The merits of translation

[Robert007]

I was wondering as to the merits of reading the translation versus the original, primarily on the degrees of difference between both experiences. For instance, I know that the dactylic pentameter so widespread in Greek poetry is difficult to reproduce in English. I would garner that the specific language in question makes a difference; Chinese is farther from English than French, so is it easier to produce high quality english translations of french rather than Chinese works. Furthermore, different languages have different words for different things (the Chinese word for goat, sheep and ram is one and the same). This inquiry is motivated by a consideration I had of whether to put off reading don quixote for four years, by which time I would have garnered enough knowledge of spanish to read the work in its original language (making it the first non-English novel I have read). I was of a fancy of reading the novel right now in its English translation, but I now have decided to wait and research upon the matter to determine how different the translation is from the original.

[Dreamwoven]

The problems will vary from language to language. Mechanical translations like google translate are very poor. For reading books in the original its OK to use a dictionary, so Spanish read like that would be quite good I reckon. Of course, the weaker the reader is in the language, the more often the dictionary will have to be used, making it very laborious.

[Pompey Bum]

I was wondering as to the merits of reading the translation versus the original, primarily on the degrees of difference between both experiences.

My opinion is that reading in an original language is an order of magnitude (at least) better than using even a good translation. An analogy I've used before is that reading a translation is like listening to a baseball game on the radio, while reading in the original language is like actually being at the game. But world literature is immense and you can't learn all the languages, so it often ends up that you use a translation. We English speakers are lucky to have several amazing literatures written in our language, so we have to take consolation in that. And, hey, games on the radio are good, too.

That's for prose. With most poetry, in my opinion, you're just out of luck if you don't speak (or at least read) the lingo. The exceptions are epic poetry (Homer, Virgil, Dante, etc.), but only if you have an outstanding translator, preferably another poet; and possibly certain East Asian forms that coincide with modern minimalism (but not really).

But if you are a Middle School student, you should definitely take the time to pick up a language or three. You seem to be interested in the ancient western classics. You will not be able to seriously study them in college without Greek and Latin (you can take those as you study, but it helps a lot if you already have one going in). And modern languages are marketable skills that help you make over-seas friends, get jobs, and--meet girls! :)


For instance, I know that the dactylic pentameter so widespread in Greek poetry is difficult to reproduce in English.

Well, the epic poets wrote in dactyls, but they're not hard to use in English. It's just oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah, or if you like, boom-chucka, boom-chucka. Do that six times and you sound like Homer!-- or John Philip Souza, for that matter, who used to like dactylic hexameter, too, presumably because he wanted to connect the ideals of the new American republic with the virtues of Ancient Greece and Rome. Stars and Stripes forever, for example, is written in the same meter as The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Aeneid.

But ancient lyricists like Sappho and Catullus didn't have much use for dactyls. They were too martial (not to say militaristic for the short and personal poems they wrote. If you try to use dactyls for that, it sounds comical (boom-chucka, boom-chucka). Personally I love writing comic poems in double dactyls:

Higgeldy Piggeldy
General Washington
Crossing the Delaware,
Still as the Styx,
Wrought sudden death upon
Sundry Germanic folk,
Just like ol' Bill did in 1066.

That's not Homer exactly, but it's not particularly hard to do.


This inquiry is motivated by a consideration I had of whether to put off reading don quixote for four years, by which time I would have garnered enough knowledge of spanish to read the work in its original language (making it the first non-English novel I have read). I was of a fancy of reading the novel right now in its English translation, but I now have decided to wait and research upon the matter to determine how different the translation is from the original.

No, read it in translation for now, and save the original for college. Cervantes wrote in the 16th/17th century, so his Spanish is likely to be too challenging for a casual read, even after four years of study. Or maybe I'm wrong. Spanish is a simpler language than some. Perhaps one of the LitNet Spanish mavens can offer an opinion. Also, are you used to reading long books like that? Wanting to read Cervantes is really admirable, but there are lots of other "literary" books you could be enjoying for now. What you end up reading, of course, is a personal decision that only you can make. Happy reading in any case! I enjoyed your post.

[Ecurb]

My opinion is that reading in an original language is an order of magnitude (at least) better than using even a good translation..... .

It seems to me that this is a form of "intentionalism" -- in other words, a worship of the artist over the art. No doubt we would best understand the original "intent" of the writer by reading in the original language. But does that make our experience "better"? Is reading "The DaVinci Code" in English a "better" experience than reading "War and Peace" in English?


