, there may be allusions to a literary or larger heritage that the poet can reasonably expect to resonate with their readers that will be lost in a different language/cultural milieu (though of course there's no guarantee that native readers would pick up on these as intended) - some of my favourite poems in English are quite simple on their face but draw from deep wells of the language to achieve something that is often not available to the non-native reader (I've read Chinese translations from the English that suffer from just such issues).
So while you can translate just about anything, given that poetry is (to generalise somewhat) an exercise in exploiting the particular mechanics and milieu of a given language and culture through their heightened use you're up against the fact that in many cases the mere act of translation is to abandon the elements of the work that are its essential achievement.
posted by Abiezer at 1:44 AM on January 19, 2010 [2 favorites]
I've not read the Hofstadter book linked above but it seems scanning the reviews that he's addressing the variety of issues that arise. One is that there are certain effects achieved in poetry and certain other types of literature that are the result of much more than the mere semantic content of the piece. Even if in translation you can approximate rhyme schemes or other prosody, there may be allusions to a literary or larger heritage that the poet can reasonably expect to resonate with their readers that will be lost in a different language/cultural milieu (though of course there's no guarantee that native readers would pick up on these as intended) - some of my favourite poems in English are quite simple on their face but draw from deep wells of the language to achieve something that is often not available to the non-native reader (I've read Chinese translations from the English that suffer from just such issues).
So while you can translate just about anything, given that poetry is (to generalise somewhat) an exercise in exploiting the particular mechanics and milieu of a given language and culture through their heightened use you're up against the fact that in many cases the mere act of translation is to abandon the elements of the work that are its essential achievement.
posted by Abiezer at 1:44 AM on January 19, 2010 [2 favorites]
James Joyce is untranslatable. (I'm talking about Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:01 AM
James Joyce had a specific interest in translation and worked closely with his translators. In many cases, since he often refused to explain things to critics but did explain his novels to his translators, it could be argued that the translation was truly a Joycean product. Joyce met Stuart Gilbert because the latter read the French translation of Ulysses by Morel and discussed with Joyce how it could be further improved.
posted by vacapinta at 1:57 AM on January 19, 2010 [5 favorites]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:01 AM
James Joyce had a specific interest in translation and worked closely with his translators. In many cases, since he often refused to explain things to critics but did explain his novels to his translators, it could be argued that the translation was truly a Joycean product. Joyce met Stuart Gilbert because the latter read the French translation of Ulysses by Morel and discussed with Joyce how it could be further improved.
posted by vacapinta at 1:57 AM on January 19, 2010 [5 favorites]
Taking a step back...
In any work of art, the meaning comes from the interaction between the artwork itself, and the perception of the person experiencing it.
Everyone's experience is subtly different depending on who they are, what mood they're in, what their life is. Even so, people are similar enough that experiences of a particular artwork can be very similar.
Translating a poem shifts the experience still further. But it's not shifting it away from a precise point, but from a cluster of experiences that are already slightly different from each other.
So I would say no poem is completely untranslatable, since there's no unique experience for it to be untranslatable from.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:58 AM on January 19, 2010
In any work of art, the meaning comes from the interaction between the artwork itself, and the perception of the person experiencing it.
Everyone's experience is subtly different depending on who they are, what mood they're in, what their life is. Even so, people are similar enough that experiences of a particular artwork can be very similar.
Translating a poem shifts the experience still further. But it's not shifting it away from a precise point, but from a cluster of experiences that are already slightly different from each other.
So I would say no poem is completely untranslatable, since there's no unique experience for it to be untranslatable from.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:58 AM on January 19, 2010
Who better qualified to answer the original query than Vladimir Nabokov?
posted by aqsakal at 1:58 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by aqsakal at 1:58 AM on January 19, 2010
You know, I would consider any poetry that contains puns or play on words to be relatively untranslatable. Most of this poetry is probably stupid limericks, but Shakespeare probably counts too. It is very unlikely that you'll be able to manage the same play on words in any language apart from the original.
posted by that girl at 1:59 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by that girl at 1:59 AM on January 19, 2010
Yes, there is an excellent Japanese translation of "Finnegans Wake", too. You might argue that it's not really a translation because of the nature of the original, but that's begging the question.
posted by No-sword at 2:09 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by No-sword at 2:09 AM on January 19, 2010
Translating the work of Paul Celan is the subject of much debate. The nature of compound words in German, and the allusive character of Celan's writing, combine to make his poetry very difficult to translate.
posted by OmieWise at 5:00 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by OmieWise at 5:00 AM on January 19, 2010
People who think the Chevy Nova amuses Hispanophones should check out the Francophone reaction to the Toyota MR2
posted by jock@law at 5:15 AM on January 19, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by jock@law at 5:15 AM on January 19, 2010 [3 favorites]
Similar to the Talmud, mentioned above, is the Qur'an. For several reasons, people believe it is not translatable and should not be translated.
posted by Houstonian at 5:49 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Houstonian at 5:49 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
e.e. cummings is totally untranslatable: his poetry depends not only on specific word choices, but also line breaks, spacing, and tabs used to sever and reassemble these words for his purposes. Even if you found the perfect translation for those words, the design of the poem and the words relate to the space around them isn't something that -- in my opinion -- could be replicated in any other language, or using any other words.
