CHAPTER 4

 

The Challenging and the Playful

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

This chapter focuses on my own views on the subject; I present a comparison of views by others with my own, and at the same time explain how my views have been formed. They are based on homophonic translations from English to Chinese, as well as Polish and French into English. Each section will focus on one translation, and will be divided into the same subsections, such as Interest/Background, Word Choice and Imagery,  in order to facilitate the comparison of the three translations.

The concluding section of this chapter  explores the question of audience for homophonic translation, since, as can be seen from the examples from the previous chapter, as well as my own examples, homophonically translated texts are not transparent but foreignizing to the extreme, and sometimes, as in the case of Zukofsky, applying literal translation to some extend. Audience for homophonic translation is not a driving force (since homophonic translation is marginalized, not used for commercial purposes); the audience, however, can appreciate it and thus keep it alive and developing, rather than cast it aside and lead to it being forgotten.

 

 

English-Chinese Translation

 

Interest/Background

 

The choice of a work to be translated homophonically is of extreme importance: not only because of the length of time and effort that has to be put into this kind of translation, but also because of the fact that the less complicated the poem, the less chances there are to render it homophonically. It is important to distinguish here between the kind of homophonic translation that Charles Bernstein and David Melnick are presenting--the translation where the target-language text suits the sounds, but not the images described in the source text--and the homophonic translation done by Celia and Luis Zukofsky, where the imagery is retained.

As it has been concluded in the previous chapter, by definition, Bernstein’s and Melnick’s approach to homophonic translation cannot be labeled invalid: to “translate” means to “carry over,” and while a “literary translation” carries over the source text into the target audience, a “homophonic translation” carries over the “source” sounds, and very often, the rhythm to the target audience. Yet, since no meaning is carried over, it is what I call “the playful” part of homophonic translation. It requires the translator to have a large vocabulary and to be open to breaking grammatical and linguistic rules, but it does not require him/her to struggle with any elements of the actual content of the original text, i.e. its vocabulary and imagery.

The other kind of homophonic translation, done by Zukofsky, is more complicated: it does not only seek to carry over the sounds and the rhythmic pattern of the Latin language, but also to present the imagery and general idea of the source-poem. I call this kind of translation “challenging,” as it requires all the elements necessary to do the “playful” kind of homophonic translation, as well as inventiveness, but at the same time the consciousness of not deviating too much from the source-poem’s vocabulary and imagery.

In my own homophonic translations, I have been striving to combine both kinds of homophonic translation: the challenging and the playful. Yet, although it has been my goal from the very beginning--from the time I had only read about Zukofsky and decided to imitate him--to pursue the more challenging translation, it occurred to me, through trial and error, that the “challenging” element is not always possible to achieve. This is, ironically, not because of the inability to find a relevant imagery and vocabulary, but the ability to find “the right poem” for the translation.

I have attempted to translate my own poem, from Chinese into English, thinking that since if I myself wrote it, I should understand it better than anyone else, and therefore its translation should not be a hard task, especially that the poem itself is “playful.” Below, it is shown it its literally translated version:

 

A man once asked me a question seemingly simple;

However, up until now I haven’t found the true answer to it yet.

He asked me: “Who are you?” I think back and forth

- My brain shudders, my brain nerves all shake.

 

The old doctor told me: “Your face is too pale!”

All my friends tell me: “You look real cool, come over!”

My teachers push me to study more,

But my parents say I already know everything.

 

Staring in the mirror, I can’t see through

but instead, the more I look the more I am confused--there are so many colors.

Anyhow, whether I say I’m right, or whether I say I’m wrong,

I still haven’t found the answer, who the hell am I?

 

I spent a long time on trying to translate this poem into English, until I realized, that it is too simple, and therefore, cannot be translated homophonically, at least, not in the challenging way. In order to produce a homophonic translation, I concluded, a poem in a source language must have at least one poignant metaphor, symbol or image, so that one may “build” the vocabulary around this central element.

A simple poem like this one consists mostly of simple actions, i.e. “asking the man,” in the first stanza, and “listening to people’s advices” in the second. It is true, that in the third stanza there is a possibility of focusing on the image of staring into the mirror and seeing more and more colors, but the other two stanzas could not be omitted, or concentrated around the same image, since then the translation would not be adequate.