The scholar who wants to study Tolstoy should learn Russian. For the rest of us, who merely want to enjoy our reading, or find it enlightening, we must muddle through the best we can. We're better off reading "War and Peace" than reading 99% of the novels written in English because the English translations of War and Peace are better novels than 99% of those written in English. Whether they are as "good" as the original Russian is a question I am not equipped to answer.

Poetry is more difficult -- but think of some of Ezra Pound's Chinese "translations". They are very good poems, well worth reading, whether or not they are "good translations". Apparently (I'm no expert) those adept at Chinese think Pound did not translate accurately, but somehow was able to translate the mood and poetic feeling of the originals. Here's "The River Merchant's Wife", which Pound calls "after Li Po", rather than a translation.



The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
By Ezra Pound

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

Source: Selected Poems (1957)

[Robert007]

Thanks for your insights Pompey Bum and Ecurb. I am thinking of taking online courses on latin and greek. As for Don Quixote, I believe that the English translation suffices for the purposes of enjoyment. Considering the length, as Pompey Bum pointed out, I will start reading the story in the summer, when I have more time! Again, thanks for the insight.

[Pompey Bum]

That sounds like a great idea, Robert. Let us know what you make of "the Don." :)


It seems to me that this is a form of "intentionalism" -- in other words, a worship of the artist over the art. No doubt we would best understand the original "intent" of the writer by reading in the original language. But does that make our experience "better"? Is reading "The DaVinci Code" in English a "better" experience than reading "War and

It would be a more authentic kind of input--hence my metaphor of the ballgame. But that's got nothing to do with worshipping artist or art.

[Lykren]

The interesting thing, to me, is that Pevear and Volokhonsky (for example) are not, by themselves, great novelists; but their Anna Karenina is certainly a remarkable experience! Thus, something must carry over in translation. That's one route to take.

But when you're translating between very different languages, like Chinese and English, and what you're translating is poetry, which of course is focused on conveying itself by means of an explicitly linguistic intensity, then my feeling is that you have to be something of a great poet, as Pound was, in order to do something with the material. Which Pound did.

[Pompey Bum]

The interesting thing, to me, is that Pevear and Volokhonsky (for example) are not, by themselves, great novelists; but their Anna Karenina is certainly a remarkable experience! Thus, something must carry over in translation.

Assuredly there is. I have been reading an English translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives that I found at Gutenberg. I didn't check the translator; they are usually Victorians who use a comfy educated style, similar to the way Plutarch, an aristocratic intellectual, actually wrote. I translated quite a bit of Plutarch back in the day, and found him borderline pompous (the aristocratic side), but also warm, charming, and delightful. As I've been reading the translation (it's thousands of pages long and I've only read the first 500 pages or so), I have found myself enthralled at the beauty of the English and the vivid sense one gets of Plutarch himself. I've actually given it the highest compliment I can give a work: I've taken to reading it out loud for the sheer joy of the sound. After a few hundred pages (dawn breaking on Marblehead, as they say in Masssachusetts), I decided to see who the translator was--maybe he'd done other good things, too. It was Dryden. Yes, that Dryden: John Dryden, Poet Laureate of 1668, during a period of the Restoration that is sometimes called the Age of Dryden. The translation, unabridged, had since been modernized (to Middle Victorian English) but otherwise left intact. The brilliance of both minds still shines through.

But reading Plutarch in Greek was more authentic. I could hear his own pompous and charming voice over the millennia. With Dryden, what I heard was Dryden doing his best Plutarch--and succeeding gloriously. Personally, I think the question of whether a translation gives one the same experience as the original is silly: of course it doesn't. The real question for me is: is one even reading the same book? And to that I say--well, yes. Sort of.

It goes back to a question that Clopin and I were discussing last week. As it happens, Plutarch himself was the inspiration. At one point in Parallel Lives, he says that for centuries the Athenians preserved Theseus' ship as a kind of relic. When one piece would rot away, they would simply replace it with a new piece. Eventually every bit of the original ship had been replaced; something, he says, that excited debate in the philosophical schools about whether it was the same boat. Isn't that the real issue here? Not which is the "better" reading experience or whether there are other valid reading experiences.

I say yes, same book, same boat, although I would think most moderns/materialists would disagree with me, especially about the boat. (YesNo being an exception, since he holds that there is no material existence independent of the mind). For me, it is the same book, but it is a different voice--sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly--and that makes it a different experience. Reading in the original language is certainly the more authentic experience. Some translations (like Dryden's Plutarch) may approach authenticity; others (like Ezra Pounds Chinese fudging) may possess other virtues besides authenticity; and of course, some may just suck. So I guess that's a long way of agreeing with you, Lykren: I find it interesting, too..