(I say this, by the way, as a former professional French-to-English translator*)
*by "former" I mean "it's not my day job any more" but living in Quebec it's still part of my daily life, if you know what I mean.
posted by Shepherd at 6:19 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
(I say this, by the way, as a former professional French-to-English translator*)
*by "former" I mean "it's not my day job any more" but living in Quebec it's still part of my daily life, if you know what I mean.
posted by Shepherd at 6:19 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
I figured that at 32 answers, I would be too late to say "all of it."
Seriously though, read Le Ton Beau de Marot
posted by 256 at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2010
Seriously though, read Le Ton Beau de Marot
posted by 256 at 7:10 AM on January 19, 2010
To further vacapinta's point, here's a neat little excerpt of an interview with Jacques Aubert, the head editor of the French edition of Ulysses:
Joyce plays constantly with words and languages. Isn't that the biggest danger for this translation?
In effect, Joyce tells us that there is translation inherent in reading. He says that and he puts it into action. Buck Mulligan himself plays on his nickname from the second page of Ulysses. We made the decision not to translate the word "Buck." Leaving the English nickname, from the moment where the rest of the text illuminates it, this is part of the mixture of languages that Joyce begins to unfold. In the third episode, among the traps that Joyce lays for us, there is "Los demiurgos." You could read "Los" as the article that goes with "demiurgos." In fact, the context indicates that this "Los" is a proper name borrowed from William Blake [The Song of Los] and that, as a result, it should not be put in italics like the word that follows it. This is just one of numerous polyglot traps. It's one of those aspects by which Ulysses already has, I dare say, one foot in Finnegans Wake.
posted by zoomorphic at 7:35 AM on January 19, 2010
Joyce plays constantly with words and languages. Isn't that the biggest danger for this translation?
In effect, Joyce tells us that there is translation inherent in reading. He says that and he puts it into action. Buck Mulligan himself plays on his nickname from the second page of Ulysses. We made the decision not to translate the word "Buck." Leaving the English nickname, from the moment where the rest of the text illuminates it, this is part of the mixture of languages that Joyce begins to unfold. In the third episode, among the traps that Joyce lays for us, there is "Los demiurgos." You could read "Los" as the article that goes with "demiurgos." In fact, the context indicates that this "Los" is a proper name borrowed from William Blake [The Song of Los] and that, as a result, it should not be put in italics like the word that follows it. This is just one of numerous polyglot traps. It's one of those aspects by which Ulysses already has, I dare say, one foot in Finnegans Wake.
posted by zoomorphic at 7:35 AM on January 19, 2010
the work of cesar vallejo, is often considered quite untranslatable. it has taken clay eshelman a lifetime to do present his work in english, and even eshelman would acknowledge that his versions are merely approximations.
some think that vallejo's obscurantism has its roots in the work of vicente huidobro, a chilean poet whose work can approach the untranslatable. still, vallejo is il miglior fabbro, as some might say . . .
posted by deejay jaydee at 8:44 AM on January 19, 2010
some think that vallejo's obscurantism has its roots in the work of vicente huidobro, a chilean poet whose work can approach the untranslatable. still, vallejo is il miglior fabbro, as some might say . . .
posted by deejay jaydee at 8:44 AM on January 19, 2010
i've heard that the ancient greek lyric poets are not really translatable (and difficult to even read) due to a second layer of meaning tied into syntactical structure. since ancient greek is largely free of syntax, there is a lot of freedom to use word order to convey meaning.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:03 AM on January 19, 2010
posted by ennui.bz at 10:03 AM on January 19, 2010
> James Joyce is untranslatable.
