Translating Poetry 101

This is my attempt to put some thoughts together on the art and science of translating poetry. I intend it to be a living document, meaning; it will be modified as I gain more experience in the field.

Source language = the language in which the poem is written.
Target language = the language to which you are going to translate it.

When you approach a poem that you would like to translate, search the Internet and the library and find out, did anyone else (maybe someone extremely famous and good at translating) already do it? If you're not the first, then think, can you do a better job? If not - go for a walk! DON'T TRANSLATE! (except as an exercise, just for the fun of it)

Let's say you found a poem that has not been translated yet, you're the first! You'll be the poem's Columbus, yippee, get your pencil ready or open up WORD. Same thing if you read somebody else's translation, and with baited breath hoped that the next line will not be worse than the previous one, because (or so you thought), it can't possibly get any worse. You hoped that the words the esteemed translator chose belonged to the same era and to the "same" English (American, British, Irish, Australian...).{We are quite lucky that all Russian is "the same", although it's important to consider the possibility of retaining archaic words, if they are present in the source}

My pet peeves - Here I plan to gripe about what the authors (including myself) have overlooked in a translation. A translation is akin to a jazz performance, if you were to do it again on another day, some different shades of meaning, sound, rhythm "perfections" and imperfections might surface.

When translating from Russian to English --
 folks forget about the reader. It is true that some readers have an eight grade vocabulary, however the majority actually managed to finish high school and even some college. So why should Pushkin sound like Dr. Seuss?, get a thesaurus and if you don't have an extensive vocabulary, work on enlarging it.
Translations in blank verse/prose translations - you are translating Russian poetry known for what? Exact meter. Then why doesn't your poem have it? I will grudgingly agree that one does not have to rhyme every rhyme in English. However, if the poet is known for meter, exacting rhyme scheme and a beautiful sound signature (his poetry sounds good) - do two (2) translations. One in blank verse and the other, a "classical" one and publish them side by side.

When translating into Russian
Frost is not Pushkin, e.e. cummings had nothing to do with Pushkin as well, neither did Gerard Manley Hopkins. Why do they all sound the same in Russian (quite often)?
Why are highly positively connoted words in English all of a sudden turn into melancholy whining whimps? Why is excited and sometimes even a tad silly in his excitement Wordsworth sound like some moping, depressed dude on valium in Russian translations?




 So, if the author manages to "outdo" himself or herself. If you found such a doozy, that would make Shelley or Byron turn in their graves if they knew, TRANSLATE!

1) READY TO TRANSLATE
Look at the authors’ biography and the poem itself within its historical context, and the poems unique details and ornamentation:

Are some of the words in the poem, new finds that have achieved notoriety?

Does the author use culture specific imagery? A very good example here just to show how "black and white" things can be, was the translation of the Bible into Navajo. The Bible was written to an audience very familiar with the seas. Navajos live in the desert, even the biggest rivers are not that damn big, where the Navajos live. Very few Navajos living on the reservation have seen the sea. So a phrase "like the fishes in the sea" might sound better " like the sand in the desert" or "like the stars in the Heavens" in Navajo. Think of your audience! If they have no idea who was Repin, or Derzhavin, replace the direct reference with indirect "famous painter" etc. You may want to use a person, place, painting that's familiar in your target language.

Does the poem have archaic words? Decide what you're going to do with them - translate archaically as if you would Shakespeare or Milton, or modernize?

Note down all the sound effects; play on words, and other "cutenessess" and literary ornamentation that the author created. Also, play on words is a technique as old as poetry itself, if you are translating a 17-th or an 18-th century poem, for example, the play on words used during that time period might escape your untrained eye. Show the poem to a specialist and ask, "are there any play on words in this poem"?. This phenomenon can be found in William Blake's "Garden of Love", where the word "writ" was a play on words existing both as a verb, and heavily used as a noun at the time of Blake's writing. To convey this idea into Russian, I would have liked to use "лозунг гласит", but the word "лозунг", unfortunately, discredited itself due to overuse by the communists. If you are translating English or French poetry get your detective lens out, "play on words" will be there!

Note down trite expressions in the source and target languages. Be very careful of triteness. What might sound fine in the source language, could very well sound awfully trite in the target language. Decide how you are going to avoid being trite - rewriting the triteness, or throwing it out altogether and replacing with another idea. For example, Pushkin's "На свете счастья нет, но есть покой и воля" sounds glorious in Russian. The problem we have in English is that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Byron and a myriad of other authors said exactly the same thing in more or less the same words and if you translate this "thing" into English faithfully, Pushkin will appear to be a cliche ridden neophyte.
 Be very culture conscious! Think of the specifics of the target language in relationship to the source language, it could be appropriate in the source language to use the same rhyme for emphatic or dramatic effect (in English this is done quite often), however, when the target language is Russian, the rhyming of the same word sounds corny.