[Lykren]

Yeah. Translation really does open up all sorts of interesting philosophical questions about the possible relationship between language and reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy#Art_object s

[Ecurb]

Eventually every bit of the original ship had been replaced; something, he says, that excited debate in the philosophical schools about whether it was the same boat. Isn't that the real issue here? Not which is the "better" reading experience or whether there are other valid reading experiences.

I say yes, same book, same boat, although I would think most moderns/materialists would disagree with me, especially about the boat. (YesNo being an exception, since he holds that there is no material existence independent of the mind). For me, it is the same book, but it is a different voice--sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly--and that makes it a different experience. Reading in the original language is certainly the more authentic experience. Some translations (like Dryden's Plutarch) may approach authenticity; others (like Ezra Pounds Chinese fudging) may possess other virtues besides authenticity; and of course, some may just suck. So I guess that's a long way of agreeing with you, Lykren: I find it interesting, too..

Is "authentic" derived from the same root as "author"? If it is, of course reading the original in more "authentic" or "authoritative" in that it is closer to the original. Is it necessarily "better", though?

I understand what you mean about the charm of hearing Plutarch's "voice". Nonetheless, if we posit a hypothetical Russian Hallmark Cards writer, mightn't translations into English by Emily Dickinson be "better" literature than the originals?

I mentioned scholars because they are interested in "authenticity". So are the rest of us -- but not so much. We just want something that's fun to read (hearing Plutarch's "voice", handed down through the millenia, can, of course, make reading him more fun). On the other hand, I've seen original cave paintings from 20,000 years ago, and the experience far transcended seeing reproductions because I felt a communion with ancient humans (and because the caves were great in and of themselves).

Think of a movie that has been remade. Occasionally (not often, I'll grant) the remake (i.e. translation) is "better" than the original. My only point is that we can't assume the original is automatically superior (unless we want a more "authentic" communion with the author, in which case we can).

[Clopin]

Are the Pound translations actually good translations or just good poems in themselves? Did Pound even read Chinese well enough to do the translating?

[Clopin]

Is "authentic" derived from the same root as "author"? If it is, of course reading the original in more "authentic" or "authoritative" in that it is closer to the original. Is it necessarily "better", though?

I understand what you mean about the charm of hearing Plutarch's "voice". Nonetheless, if we posit a hypothetical Russian Hallmark Cards writer, mightn't translations into English by Emily Dickinson be "better" literature than the originals?



Well it's better in that it's what the author actually wrote and probably "better" writing in general. Great literature doesn't just happen, words are chosen by very good, sometimes genius, writers. Assuming that translators are likely to do a better job choosing words, and the order of words, and conveying emotion with words than Dickinson or Tolstoy or Hugo, etc are doesn't seem like a safe bet (not that it's impossible).

[Lykren]

Are the Pound translations actually good translations or just good poems in themselves? Did Pound even read Chinese well enough to do the translating?

Well your first question isn't an either/or proposition is it? As for the second, I think he constantly referred to a dictionary (which must have been really slow - you have to look up Chinese characters by radical and thumb through hundreds of them).

This (http://www.academia.edu/5916786/19_Ways_of_Looking_at_Wang_wei) page demonstrates how differently Chinese poetry can work than English poetry, syntactically speaking. Look at the page that gives a word-for-word translation. There are no explicit tenses, plurals, or speakers.

[Ecurb]

To the extent that the original is written in elegant, descriptive prose, it is less likely that the translation will be as "good". Most great writers write elegant prose -- but not all of them do (think of Paul Fussell's excoriation of Graham Greene's prose). Some may have a talent for plot, or characterization, but not for elegant writing.

The original IS "what the author actually wrote" -- which makes it better if we see literature as a way of communing with authors (which is what I was getting at in my first post in this thread), or if we want to talk "authoritatively" about the novel (as scholars do). Clopin and I actually agree (my point being that it's not impossible for a translation to be as "good" as or better than the original, although it is unlikely).

Maybe it's just me, but I think the Humphrey Bogart "Maltese Falcon" is a better movie than the 1931 original (although maybe that's not a good example because both are "translations of Dash Hammett's novel).

[Ecurb]

Are the Pound translations actually good translations or just good poems in themselves? Did Pound even read Chinese well enough to do the translating?


From what little I know about it, Pound didn't read Chinese very well. The story I heard is that he was approached by the widow of a Orientalist scholar, and worked from his translations and from Japanese translations. I still think it's appropriate for Pound to credit the original poets -- although we will never know if they would have approved.

