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.
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.
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
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".
C S Lewis in Surprised by Joy.
Previously JonathanB
The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1
"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).Originally Posted by Ecurb
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.
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?
I couldn't say, but they probably wouldn't approximate an authentic voice.
See my comments on this above, and give them a chance.
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.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 04-12-2015 at 09:54 AM.
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.
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.
Yes, but again, voice is not an substantial thing artistically.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You have obviously never tried to read a poorly translated Japanese assembly manual.
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.
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.
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
Cool! See my comments above about "recycling food." But it sounds like you understood my poem in the first place.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 04-13-2015 at 03:42 PM.
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.
Last edited by Ecurb; 04-13-2015 at 12:20 PM.
It's "nothin' ain't worth nothin'," isn't it?
Don't get my hopes up!
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.
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
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 04-13-2015 at 03:43 PM.
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?
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."
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.
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.
Last edited by Pompey Bum; 04-14-2015 at 01:49 PM.
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