Ideas - write down which ideas are central to this poem and must be translated and which are subordinate and could be changed for rhyme or style, note down what you can change for a better sound effect. For example, if in the source poem a lady is eating an apple, is it ok in the target language for the apple to be an orange? But if the author, F.G. Lorca comes to mind, says "Green, how I want you green" - you can't translate that to be "violet, how i want you violet", but you can certainly change some things he wanted green in the poem. A boat for example could be a skiff, a barge, a yacht, etc, if it helps with the rhyme.
Please watch out for the !Speaker! Ask yourself a question - do you think it's important that the author chose a male of female speaker, used male or female like endearements?
Remember, in a translation, a Bible hugging Protestant might come out to sound like a flaming homosexual.
 
Taber and Nida (in a famous work on how to translate)suggest using small sentences for each idea, this way the meaning and the ideas of the poem will not be lost

Let's take Lemontov's "The sail"
A lone (lonely) sail shows off its white color in the blue fog (mist) of the sea.

by writing this sentence as a series of sentences:

the sail is alone (lonely)
the sail shows off its white color
the fog( mist) of the sea is blue
 
you gave yourself a good preparation for a translation, you outlined all the ideas and now can decide, which are primary, and which are subordinate.

Search out literary criticism about the poem. Do some of the phrases have specific biblical or other meanings? For example in the "Tyger", William Blake writes "when the stars threw down their spears and watered Heavens with the tears" - that phrase refers to the defeat of the rebel angels and the stars symbolize reason. Therefore, in the translation you should try to keep the stars, and preserve the symbolism. W.H. Auden's poetry is peppered with references and allusions to classical literature, psychoanalysis, and mythology.

When you translate, if you read at least readily available literary criticistm, you will be better versed ;o) to understand what does this poem mean to the world of literature and how it should be trasnslated. But be aware of hidden agendas. Many critics have their own. (After all, if they don't write something that sets them apart from the rest, no one will read the critic). So if you read a poet who wrote about a turnip and how difficult it is to be a good farmer; and then you read the critic who said that the turnip symbolizes the bourgeoisie. The difficulties of the farmer, in the critic's opinion, show his rebellion against the political structure of the day. Consider the thought that this critic is a sham and a show off.

Do you know whether your poem inspired a famous work of art? Shubert wrote a a great lyric song based on Goethe's poem about the loss of a child (Лесной царь). Several artists were inspired to paint and to write music based on Wallace Steven's "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". Being aware is essential to providing a good and thorough translation.

Ask yourself "Why am I translating this?" "What is my goal?"
The goal of "my professor gave it to me as hw" is totally different than "I'd like to translate poet X and make him be understood and appreciated within the context of another (quite foreign to him) culture". The second is a loftier goal. If you are working on it, remember, you are not choosing the best possible words - you are going to work in idea schemas that !work! in the target culture. In essence, it is up to you to make the target audience go "Wow! X is awesome!"

2) Mark up the poem.

what rhyme pattern does it follow: is it abab, abba, or aabb? Count the number of syllables and mark them up stressed vs. unstressed. Remember that when translating to, or from a group of languages that use cyrillic alphabet, meter is of paramount importance. But do not sacrifice ideas and the poet's original meaning to meter.
If you have to sacrifice or change ideas, call it what it is, "a free translation".

Try to sing the poem. If it can be sung in the source language, you must be able to sing it in the target language once you're done translating.

3) Write a detailed word-by-word translation.

With every line, include alternate meanings that the author could have intended, famous allusions and Biblical allusions. Write down all the possible ways of saying the same thing that the author has said.

Decide on the type of your translation: free translation or a translation which closely resembles the original.
Zhukovsky thought that for the Russian reader he could do a better job by creating more imagery in the poem than Goethe ever dreamed of. But Zhukovsky's translation of Лесной царь, has not only stood up to the test of times, it is probably one of the finer pieces of writing in Russian literature. If you feel you there is a sufficient reason to do a free translation, for example, if the poem's setting or imagery is too specific, a free translation might serve the piece better in this case.

Shock value.
Sometimes translations are made in such a free style as to shock the reader. They are almost new works in themselves, such is their freedom. Great artists, like Dali, liked to shock. He even used feces in one of his paintings. Shock value sometimes has great effect, it's fresh and provocative. However, unless you are truly unique and great in your craft, shock does not last for long.