[Clopin]

Yeh that's the story I heard too, that Pound adapted the widows translations. And I've heard that Dostoyevsky is improved by translation, now whether that's true or not I have no idea, but it is a possibility at least.

[Ecurb]

One more point (or, rather, confession). I learned a little Spanish in school -- but I never got fluent enough at it to read a novel in Spanish for pleasure. Those I read in class I waded through as if in quicksand, telling myself not to struggle. So I have no experience in whether translations can be as "good" as the originals. I would never have presumed to judge the literary merit of a Spanish novel I read in Spanish. I was just lucky to get a very general grip on the plot.

I'm guessing that although quite a few Europeans and some Americans are sufficiently fluent in a second (or third) language to enjoy the literary merit of its literature, a great many are not. It takes quite some fluency (I imagine) to grasp the literary nuances of a novel, or, for that matter, to enjoy it more in its own language than when it is translated into yours. Of course there is a romance to reading in (and learning) other languages (especially, Pompey, ancient ones). But until one gets fluent, one is translating in one's head, just not as well as the professional translators. I remember one of those Oxbridge British types writing about remembering the moment when the Greek word for "boat" called to his mind an image of a ship, instead of the English word "boat".

[Jackson Richardson]

C S Lewis in Surprised by Joy.

[Pompey Bum]

Is "authentic" derived from the same root as "author"? If it is, of course reading the original in more "authentic" or "authoritative" in that it is closer to the original. Is it necessarily "better", though?

"Authentic" comes from the Greek adjective authentikos, meaning "genuine"; "author" comes from the Latin noun auctor, meaning "master" or "leader"; and "authoritative" comes the Latin adjective authoritativus, -a, -um, meaning "dictatorial." Ultimately "author" and "authoritative" are rooted in the Lain verb augere, meaning "to increase something" (so is the name Augustus, for that matter).

I believe there was some conflation of words derived from auctor and authentikos in early modern times (that's how "author" got its "H," but there is no reason for us to blur the distinction between the current sense of "author"/"authoritative" and "authentic." An author's voice being naturally more authentic in his or her original tongue wouldn't necessarily make the text more authoritative. For example, a corrupt version of Irenaeus in the original Greek (worked over, say, by medieval monks with a theological ax to grind), might be less authoritative than a pristine Latin translation made in antiquity, although one would look to the Greek manuscript for the authenticity of Irenaeus' voice--and might or might not find it, depending on the extent of the corruption. Textual criticism has its own (rather complicated) criteria for the authority of a text. For our purposes, there is no reason to confuse it with authenticity of a voice.


I understand what you mean about the charm of hearing Plutarch's "voice".

No, what I mentioned was the authenticity of his voice--that voice incidentally being charming (as well as aristocratic and a bit pompous). Yes, there is also a charm to feeling that kind of connection with a writer whose bones are dust, and I will talk about that in a moment. But for now, let's not dismiss as mere Romanticism something as important to writing and the experience of reading as an author's voice. "Finding one's voice" is an essential part of becoming an author, and the joy of "reading for voice" (as one might,for example, with such masters as Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens, but also, depending on ones taste, with modern writers like Dashiell Hammett and Elmore Leonard) is hardly the worship of author over art. In literature, the author's voice is as much a part of the art as the painters hand.

Dryden's translation of Parallel Lives was successful for me because he managed to approximate Plutarch's voice--at least as I remembered it--in English. He caught the likenesses, so to speak, as an oil painter might have done of an aristocratic client. There could also be bad translations of Plutarch that try but fail to do that; or there could be good ones that veer away from Plutarch's style for their own purposes. One of the things I love about the Dryden translation is that it preserves the peculiar sentence structure, favored by Koine authors when they wanted to show off, of piling ridiculous numbers of participles before and around a finite verb. Frustrating to students, beloved of anyone who remembers ploughing through such literary shenanigans in a distant and nostalgic past, it is no way to write modern prose. Today good translator is going to have to find away around all the participles; so he is going to end up sounding less like than Dryden, who lived during the Restoration and could still get away with it. But the modern translation would still be serviceable, and might be just as "good" as Dryden's (depending on whether one were reading for voice); but it would not have as authentic a voice as reading Plutarch in Greek would provide; or even reading Dryden's translation. But as I said in an earlier post, original language texts being more authentic of voice does not make (good) translations invalid reading experiences. Why should it?


Nonetheless, if we posit a hypothetical Russian Hallmark Cards writer, mightn't translations into English by Emily Dickinson be "better" literature than the originals?

I couldn't say, but they probably wouldn't approximate an authentic voice.


I mentioned scholars because they are interested in "authenticity". So are the rest of us -- but not so much. We just want something that's fun to read (hearing Plutarch's "voice", handed down through the millenia, can, of course, make reading him more fun).