The people in the second stanza, “the doctor,” “friends,” “teachers,” and “parents,” too, are not very metaphysical figures. It would have been different, had a doctor been called “master of the body and the soul,” or the teacher, “the one who shapes human mind,” there would have been more space for experimentation with descriptions of these people. Yet, if the original poem is simple, there is no point in making it complicated in the target language.

My next experiment involves a homophonic translation of English into Chinese in such a way that it is changed from “playful” to “challenging.” First, I wrote down the English version, looking more for the Chinese-sounding vocabulary (i.e. short words) and tried to create some kind of image, or at least, the impression that the lines logically follow each other, rather than present different images in each line. This was done for the English-speaking audience, so that the readers or listeners can understand it as an English poem (however grammatically deviant). For the Chinese audience, however it has no meaning, as shown below. Over the Chinese characters, there is their pronunciation written in pinyin. Over each line with  pinyin, there is an English version of the poem, while underneath the poem there is a literal translation of each line of Chinese characters:

 

Sun waits on gray sky

san-wei-tsong-rei-(s)-kai

¤T   ¦ì  ¥^        ¼ö       ¶}

sunning wakenning day

san-ning-wei-ke-ning-dei

¤T   ¹ç     ¥¼  ¥i ¹ç    ±o

roaming by ripening hey and

rou-ming-bai-ri-pen-ying-hei-an-

¦×   ©ú    ¥Õ  ¤é ¼Q  À³    ¶Â ¦w

on-growing infertile land

-dong-rou-ying-yin-fa'er-tai-land(g)

°Ê      ¦×  À³     ¦] µo º¸ ¤Ó  §N

leading to cities surroundings

li-ding-tu-si-ti-su-ran-ding(s)

¸Ì ©w ¤g¥| Åé Ĭ µM ©w¡C

 

            Three places from hot open

            Three peaceful cannot can peaceful have to

            Meat bright white day spurt answer black peaceful

            Move flash agree follow issue like that big cold

            Inside cold soil four body revived correct settled.

 

The “challenging” part is especially interesting in the Chinese language, since one has a big choice of characters that sound exactly the same. Thus, the first line, previously rendered as “three places from hot open,” may as well sound as “umbrella surrounds the acute hearing, ardent opening,” where the tones and characters would change to: ³Ê ³ò Áo ¼ö ¶}   . One can play incessantly and change the meaning of each character, so that the first line may, for instance, sound like: “Fall apart, become, offend—regular script,” etc.

While this section has attempted to show that the choice of the poem plays an important role in a successful homophonic translation, as well as how one may, in a language like Chinese with a significant number of homophones, change the homophonic translation from the “playful” to the “challenging.” The nest two sections, in contrast, will be devoted to more “challenging” translations because of their content.

  

 

Polish to English Translation

 

Background/Interest

 

The choice of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (1893-1945)’s poetry has not been a difficult one: her modernist background, short, four-line poems focusing on a single image or “moral,” as well as her direct but not unsophisticated style of writing have been the factors that influenced my decision. A choice of a Polish author has also been challenging, since Polish and English do not have too many homophones in common--a desire to combine the “playful” matching of sounds, as well as the “challenging” matching of imagery was, therefore, irresistible.

What has prompted me to translate “Ofelia,” as oppose to any other poem from Wiersze (Poems), a collection of her poetry was a combination of several factors: the “catching” name of the poem—“catching” my attention because of its universality in homophonic translation: it sounds similar enough in Polish and in English to leave it unchanged--as well as the tone of the poem. While in “Hamlet” Ophelia was quite a shy and submissive character, in this poem she is the one who speaks with melancholy but also self-consciousness. Finally, expressions such as “glass water” and “net of weeds” make it possible to build on this imagery, which was not the case with the Chinese poem.

I will first give the literal translation of the poem on the right side of the original Polish version. Then, I will give a set of simple rules of Polish pronunciation to facilitate the reading of the Polish text, which will then be translated homophonically into English.

 

 

Ofelia                                                                                                                                                Ophelia

 

Ach, długo jeszcze poleżę                                            Alas, for a long time will I repose

w szklanej wodzie, w sieci wodorost òw,                       in the glass water, in the net of weeds,

zanim nareszcie uwierzę,                                               Before I’ll finally believe

że mnie nie kochano, po prostu                                     that I simply wasn’t loved, that’s all.