This is untrue; there have been excellent translations of Joyce into other languages. The question as posed makes no sense: you can say everything is translatable or you can say nothing is translatable, with excellent arguments on each side. It would be extremely helpful if the person who posted the question would drop by to clarify.
posted by languagehat at 10:47 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
This is untrue; there have been excellent translations of Joyce into other languages. The question as posed makes no sense: you can say everything is translatable or you can say nothing is translatable, with excellent arguments on each side. It would be extremely helpful if the person who posted the question would drop by to clarify.
posted by languagehat at 10:47 AM on January 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
I'll just jump in to agree with Abiezer that you can translate anything from one language to another--providing the target language is sufficiently descriptive.
Just for example, you could translate Beethoven's Ninth Symphony into written Klingon poetry or the reverse--Klingon poetry into music.
Beethoven's Ninth in Klingon would likely involve a lot of explanation about what different parts of the symphony sound like, what emotions it is evoking, comparisons with Klingon works of art, etc. Maybe you could even structure your poem to have the same sort of breadth and overall dramatic outline as Beethoven's 9th.
Of course you're not going to have any of the actual symphonic sounds translate over but (as someone who has spent a few decades writing & performing music I can tell you, if you don't know already, that) music is "about" a lot more than just the sounds it makes.
And I don't even have to talk about the reverse--translating poetry, prose, stories, and the rest into pure music has been keeping reams of musicians employed for centuries.
Those examples seem extreme but they make a point: You can always transfer some portion of the essence of a work into a completely different format.
However, whenever you do that, there is also some portion of the essence that you cannot transfer.
For example, the example of Beethoven --> Klingon. The Klingon language version won't have any violins, or even melody, rhythm, or harmony and most people would consider at least some of those elements to be pretty essential to the Beethoven. So you're leaving out something pretty essential.
The point about "you can't translate true poetry" is that poetry tends to be about, as its very subject matter and to the very core of it, specifically those elements that can't be transferred over to a different language--the interplay among connotation, denotation, the sound, rhythm, and even shape of the words, etc.
You could translate, or perhaps explain or evoke, the denotative meaning, the connotations, the sounds, the rhythms, OR the shape. But (some) poetry anyway, is about all of those at once and even more so, the entire gestalt of those elements working together.
That is what you can suggest in a translation, but never completely capture.
posted by flug at 11:05 AM on January 19, 2010
Just for example, you could translate Beethoven's Ninth Symphony into written Klingon poetry or the reverse--Klingon poetry into music.
Beethoven's Ninth in Klingon would likely involve a lot of explanation about what different parts of the symphony sound like, what emotions it is evoking, comparisons with Klingon works of art, etc. Maybe you could even structure your poem to have the same sort of breadth and overall dramatic outline as Beethoven's 9th.
Of course you're not going to have any of the actual symphonic sounds translate over but (as someone who has spent a few decades writing & performing music I can tell you, if you don't know already, that) music is "about" a lot more than just the sounds it makes.
And I don't even have to talk about the reverse--translating poetry, prose, stories, and the rest into pure music has been keeping reams of musicians employed for centuries.
Those examples seem extreme but they make a point: You can always transfer some portion of the essence of a work into a completely different format.
However, whenever you do that, there is also some portion of the essence that you cannot transfer.
For example, the example of Beethoven --> Klingon. The Klingon language version won't have any violins, or even melody, rhythm, or harmony and most people would consider at least some of those elements to be pretty essential to the Beethoven. So you're leaving out something pretty essential.
The point about "you can't translate true poetry" is that poetry tends to be about, as its very subject matter and to the very core of it, specifically those elements that can't be transferred over to a different language--the interplay among connotation, denotation, the sound, rhythm, and even shape of the words, etc.
You could translate, or perhaps explain or evoke, the denotative meaning, the connotations, the sounds, the rhythms, OR the shape. But (some) poetry anyway, is about all of those at once and even more so, the entire gestalt of those elements working together.
That is what you can suggest in a translation, but never completely capture.
posted by flug at 11:05 AM on January 19, 2010
I don't know much about poetry, or translation, but I am finding the responses here to be fascinating.
It sounds to me as though poetry is not something that can even be classified as translatable or untranslatable, that we are fooled into thinking it might be translated because it contains words, but that the words have been transformed in some fundamental way by being made into poetry.
Perhaps poetry can be disassembled and remade into another thing that uses some number or proportion of the original parts, but the number of new parts has little bearing on the resemblance of the new thing to the original. Also, we might find that some of the parts have been destroyed in the process of disassembly and are no longer available, needing to be replaced with something else.
Someone with more skills in that regard could probably explain that in a poem. But is that what some of you are getting at?
posted by yohko at 11:28 AM on January 19, 2010
It sounds to me as though poetry is not something that can even be classified as translatable or untranslatable, that we are fooled into thinking it might be translated because it contains words, but that the words have been transformed in some fundamental way by being made into poetry.