See my comments on this above, and give them a chance.


On the other hand, I've seen original cave paintings from 20,000 years ago, and the experience far transcended seeing reproductions because I felt a communion with ancient humans (and because the caves were great in and of themselves).

Yes, had a similar experience with prehistoric rock art in Texas (an example of which used to be my avatar). I also inherited a framed collection of archaic and "Paleoindian" projectile points, some dating to the time of American mammoth hunters. Sometimes I stare at them for hours (much to my wife's bemusement), just touching the hand that struck the flint. I tried to express a similar idea in a poem I've posted elsewhere on the site, about the paleo-art motif of painting around a hand to leave an outline behind:

Only this I ask of you,
Trespasser in the black womb
Of our mother's night:
When you have frightened up
Those horses from their doom,
And written them into her fertile sides,
Then trace there, too, your hand,
And I will look upon my hand unfurled,
And so the mist of both our worlds
May come to touch us both,
And send the spirits soaring
From her mouth.

Is this Romanticism? Perhaps. I thought of it as humanism when I wrote it, but maybe they are not mutually exclusively categories.

In any case, it is not necessary to be a scholar or a Romantic to feel a personal connection with an author's voice (although ancient voices certainly fill me with wonder). Caesar talks like a soldier: he has a crisp style and holds his syntax in disciplined rank until he needs to deploy it for a particular triumph (anyone who has studied even a little Latin will remember the flexibility of word order). Catullus writes like a reckless Bohemian: he uses Sappho's meter, at a pace (usually) that looks to burn him out by the time he's 20--which his lifestyle eventually did--at 21! Paul--you know, Saint Paul?--talks like Chris Matthews: he can't spit the words out fast enough, they try to get out of him so quickly. It's easy to tell the real Epistles from the fake ones because the fakes lack his very recognizable voice. It's like trying to tell the difference between a Monet and a Van Gogh: anyone could do it.

None of that, of course, means that perfectly valid reading experiences can't be had with Caesar, or Paul, or Tolstoy, or Dostoyevsky, or Kafka, or Fuentes, or anyone else (in prose) in English translation. The voice won't be as authentic, but some of the better translations will help--if voice is what you are reading for.

[Ecurb]

Interesting post, Pompey. No doubt the “voice” of the author is more “authentic” when read in the original language. That’s clear. When we are interested in the author, that makes the original “better” in the sense that our communication with the author is more direct. Listening to someone talk gives us a better sense of that person than having someone else repeat what he said. However, the person repeating what another said MIGHT use artistic license to improve the comment. Was it Johnson or Boswell who was so witty? Johnson's voice is less authentic when heard through Boswell than if we had heard it directly, but it might be wittier, pithier, and cleverer.

In the case of famous people (you mention Julius Caesar), our interest in the writer makes such authenticity important to us. How did the Great Man express himself? Did he write elegant, formal prose, or did he write like a soldier?

In the case of famous writers (like Dickens and Fielding, whom you mention), authenticity is also important, because, first, many of them are famous because their voices are skillful and resonant, and, second, because we ARE interested in the authors, just as we are in Julius. On the (most distant) other hand, when we read the instructions about how to set up our VCR, the authenticity of the author’s voice is irrelevant to us. We just want to know how to record the Manchester Derby.

Let’s look at some famous examples. Modern translations of the Bible might be more accurate – even more “authentic” due to improved texts – than the King James translation. They are certainly more comprehensible to many modern English readers. However, many of us prefer the King James translation. Why? There are probably a number of reasons – including the skill and inspiration of the writers who translated it – but one reason is that it’s not a translation into modern English. The Bible was written 2-3 thousand years ago – so the old-fashioned English prose of the King James seems appropriate. It has the gravitas associated with age and reinforced by childhood familiarity that is lacking in some modern versions. Modern scholarship may make translations more accurate – but that doesn’t necessarily make them better literature.

Here’s another example: Huckleberry Finn. I’m sure it’s been translated, but it seems to me it would be a difficult book to translate effectively (perhaps someone who has read a translation can comment). That’s not because THE AUTHOR’S voice is altered by translation, but because the NARRATOR’S voice has been altered. In other words, Huck’s dialect and the strange, uncultured, natural way he sees the world and communicates his vision to us is vital to the quality of the novel, and because Huck expresses himself in strange English, it seems like it would be difficult to capture that style in another language. The “authenticity” that’s important to the novel is the authenticity of Huck’s voice, not the authenticity of Twain’s.