 

Rules of Pronunciation:

According to the English pronunciation:

Polish                                                   English                        Polish   French

ch                                                         h                                ż, rz     j

»ł                                                           w                               ę          in (as in jardin), although there’s a tendency to pronounce it simply as  “e” (i.e. as in “bed”

                                                                                  dzie      dje-- (the ‘je’ is soft)

sz         sh

cz         ch

w         v

j           ay (as in hay)

s           sh; (a soft sh)

ci          ch-i (a soft ch)

òw       oov

 

The homophonic translation of Ophelia:

 

To go lest chase of foliage,

fish plant race-voyage eves a seaweed of

sun in nardest chant hoof-verged

edge omni echo hums love-lost tune.

 

Word Choice

 

The most problematic word in this translation is “nardest.” It is not because of the fact that it does not exist, that it was created from the word “nard,” since it is logically constructed: to the noun “nard,” the ending “est” is added, which usually signifies the utmost degree of something, i.e. “nard,” “narder,” “nardest,” as in “sun,” “sunnier,” “sunniest.”

What has been disturbing is the fact that “nard,” in this particular case, sounds a little bit like “balm” in Browning’s rendering of Agamemnon. It does not fit to the image of “glass water,” “seaweed of sun,” and “hoof-verged edge.” Is it especially disturbing because there is no such inconsistency in Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska’s vocabulary. It is, therefore, a challenging task to find a better suited word in future homophonic renderings of the poem.

 

Imagery

 

In order to retain some imagery and tone of the original poem, I have selected words from the literal translation, words which I thought were the most important elements in the presented image: “the seaweeds,” “love,” and the  “glass water.” The “seaweeds” are an  important element, since they signal Ophelia’s presence under the surface of the water, cut off from the living world, and unable to go back.  The idea that the seaweeds are tied into a net is reinforced by “foliage” in the homophonically translated version.

“Love” is an important word to retain, since everyone who has read Hamlet knows that love was one of the reasons that Ophelia drowned herself. It is important to remark that having the background knowledge of the source text is one of the main characteristics of the literal translation: this is, therefore, the factor that is required for both translations, the literal, and the homophonic-challenging one.  As for

The “glass water” could not be rendered literally in the English homophonic translation, therefore, the image of the “sun” trying to get through the “seaweeds” was created: as much as the “glass water” may prevent the interaction between the living world and the “underwater world,” the “sun” is only reflected when it tries to get through the “seaweeds” and only the “echo,” not the actual voice of the “lost love” can be heard.

This creation of imagery is sometimes on the verge of adapting and domesticating strategies, rather than the foreignizing one. That is why it is extremely important to retain as many of the important words as possible from the source poem, so as not to deviate too much and create an utterly different image.

The next example, a translation of one of Charles Baudelaire’s epic poems will illustrate the handling of imagery in a considerably longer and more complex text than “Ofelia.” The text is not complex because of the vocabulary, but because the images change during the discourse, as the protagonist tells a short narrative, including his observations and feelings.

 

 

French to English Translation

 

Background/Interest

 

Again, as in the case with the other two translations, one might ask why translate Charles Baudelaire and his prose poem. A decision to translate Baudelaire was not a hard task, as his works are pleasurable to read because of the social issues he raised and his stylistic devices. During his short life, from 1821 to 1867 he did not produce too many works, but every piece of his writing is unique, and, at the time, innovative to the point of being banned (i.e. Fleurs du Mal).

His writing, influenced by poetry of Edgar Poe--which Baudelaire translated for the French audience--as well as opium could easily have labeled him as “writer-painter:” “a writer” signifying his stylistic and linguistic skills, “a painter” adhering to his skill of painting images, as will be seen in the homophonically translated poem, “La soupe et les nuages,” (“The soup and the clouds”) ^[1] . Since the prose poem is longer than the Chinese and the Polish ones, it has been a challenge to translate it. At the same time, the poem had to be written by a favored author, since the translation of imagery, words, and sounds is a long process and could not have been accomplished without the feeling a great devotion and respect to the poet.