Perhaps poetry can be disassembled and remade into another thing that uses some number or proportion of the original parts, but the number of new parts has little bearing on the resemblance of the new thing to the original. Also, we might find that some of the parts have been destroyed in the process of disassembly and are no longer available, needing to be replaced with something else.
Someone with more skills in that regard could probably explain that in a poem. But is that what some of you are getting at?
posted by yohko at 11:28 AM on January 19, 2010
Just came in to recommend an essay (whose name I forget) in Robert Hass' collection Twentieth Century Pleasures, addressing the question you asked. It's mostly about Basho.
posted by Beardman at 3:04 PM on January 19, 2010
posted by Beardman at 3:04 PM on January 19, 2010
Your question is really ambiguous, because so much depends on individual interpretation, and I very much doubt that you'll be able to procure a list of works that are definitely untranslatable. What do you mean by "untranslatable"?
If you're going for poetry that isn't the same in a translated form, then I'd argue that every piece of poetry ever written fits. Poets write with specific ideas to share. If you're translating based on the gist of the work, then you're going to lose the subtleties of the words in the original language. The flow of the words, the shape, the sounds, even - this'll sound silly, but - the taste of the words can't be replicated in a foreign language with perfect fidelity, ever.
posted by estlin at 4:57 PM on January 19, 2010
If you're going for poetry that isn't the same in a translated form, then I'd argue that every piece of poetry ever written fits. Poets write with specific ideas to share. If you're translating based on the gist of the work, then you're going to lose the subtleties of the words in the original language. The flow of the words, the shape, the sounds, even - this'll sound silly, but - the taste of the words can't be replicated in a foreign language with perfect fidelity, ever.
posted by estlin at 4:57 PM on January 19, 2010
Response by poster: Or better put, what are examples of poems that lose the most in the process of translation?
An example I've carried with me for a long time is from the Circular Ruins where Borges refers to "rojo adan" which is translated as "red Adam." Apart from the fact that I'm not sure what a red Adam is, the inability to simultaneously represent the Spanish meaning of adan as both a word for clay (which is itself a reference to the myth of the Golem as well as a return to the opening lines of the story) and the biblical reference to Adam closes certain doors to readers of the story in English. Translating it as "red clay" would do the same.
I would imagine this happens even more in poetry, looking for other examples.
posted by minkll at 5:11 PM on January 19, 2010
An example I've carried with me for a long time is from the Circular Ruins where Borges refers to "rojo adan" which is translated as "red Adam." Apart from the fact that I'm not sure what a red Adam is, the inability to simultaneously represent the Spanish meaning of adan as both a word for clay (which is itself a reference to the myth of the Golem as well as a return to the opening lines of the story) and the biblical reference to Adam closes certain doors to readers of the story in English. Translating it as "red clay" would do the same.
I would imagine this happens even more in poetry, looking for other examples.
posted by minkll at 5:11 PM on January 19, 2010
Even with the "refinement" you posted, your question depends a lot on what you value about poetry. If what you like about poetry is clever, unexpected rhymes, of course most poetry loses a lot in translation, because a clever, unexpected rhyme is very hard to translate. If you read poetry in a tonal language, it will not be the same in a non-tonal language, because "rhyming" in tones doesn't mean the same thing as "rhyming" without. If what you like about poetry is references that are rooted very deeply in the culture of the poet, which it sounds like is closest to what you like, then of course there are some poems that lose more than others. But to ask "what poems lose the most" implies that there is one thing that is most valuable in poetry to everyone, which is a ridiculous thing to imply.
Me personally? I don't think your example is a very good one. I think that probably a smart translator would be able to come up with something in English that would convey the dual meanings you're describing. After all, they're rooted in Judeo-Christian legend and scripture. This usage isn't really so far from English that the semantic duality is at all difficult to grasp. I'm *not* a clever translator, so I'm not going to try to come up with anything, but I doubt it's impossible. It may not be as compact as the original, of course. And translating that into a language that the Bible hasn't influenced as heavily might be harder.
posted by crinklebat at 10:54 PM on January 19, 2010
Me personally? I don't think your example is a very good one. I think that probably a smart translator would be able to come up with something in English that would convey the dual meanings you're describing. After all, they're rooted in Judeo-Christian legend and scripture. This usage isn't really so far from English that the semantic duality is at all difficult to grasp. I'm *not* a clever translator, so I'm not going to try to come up with anything, but I doubt it's impossible. It may not be as compact as the original, of course. And translating that into a language that the Bible hasn't influenced as heavily might be harder.
posted by crinklebat at 10:54 PM on January 19, 2010
This Chinese poem may be "untranslatable". (Broadly speaking you can "translate" anything, given enough words and time, a clear understanding of the concepts to be translated, and an arbitrarily un-boreable reader; but it will cease to be a poem a short way into such a process.)