On the other hand, I’ve barely heard of Li Po (until I read Pound’s poem). So what do I care about the authenticity of his voice? I care more about Pound’s voice than Po’s. I’ll grant that this is probably provincialism on my part – if I knew Chinese and read Li Po’s poems, I’d probably change my mind.

When in Spain a couple of years ago, we visited the Cueva de Altamira and Cueva de Tito Bustillo. Altamira was closed to the public (our breathing ruins the paintings), but had an extensive museum which included a cave with replicas of the art. Boring. Tito Bustillo was great – first of all, you had to walk a mile or so into the cave before you came to the chambers with the paintings. It made the experience eerie, like a descent into the underworld. In what strange ceremonies did the painters participate, so far from the light? Then, the paintings themselves were great – as good as what you’d find in the Louvre or Prado. Unfortunately (for us, but fortunately for the paintings) I think Tito Bustillo is now closed to the public as well. Nice poem.

[Pompey Bum]

Nice poem.

Thank you. It's a little obscure, but it follows the idea that the painted caves were not dwelling places but special pilgrimage sites for shamans whose job it was to lead the spirits of the animals who were killed for food out of the earth's womb (to which they had returned), and back to the living world where they could continue to sustain the community. (Kind of like recycling food). That's why the spirits come soaring out of the cave's mouth at the end.


When we are interested in the author, that makes the original “better” in the sense that our communication with the author is more direct. Listening to someone talk gives us a better sense of that person than having someone else repeat what he said.

Yes, but again, voice is not an substantial thing artistically.


However, the person repeating what another said MIGHT use artistic license to improve the comment.

Well, "artistic license" sits better on poets than translators, in my opinion. There's nothing artistically wrong with taking someone else's work and tarting it up to make it look like you understand Chinese (legally it may be another matter), or even to fudge the lingo a bit to produce a less plagiarized work. Pound at least produced cultural artifacts that some have learned a
to love. I've also heard it said of them, though, that phony people enjoy phony art. But I haven't read them, so I can't judge.


On the other hand, I’ve barely heard of Li Po (until I read Pound’s poem). So what do I care about the authenticity of his voice? I care more about Pound’s voice than Po’s. I’ll grant that this is probably provincialism on my part – if I knew Chinese and read Li Po’s poems, I’d probably change my mind.

Li Bai was a "folk poet" and a great spirit with a meaningful (to me) legend; one that touches my own spirituality, although in a rather playful way. (Li is his family name, by the way, not Po or Bai). I have translated one of his poems, the famous one about moonlight on frost, but alas, I lost my only copy and cannot recall how my translation went. Although my Chinese was and remains appalling, I could probably fudge something from comparing online English translations right now. Let's see.

Quiet Night Thought by Li Bai

Steady mind,
A moonlit window,
Hoarfrost lawn a sparkling gray;
Here the moon above a threshold:
Ah, my home so far away!

There, I'm obviously more than Pound's match. (Why, I'm probably over 200 Pounds at this point!) But despite the greatness that age keeps trying to thrust upon me, I greatly prefer Li Bai's authentic voice--which I have heard--to my own lame-*** fudging. And if I were a gambling man, which I'm not, I'd bet you a big shiny nickel that I would like it better than Pound's, too.

But artistic license notwithstanding, it is true that styles vary tremendously over space and time; it is entirely that a translator might produce a style more agreeable to his or her own readership than the author's. Reading what you say, thinking it over, sitting in my chair, having read your comments twice, having napped briefly in between, having been tired out by events last night, having talked with my wife until early in the morning, having now resolved to address your points...is a terrible way to write English. But Plutarch writes like that all the time. Obviously those who prefer a modern style will want a good modern translation.Those who want more authenticity of voice will probably seek a fine old translation (stumbling over Dryden's Plutarch was a real stroke of luck: you could get away with a lot more participles in 1668!). And those who are able, and who want to hear an author's authentic voice, will dispense with translations and read in the original language. I honestly don't see why that makes everybody so uptight.


Was it Johnson or Boswell who was so witty? Johnson's voice is less authentic when heard through Boswell than if we had heard it directly, but it might be wittier, pithier, and cleverer.

Boswell's anecdotes about Johnson's wit are still in Boswell's literary voice; just as Plato's dialogues starring Socrates are still Plato's literary voice; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's speaking as Dr. Watson recounting Holmes' eccentric brilliance is still in Doyle's literary voice; and, to anticipate you, Mark Twain's best Huck Finn is still in Twain's literary voice (Huck Finn not really existing and all). Translations of these might be magnificent, but they will all lack a greater or lesser degree of authenticity of voice.