 

 

Homophonic Translation

 

Ma  petite  folle  bien-aimée me donnait àdiner.   Et par la fenêtre ouverte de la

My  petite  doll,  bien- amoured, commended a dinner.  A porcelain net-work covered in a

salle à manger je contemplais           les mouvantes architectures que Dieu fait avec

solemn ardor   gem-tendered panes  left nouveau art-kin-to-tulle courteous artifacts.

les vapeurs, les merveilleuses constructions de l’impalpable. Et  je  me  disais, àtravers  ma

Lifts of air engrailed veils constrict yonder under-arc.          Enchanted, in zest, introvert my

contemplation:       “–Toutes  ces  fantasmagories  sont  presque aussi belles que vastes les

content life shone:  “– Tacit phantasm of glories impress a scene as belle cat’s vast lens

yeux  de me belle bien-aimée,     ma  belle  bien-aimée,  la  petite  folle monstreuse aux yeux

umbred–my belle bien-amoured, my belle bien-amoured , my petite doll non-courteous of yet

bells.”

belle.”

Et  tout à coup  je  recus  un  violent  coup  de  poign  dans  le  dos,  et  j’entendis  une  voix 

A crude a coup just received a vial hand curved the pain raged bones, a gentle dear in forte

rauque et charmante, une voix  hysterique  et  comme  enrouée par l’eau-de-vie, la voix de ma

rock and charmante,  in forte hysteric and command moved par l’eau de vie, love rant of my

chère  petite  bien-aimee,  qui  disait:             “–Allez-vous  bientot  manger  votre soup,  

chère petite vehement and mad, clearly said: “--Alas, you be en-thought and test not the soupe, sacré   bourge  de  marchand  de  nuages?”

sacred burged marchand of mirage?”

 

Word Choice

 

Word choice has been one of the hardest parts throughout the whole process of translation. It was a struggle at times to decide between using French words, as much as possible, to foreignize the translation, and using the English words that would domesticate the translation to some degree.

In the very beginning of the poem, for instance, it was not a hard decision to use the word “petite” as it is used pretty commonly in the English language, i.e. when describing the size of a person or of clothes. However, when it came to ‘bien-aimée’ the problem was more complex. In the beginning, the expression ‘bien-aimée,’ (well-beloved) was rendered as “vehement-mad”, simply because it fit the sound pattern to some degree: b from ‘bien’ was changed into v, ‘en’ of ‘bien’ was changed into ‘ment’ from ‘vehement;’ while the accented ending of ‘aimée’ was substituted with ‘ma’ from ‘mad’, and the ‘d’ sound was pretty undisturbing. Another reason to render these words into ‘vehement- mad’ was the overall picture one gets of the ‘beloved one’, at least as she is presented by the protagonist. The ‘monstrous green eyes,’ of hers, and the ‘violent feast’ thrown at him do not suggest that she would be a meek mistress. Thus, as this description fitted to the whole picture painted by the protagonist, the domesticating method  prevailed for a long time, although quite disturbingly, until the foreignizing word suddenly came to mind. 

I decided it would be more appropriate to leave ‘bien’ untranslated, since it actually exists in the Webster’s dictionary as a part of a word definition of “bien-entendu” (to be sure). Therefore, if Webster Dictionary explains the word, at least in part, the foreignizing method was justified, and the second part of the expression, “aimée » was changed into ‘amoured’  Meaning-wise, it is much closer to ‘aimée,’ although before this last version came about, I felt a little bit like an unskilled Brisset, roaming incessantly among the words, with the intuitive feeling that my purpose, aim, aimed, aimable, ammo, amorous, amoured was finally emerging.

In some other instances, however, as much as I would like to keep the original words because of their similitude in writing, their pronunciation diverged so much in the two languages that it would have been an unforgivable mistake on my part. Therefore, as much as I wanted to keep ‘contemplation’, I was bound to change it to “content life shone” because of the ending. They are so distinct and so much associated with the two languages that leaving “contemplation” untranslated would doubtlessly make it less foreign, despite its similarity in the written form.

 

Imagery

 

Imagery is one of the hardest features to retain in the homophonicly translated poem. It is very helpful to underline specific words in a poem, words that one feels have to be retained in it, in order not to divert too much from the image. The underlined words also help to focus one’s mind on the image that has to be conveyed rather than divert too much from the original image.

In Baudelaire’s poem the following words were underlined prior to its translation: ‘petite folle,’ ‘bien-aimée,’ ‘la fenêtre,’ ‘les vapeurs,’ ‘l’impalpable,’ ‘voix,’ ‘vie,’ ‘marchand,’ and ‘nuages.’ To retain these words does not necessarily mean to literally keep them in the original language, but to try to render their meanings as close as possible. Various ways have been used to render the image.