4) Without any rhyming dictionary...
Sound the poem out, again and again. Can you find similar sounds the the target language. Note how Lermontov, in his immortal "Sail" creates sound effects (onomatopaeia) of almost divine beauty. The wind is whistling (sviiishshet), the mast creaks (skriipit). In my translation I have the wave do the swishing, and the mast groans and creaks. Sound palette or signature of the poem might not be of paramaunt importance if the author writes in English, with Russian authors, Spanish, French and some others sound is king!

http://spintongues.msk.ru/Verlaine7.htm
In the above translation of Autumn, you can almost here Verlaine's "deca, dela" in "дальше, тише".

My personal goal is to move in the direction of translating not only the sporadic sound effects, but the overall sound presence of the poem, the picture that sound creates in our minds - the sound palette or sound signature.


Create! Write your translation. If you're not sure what to say where, live it blanc. But write down as much of the translation in "one breath", original, as you feel it without any mechanical aides.

To many people it's helpful to add "filler" words to be replaced with correct text later. That's fine. After all, "Yesterday" by the Beatles's Paul McCartney was once called "Scrambled eggs"!

A note on modern poetry and Russian - Russian is a pretty language. (English is a thinker's language) Russian readers like meter in rhyme. Modern English speaking readers feel that meter and rhyme distracts from the world of ideas, they are "cutesy", "forced", "artificial". So there is an impasse.
Is the Russian reader not ready for modernist or post-modernist "weird", haphazardly beautiful English language poetry?
Are you going to do them a favor and translate modernist poetry so that it resembles the original with all of its "flaws" and vigor and incosistencies? Or are you going to Balmontize western literature because you think the Russian reader is not ready to handle such "prose"? It is my feel that the Russian translator is leaning towards Balmontization, the courage to let things be in the target Russian as they are in the original English is not there yet...Something to hope for...


5) Checking intended meanings
After the initial creative stage, use the rhyme dictionary to fill any missing rhymes, use the thesaurus to find synonyms and more colorful words. Complete the first draft translation.

Now look at the original and the translation carefully. Did you make any mistakes in intended meaning?

Here's what I mean - let's say the author's poem is set in the mountains, does the reader in the target language clearly understand where the poem takes place? If the original poem had a time of day or a historic time period, did you translate all that adequately? Is your speaker's sex the same as in the original?
If particular content is crucial to the reader's understanding of the poem, you first job is to convey the content in an understandable way, your second job is to make it "sound pretty" using your poetic gifts.

Word usage - if the writer in the source language wrote the poem using language that the commonest Joe would uderstand, make sure in the target language you use similar language. What is especially hard on the ear, is archaic words, if they weren't in the original, don't introduce them in the translation!!!

If the poet did not put any frivolities and cutenessess, don't put them in. As one of my friends puts it, don't make it into an intricately tied and multi-colored lady's bow, if the original is a simple as a black and white piece of cloth.
Cliches - tried to avoid them at all costs! Use original language. Same thing goes for over-used rhymes and ideas.

6) Double-Checking

After you have completed your translation, give it a rest.
Now - pretend that you are a person new to the world of poetry, you are a student, or maybe someone who just likes to relax in an armchair with a good book. Pretend that the good book in the hands of this imaginary literature lover is your poem (there's no original), just your translation.
Now read the poem. Does it make sense? Do you clearly get
1) historical time period and who is the speaker 2) where 3) when (morning, evening, night-time) 4) what and 5) why. Remember, you can not take your head off and place it on somebody else's shoulders, you can not make them see the poem from your perspective. All they have is your written words, not what you "meant" when you were writing them down.

So, (if this was not a free translation)

1) did you clearly translate what the author had said?
2) is your translation poetic?

Revise your poem and then, give it to a friend fluent in both the source and the target language to read over. If your reader says that a particular inversion does not work - ! IT DOES NOT WORK! - lose it, don't argue, don't defend it, lose the inversion and thousands, if not millions (why not aim big?) will thank you for it.

Don't be defensive about criticism, if he/she says she doesn't understand something, or you did not translate a key idea of the author's, that's not only a bell ringing in his(her) head, that's a bell ringing in your reader's head that something is terribly wrong. Go back and rewrite! Until there's no more "bells".

Another good idea is to have a bright, educated teenager or a young adult who only understands the target language read the poem for the "final" read. If this person does not understand what happens in the poem, if this person says, "wow, that sounds so hoky", what does that word mean?, the poem sounds "stilted", your inversions confuse me - don't even think of arguing - rewrite, fix it!

After all, you want applause, not whistles and cat-calls, you want your translation to be read and enjoyed.

Best of luck!