In the case of famous people (you mention Julius Caesar), our interest in the writer makes such authenticity important to us. How did the Great Man express himself? Did he write elegant, formal prose, or did he write like a soldier?

In the case of famous writers (like Dickens and Fielding, whom you mention), authenticity is also important, because, first, many of them are famous because their voices are skillful and resonant, and, second, because we ARE interested in the authors, just as we are in Julius.

My view is that you give too much attention to celebrity. Catullus is just as interesting a figure as Caesar; and lesser known authors like James Hogg and Olive Schreiner are no less authentic of voice (or compelling) than acknowledged masters like Dickens and Fielding. But that is just my opinion. Read what you love for whatever reason you love it.


On the (most distant) other hand, when we read the instructions about how to set up our VCR, the authenticity of the author’s voice is irrelevant to us. We just want to know how to record the Manchester Derby.

You have obviously never tried to read a poorly translated Japanese assembly manual. :)


Let’s look at some famous examples. Modern translations of the Bible might be more accurate – even more “authentic” due to improved texts – than the King James translation.

That would be nice. Unfortunately they are usually either full of PC that isn't really there; or else they are Ezra Pound-ish fudges roughly paraphrasing the Greek and Hebrew to make it seem to coincide with fundamentalist Evangelical theology. Biblical studies is a fantastic example of where an original language trumps a translation hands down. Paul, for example, writes in his Letter to the Galatians that if righteousness comes through observing the Jewish Law (as he is contending that it does not), then Christ died dwpea(v)--a word that most Christian Bibles translate as "in vain." This verse, among others, has been used for centuries as text-proof" of the Theological position that any Jews who do not convert to Christianity (and by implication, anyone else who does not "accept Jesus as personal Savior") are necessarily damned (poor Ann Frank, she's really had a rough go). Although some Christian traditions have modified their views on this somewhat, we have all heard, I'm sure, from representatives of those that haven't.

The problem (or perhaps a tiny bit of the solution) is that "dwpea(v) doesn't really mean "in vain." I mean, it could, but it would be a medium-sized stretch. What it really means is: "as a gift." A gift is free, so okay, it could sort of mean "for nothing." As Janis Joplin, or more authentically (;-)), Kris Kristofferson observed, "nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free"). On the other hand, a more straightforward translation would be "as a free gift," or in Theological terms: "graciously"; the implication being that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was for all humankind--not just for those who sign up. Or at least that it was for Christians and Jews both--and perhaps by implication, for all humankind.

Now that doesn't make it a done deal. Paul is very hard on the Jewish Law in Galatians, and pretty hard on Jews, too. If he is saying that Christ died for Jews, too, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not--and he may not be saying that--he is certainly not going about it in a generous way. It is as if he is saying (given the context of the rest of the letter): "Yeah, yeah, even for those rats." Paul, of course, was a converted Jew himself, and had little patience for Jews who did not also convert. It is clear, for example, from his exegesis (also in Galatians) of the story of Hagar that he sees no use for unconverted Jews on earth--itself a dangerous Theological tendency for Jews; it was used, for example, in Martin Luther's notorious "Against the Jews and their Crimes."

On the other hand, Galatians also includes Paul's most egalitarian statement (such as it is): the famous "There is neither Jew, nor Greek, nor slave, nor free, nor male, nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The bottom line for us, though, is that dealing with Paul (and other Biblical authors) "face to face," may provoke inquiries that could potentially help with some of the problems (including unspeakable horrors) that certain translations have contributed to--regardless of what you think of this alternate reading of Galatians 2:21.


However, many of us prefer the King James translation. Why? There are probably a number of reasons – including the skill and inspiration of the writers who translated it – but one reason is that it’s not a translation into modern English. The Bible was written 2-3 thousand years ago – so the old-fashioned English prose of the King James seems appropriate. It has the gravitas associated with age and reinforced by childhood familiarity that is lacking in some modern versions.

Yes, I'm a big fan of the KJV, too. In my opinion it as a masterpiece of Shakespearean stature. My personal opinion is that the Greek New Testament, which I have also read, is even more beautiful; and the voices there are certainly more authentic. I have never had any Hebrew, so I can't comment on the beauty of the Hebrew Bible in comparison to the KJV. It would of course be more...ah you get it by now.


Modern scholarship may make translations more accurate – but that doesn’t necessarily make them better literature.

