Babel

by R.F. Kuang

‘Of course that’s not the same,’ Pendennis said. ‘Translating poetry is for those who haven’t the creative fire themselves. They can only seek residual fame cribbing off the work of others.’ Robin scoffed. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’ ‘You wouldn’t know,’ said Pendennis. ‘You’re not a poet.’ ‘Actually—’ Robin fidgeted with the stem of his glass for a moment, then decided to keep talking. ‘I think translation can be much harder than original composition in many ways. The poet is free to say whatever he likes, you see – he can choose from any number of linguistic tricks in the language he’s composing in. Word choice, word order, sound – they all matter, and without any one of them the whole thing falls apart. That’s why Shelley writes that translating poetry is about as wise as casting a violet into a crucible.* So the translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once – he must read the original well enough to understand all the machinery at play, to convey its meaning with as much accuracy as possible, then rearrange the translated meaning into an aesthetically pleasing structure in the target language that, by his judgment, matches the original. The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles.’ By the end of this spiel Pendennis and his friends were staring at him, slack-jawed and bemused, as if they weren’t sure what to make of him. ‘Dancing in shackles,’ Woolcombe said after a pause. ‘That’s lovely.’ ‘But I’m not a p...