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Thoughts on translationgbarto.com |
I |
have noted that starting with the same
basic goal, the Blackmores and I arrived at different
translations. It is curious that we only exactly matched
one rhyming pair, but what is more curious is that it was
in a couplet that we both fudged. The original:
This is literally:
Here is how the Blackmores dealt with it:
And my lines:
The word "alarm" makes no appearance in the French, and though the lion-tamer is mighty, he used both arms - a strong man, but not Hercules. Yet the Blackmores and I told the same not quite faithful version - and quite by accident, I assure. Sometimes, an approach to a problematic passage just suggests itself (alternatively, do great minds think alike or do feeble minds stumble down the same dark corridors?). It is my hope that in bringing in the Blackmores, I have shed some light on the richness of the possibilities open to the translator, while nonetheless showing that ultimately choices must be made that will make the translation not a copy of the original, but an artistic creation of the translator that draws heavily on the influences of the original - even the line-for-line translator cannot completely shed a heritage that includes the creator of the Roman d'Enneas. In the next section, I will focus on what I did to try to tell a Hugo poem in my own language. |
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form, function and creation |