What are your views on poetry in translation?
The Brooklyn Rail is a stylish, politically relevant magazine that valiantly publishes translations of fiction and poetry as part of its online edition. My sweat-soaked attempts to translate a couple of my favorite French poems into English were published in the July issue:
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org...
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org...
In the past, I've gotten into fights with people who believe "poetry is something that simply can't be translated." I concede that there's a choke-sized grain of truth to this belief: a poetic translation that's really alive is inevitably imbued with the personality of its translator as well as the personality of the original author. The relationship between a poem and its translation more closely resembles the relation between a parent and their child than the relation between Dolly the Sheep and her sickly, short-lived clone. When a poem is translated, a kind of evolution happens, a process analogous to the recombination of genes that occurs in sexual reproduction. And, just as with sexual reproduction, the results are unpredictable: sometimes wildly good and sometimes wildly bad.
By emphasizing certain components of the original poem while de-emphasizing others, the translator is, in effect, writing a whole new poem, one that tries to communicate the unique emotional experience he underwent when he first fell in love with the original poem. Translation, then, is one of the sincerest forms of flattery; it's the translator's heartfelt tribute to the author of the original (albeit a tribute that risks being as ill-received as Cain's was).
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org...
http://intranslation.brooklynrail.org...
In the past, I've gotten into fights with people who believe "poetry is something that simply can't be translated." I concede that there's a choke-sized grain of truth to this belief: a poetic translation that's really alive is inevitably imbued with the personality of its translator as well as the personality of the original author. The relationship between a poem and its translation more closely resembles the relation between a parent and their child than the relation between Dolly the Sheep and her sickly, short-lived clone. When a poem is translated, a kind of evolution happens, a process analogous to the recombination of genes that occurs in sexual reproduction. And, just as with sexual reproduction, the results are unpredictable: sometimes wildly good and sometimes wildly bad.
By emphasizing certain components of the original poem while de-emphasizing others, the translator is, in effect, writing a whole new poem, one that tries to communicate the unique emotional experience he underwent when he first fell in love with the original poem. Translation, then, is one of the sincerest forms of flattery; it's the translator's heartfelt tribute to the author of the original (albeit a tribute that risks being as ill-received as Cain's was).
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on this.
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Vietnamese poet Bui Giang also translate A'dieu as follows:LỜI VĨNH BIỆT
Ta ngắt đi một cành hoa thạch thảo (*)
Em nhớ cho mùa thu đã chết rồi
Chúng ta sẽ không tương phùng được nữa
Mộng trùng lai không có ở trên đời
Hương thời gian mùi thạch thảo bốc hơi
Và nhớ nhé ta đợi chờ em đó...
BÙI GIÁNG
Van wrote: "Vietnamese poet Bui Giang also translate A'dieu as follows:LỜI VĨNH BIỆT
Ta ngắt đi một cành hoa thạch thảo (*)
Em nhớ cho mùa thu đã chết rồi
Chúng ta sẽ không tương phùng được nữa
Mộng trùn..."
Van, this is amazing. I've long loved Phạm Duy's musical rendition of "L'Adieu" as "Mùa Thu Chết," but I was not previously aware that Bùi Giáng had also translated this poem. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention! It's interesting to me that Bùi Giáng adds a line between the third and fourth lines of Apollinaire's poem, thereby expanding it from a five-line poem to a six-line poem. Also interesting how this melancholy poem of Apollinaire's speaks to so many people around the world, including not a few Vietnamese.... Perhaps something to do with our special relationship to melancholy and remembrance?
Do you know A'dieu wrote by Apollinaire when he came to visit Hugo's daughter's grave? He brought a bunch of heather to the grave. Hugo changed his life and creation when his daughter died.I translated "Le Pond Mirabeau" from English copy and I copy here for you. A little different from other Vietnamese copies:
CẦU MIRABEAU
Dòng nước sông Seine chảy dưới cầu Mirabeau
Và mối tình của chúng mình
Anh phải nhớ lại
Niềm vui luôn theo sau nỗi đớn đau
Đêm trôi qua và những giờ trôi đi
Những ngày đi qua mà anh vẫn ở lại
Chúng mình tay trong tay mặt đối mặt
Trong khi bên dưới cầu Mirabeau
Tay của chúng mình trôi đi
Theo dòng nước mệt mỏi với những cái nhìn thiên thu vĩnh cửu
Đêm trôi qua và những giờ trôi đi
Những ngày đi qua mà anh vẫn ở lại
Tình yêu qua đi như dòng nước chảy này
Tình yêu qua đi
Cuộc sống từ từ
Và hy vọng thì quá mãnh liệt
Đêm trôi qua và những giờ trôi đi
Những ngày đi qua mà anh vẫn ở lại
Ngày trôi qua và tuần trôi qua
Quá khứ sẽ không trở lại
Tình yêu xưa sẽ không trở lại
Nhưng dòng nước sông Seine vẫn chảy dưới cầu Mirabeau
Đêm trôi qua và những giờ trôi đi
Những ngày đi qua mà anh vẫn ở lại
By Appollinaire
(Chương Còm tạm dịch)
Thank you for sharing this, Van. I especially like the musicality with which you've rendered "Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure" as "Đêm trôi qua và những giờ trôi đi."
Baudelaire was one of them who did translate some of the work done by Edgard Allan Poe under the name " Histoires extraordinairees" this work was amaizing. I would be curious to know if his translation was more like a new book or simply a very good translation. please le me know.