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:14 AM on January 20, 2010
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:14 AM on January 20, 2010
This Chinese poem may be "untranslatable"
Oh ... oh God. Please, someone fix the wikipedia article or put it out of its misery. A combination of a syllable and a tone contour is a morpheme? I weep.
posted by jock@law at 6:43 AM on January 20, 2010
Oh ... oh God. Please, someone fix the wikipedia article or put it out of its misery. A combination of a syllable and a tone contour is a morpheme? I weep.
posted by jock@law at 6:43 AM on January 20, 2010
Response by poster: In Rilke's first Duino Elegy "denn bleiben ist nirgends" is translated as "to stay is to be nowhere." I don't speak German, but there's obviously some editorializing going on here (as has been mentioned above, a necessary evil in translation) to maintain the spirit of the poem. This seems pretty common in a lot his stuff.
I realize the question was poorly phrased ("true" "untranslatable"), I hadn't intended to make some bold assertion on language and poetry. But I appreciate those who seemed to catch what I was saying. Joyce and Nabokov/Pushkin are great examples.
posted by minkll at 1:55 PM on January 20, 2010
I realize the question was poorly phrased ("true" "untranslatable"), I hadn't intended to make some bold assertion on language and poetry. But I appreciate those who seemed to catch what I was saying. Joyce and Nabokov/Pushkin are great examples.
posted by minkll at 1:55 PM on January 20, 2010
minkll: “An example I've carried with me for a long time is from the Circular Ruins where Borges refers to ‘rojo adan’...”
This is a tiny point, but interesting: if you're familiar with Borges, you already may know this, but that's apparently why "El Hacedor," one of his best books of poetry, was retitled "Dreamtigers" in translation – because "El Hacedor" doesn't really have a direct translation in English that fully captures the two essential thrusts of the word, "maker" and "doer." In fact, it's an interesting example, I think, because you could very easily argue that "to make" and "to do" are similar enough to be the same thing; the distinction which we draw in English is a real distinction, but only in certain respects, and there are good reasons for using the same word for both things, though we have no such word. In any case, I don't know who it was (apparently Mildred Boyer or Harold Morland) but somebody must have thrown up their hands and simply decided to pick another poem in the collection to name to book after. Insight into the frustrating lives of translators – heh.
posted by koeselitz at 1:56 PM on January 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
This is a tiny point, but interesting: if you're familiar with Borges, you already may know this, but that's apparently why "El Hacedor," one of his best books of poetry, was retitled "Dreamtigers" in translation – because "El Hacedor" doesn't really have a direct translation in English that fully captures the two essential thrusts of the word, "maker" and "doer." In fact, it's an interesting example, I think, because you could very easily argue that "to make" and "to do" are similar enough to be the same thing; the distinction which we draw in English is a real distinction, but only in certain respects, and there are good reasons for using the same word for both things, though we have no such word. In any case, I don't know who it was (apparently Mildred Boyer or Harold Morland) but somebody must have thrown up their hands and simply decided to pick another poem in the collection to name to book after. Insight into the frustrating lives of translators – heh.
posted by koeselitz at 1:56 PM on January 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
(And, a propos of nothing, as I recall Borges couldn't stand Finnegan's Wake – his review of it was particularly scathing, calling it a mistake and a pointless mockery of a book. I always had a feeling that had to do with the experience someone would have reading it if English wasn't their native language – as fluent as Borges was – but that's just a guess, of course.)
posted by koeselitz at 2:01 PM on January 20, 2010
posted by koeselitz at 2:01 PM on January 20, 2010
I think I have the trump answer here: American Sign Language. Any language's poetry can be translated into ASL - Eric Malzkuhn's "Jabberwocky" is just stunning - but translating out of ASL is virtually impossible. This is because a manual language like ASL does not have one-to-one English translation; there are classifiers and visuals that will never translate coherently into English (or another spoken language). An example is "Dandelions" by Clayton Valli. In the middle of the poem, there's a section that would be glossed as "OVERNIGHT BLOOM, OVERNIGHT BLOOM" but that in no way conveys the poetry of what is being signed.
posted by etoile at 9:13 PM on January 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by etoile at 9:13 PM on January 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Could you please elucidate by giving an example of something that is not "untranslatable"? And why it, as opposed to the Divine Comedy, is "translatable"?
posted by Flunkie at 10:41 PM on January 18, 2010