One of the methods is Brissetizing, already described in “Word Choice.” It is especially useful when there is a word-to-word rendition, meaning one word is substituted with exactly one word in a homophonic translation, rather than few shorter words. The word “folle” is translated as “doll” and that is how it came about: First, I was influenced by the idea of the correlation between sounds and meanings, which has been Brisset’s theory, in this case presuming that English and French words that sound the same have in fact the same meaning. So if I rendered ‘folle’ as ‘fool’ it would be perfectly fine. Nevertheless the spirit of Nabokov stepped in and reminded me of the usefulness and importance of literal translation. Thus, I realized, that a fool is not really as strong a word a ‘folle’ which is closer in meaning to ‘crazy.’ ‘Doll’ was the closest rendition I could think of, not only because of the closeness of sounds, but also of the overall situation in which the protagonist and the ‘doll’ is positioned and how she is described: she is, doubtlessly beautiful with her ‘green eyes’ and long hair. She is, moreover, the protagonist’s mistress, which in the 19^th century setting still implies much more compliance to his wishes on her part than nowadays. If the text would be written in the 1990s and refer to this time, I would have to look for a more specific context, i.e. that which would specifically imply that the mistress is complacent. At the same time, I made sure not to take out all the tokens of her ‘folly’ which the protagonist sees in her monstrous eyes.

In another instance, in order to render the image of a window that the protagonist is looking through, it was not possible to render ‘fenêtre’ as ‘window’ since the sound patterns of these two words are utterly different; therefore, a different strategy had to be used. In stead of using word-to-word homophonic translation, a strategy that I call the “shifted image” had to be used. In order not to lose entirely the image of the window, which had to be rendered as ‘...celain net-work’, I have tried to come up with most common associations with the word window, which were a pane and a glass. But it seemed to me that a pane would be more specifically referred to the window than a glass, which could be easily associated with a glass bottle, glass and its characteristic feature of transparency, glass as a slippery surface of the ice, etc. Therefore, the pane seemed more appropriate.

It could not be simply a matter of substitution since again, a window and a pane do not have similar sound patterns, so I had to look for a possibility to use this word somewhere else, in the “vicinity.” In the same line, ‘je contemplais’ became ‘gem-tendered panes.’ In this way, not only the image of the window is carried over, but also the ‘vapors’ that have settled on it and that have created various ‘art-nouveau’ patterns.

At the same time, the porcelain net-work’ that is in place of ‘et par la fenêtre’ strengthens the image of the patterns of vapors. In this way, even though the images of the window and the vapors are shifted, they are retained, and, they are close to each other, rather than scattered throughout the poem, which may suggest a different context or meaning.

 

The Clash of the Challenging and the Playful

 

As I began to research the subject of homophonic translation, I was a strong supporter of Zukofsky’s challenging translation and could easily dismiss the more playful ones. I was even struggling with the question whether the playful way of homophonic translation should in fact be called a “translation” and not something else, such as “homophonic transcription,” since the basic elements of a “standard” translation theory (i.e. to translate the meaning or poetics of a poem) have been lost, and lost consciously, on  purpose!

Yet, as my research progressed, I was struck by the humorous translations of nursery rhymes, supplied with explanatory footnotes, and later on, by David Melnick’s and Charles Bernstein’s freedom of playing with the target language. Their homophonically translated poems are nonsense, on one hand, but at the same time, a manifestation of the “remainder” of the language with many humorous and, in a sense, innovative conjunctions of different words.

It was under their influence that I have decided to include a playful version of Baudelaire’s homophonically translated poem, to illustrate the vast possibilities in translating the same poem. What I have consciously used in this version of the poem is Melnick’s use of names (a combination of God’s and people’s names) and his use of a more familial language (i.e. the use of “eh”. What I have imitated from Bernstein’s homophonic translation is the use of “toot” or “tut” to render the meaning of the French “tout” (all, everything). The three words are so different in meaning from each other that I wonder if Brisset would be able to find any common meaning for these words.