Oh I agree--nor (as you suggest) will they be more religiously meaningful to many. But that, of course, has nothing to do with authenticity of voice. Let the clergy drone and trill Paul pompously to their daydreaming congregations. I'm telling you he sounds like Chris Mathews. (I should add, that "Paul" makes a cameo appearance near the end of the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. The actor who played him had obviously read Paul in Greek because he did his voice to near perfection). But as I suggested above, there may be good reasons not to get dogmatic about translations--even literary masterpieces


When in Spain a couple of years ago, we visited the Cueva de Altamira and Cueva de Tito Bustillo. Altamira was closed to the public (our breathing ruins the paintings), but had an extensive museum which included a cave with replicas of the art. Boring. Tito Bustillo was great – first of all, you had to walk a mile or so into the cave before you came to the chambers with the paintings. It made the experience eerie, like a descent into the underworld.

Cool! See my comments above about "recycling food." But it sounds like you understood my poem in the first place.

[Ecurb]

You are clearly correct the "Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free..." is more authentically attributed to Kristofferson than to Joplin because, for some strange reason, Joplin changed the lyric to "Nothin' ain't worth nothin' if it ain't free."

My own preference is for good poetry over good translation -- but that's clearly a non-scholarly (and, in the case of the Bible, possibly heretical) personal preference.

[Pompey Bum]

You are clearly correct the "Freedom ain't worth nothin', but it's free..." is more authentically attributed to Kristofferson than to Joplin because, for some strange reason, Joplin changed the lyric to "Freedom ain't worth nothin' if it ain't free."

It's "nothin' ain't worth nothin'," isn't it?


in the case of the Bible, possibly heretical

Don't get my hopes up!

[Ecurb]

You're right. I just carelessly wrote the wrong word. I was probably thinking of the previous line: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose...." Joplin's version makes no sense to me -- nothin' ain't worth nothin' whether it's free or not. I changed my post to be accurate.

[Pompey Bum]

I think when Joplin says "Nothin' don't mean nothin', hon', if it ain't free" (which is how I hear it), she is using "nothin'" in the vernacular sense of "anything" (as in "I don't got to give you nothin'). So the idea is that her love for Bobby McGee wouldn't have been worth anything if she had not let him leave her to follow his dream. That makes the Joplin version a kind of free-love girl anthem.

Kristofferson, on the other hand, actually wrote more of a down and out hippie hobo kind of song. "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose" means the same thing in both versions: I don't have anything now, no possessions, not even my lover; but that actually makes me free. But then, in the way Kristofferson wrote it: "nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free." That is a fairly clever and slightly ironic lyric: "nothing" is of no value, so you can get it for "free," with an equivocation on the difference between "free" meaning "of no cost," and "free" meaning "at liberty" (a similar equivocation may be used by translators of Galatians 2:21 who take dwpea(v) as "worthlessly," that is, "in vain," when "for free" would be the more straightforward translation). Kristofferson's lyric also has a resonance with the unstated maxim: "nothing's free." This gives Kristofferson's version a more bitter quality than Joplin's, the gist of it being: I've got nothing now, not even her, but hey, that makes me free--but God knows no one's going to help me out.

I like Kristofferson's lyric better, but on the whole, I prefer the Joplin version. Both are good, though. Kristofferson's is sort of a truck driver music. Joplin's is rock and/or roll.

Kristofferson:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G-J7mLyD3yc

Joplin:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjon-ZTqzU

[Ecurb]

I like Joplin's version, too (except for the lyric change). I like the original lyric because of its irony, dual meaning and because money does enslave (to some extent -- it also liberates, if you have it and don't have to work for it).

Kristofferson never was much of a singer. His albums are good, but in person, he is often off beat and off key. As a result, I always like the "talking" songs on his albums, like "Silver Tongued Devil" or "To Beat the Devil". Of course he was a great song writer, and I think he's in the Country music Hall of Fame as a song writer. Did you know he was a Rhodes Scholar who studied English Literature at Oxford?

[Pompey Bum]

As a result, I always like the "talking" songs on his albums, like "Silver Tongued Devil" or "To Beat the Devil". Of course he was a great song writer, and I think he's in the Country music Hall of Fame as a song writer. Did you know he was a Rhodes Scholar who studied English Literature at Oxford?

No, I had no idea. Cool!

I remember To Beat the Devil, which I think was a poem (or talking blues, or whatever) about beating some kind of addiction. As I recall it had a great last line, something like "I ain't sayin' I beat the devil, but I drunk his wine for free."

[Ecurb]

Here's a link to "To Beat the Devil":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faF0wOsVucw

The song is relevant to the "Writing Poetry" thread.

[Pompey Bum]

Thank a lot, Ecurb. I'd blanked that it was about Johnny Cash. You can hear a lot of Cash in Kristofferson's music, though.

Edit: yeah, "Drank his beer for nothin'"--great line.