Without any further explanation or interpretation, a playful version--which could easily be modified by substituting words having the same sounds that would ,for any reason, appeal to someone more than those I have used--is presented, for the pure enjoyment of exploiting the “remainder” of the English language:

 

Ma petite fol be an Emma, med on med a din air

apart la fen earth red a lust Al among gel

Jack on temp lad--a move mount architect lurked,

ye effect ave clever per; lamb herb, e-jazz const rook, see? On the lamp alpha blood.

Edge, am at ease, eh, ultra verb, Emma contemp lass ye on

toot Se fun far’s mug, or ease on press cozy belle,

Kev restless ye, Ed, Emma, belle be an Emma,

la petite: fall month true, eh? Zeus yen vert.

 

Eh! Tout a coup jealousy, envy all on coo de poop

and umber- Oh! Edge on torn deal, a vou, Ah!

Rocket shard mon, in vou, Ah! Yeast Eric echo

mon ruled, parlor devil. love Uh! AdamBa petite

share be an Emma, kid ease Ed:

Alec vou be an Tom on gel ventre soup

sacred urge de March on de nude bulge.

 

 

Audience

 

Throughout the history of literary translation it has been proven that unless a translation does not follow the canonized (i.e. domesticating) strategy, it is criticized by most critics in the “mainstream” magazines or literary journals. The modernist influence of Ezra Pound, for instance, is heavily criticized in the 1950s because Pound’s trans\lation strategies did not attain the status of a dominant translation method. Therefore, poets/translators influenced by Pound were marginalized, while those who followed the mainstream were praised. Homophonic translation has always been considered a marginalized strategy and this section will explore the tangible question of “controlling” the audience by the media, publishing companies and the academic institutions will be explored as it points out to the reasons of marginalization of the homophonic translation.

The reason for contrasting two poets/translators, Fitts and Paul Blackburn, in the 1950s is that while the former was opposed to Pound, especially later in his life, the latter was very much influenced by him, and while the former poet was largely published, the other was marginal. Their reference to Pound is significant, because he was one of the most influential modernists who opposed the mainstream translation strategies dominating the Anglo-American literature for centuries. As stated in the beginning of this paper, modernism was the only time where innovations were accepted more as a part of translation strategies, rather than simply in opposition to them. Yet, as soon as modernism was over, the previously dominant strategies replaced all the innovative ones. Pound’s translations have always been controversial, and one of the facts that accounts for that is his constant revision of his own translations as well as theory on which the translations were based. In the 1927 “Postscript” to the revised translation of Cavalcanti’s poetry, and later, in his 1935 essay, “Guido’s Relations,” he criticizes his earlier use of archaisms, “My perspective was not obfuscated by Guido’s [Cavalcanti’s] Italian, difficult as it then was for me to read. I was obfuscated by the Victorian language “(Schulte, Biguenet, 1992: 85).

An important characteristic of translation, he insisted, is heterogeneity of the English discourse, which he explained as being unable to

 

learn one English, one can only learn a series of Englishes. Rossetti [also a translator of Cavalcanti’s poetry] made his own     language. I hadn’t in 1910 made a language, I don’t mean a language to use, but even language to think about. It is stupid to overlook the lingual inventions of precurrent authors, even when they are fools or flapdoodles or Tennysons. It is sometimes advisable to sort out these languages and inventions, and to know what and why they are.

(Idid:85-86)

 

“Series of Englishes” instead of just one “English” meant that when translating a foreign text, one could not make it transparent for the “one-English-speaking” audience, but rather introduce them to a style of the translated poet. ^[2]

Homophonic translation, using Pound’s vocabulary, has to be “extra-heterogeneous,” since it is dependant not only on the language of the author, but also on the sound of the source language. It is, therefore, even less conforming to the canonized style (i.e. syntax, colloquialism, etc) than the “regular” modernist translation. When Pound decided, for the first time, to revise Rosetti’s translation of Cavalcanti’s poetry, he observed:

 

I began to translate by meaning merely to give prose translation so that the reader ignorant of Italian could see what the melodic original means. It is, however, an illusion to suppose that more than one person in every 300,000 has the patience or the intelligence to read a foreign tongue for its sound, or even to read what are known to be the masterworks of foreign melody, in order to learn the qualities of that melody, or to see where one’s own falls short.

(Ibid: 85)

 

If Pound, the “heterogeneous” translator admits to having such a small audience, what percentage of Pound’s readership does the “extra-homogenous” translator have?

To answer that question, one has to realize that already after World War II, the modernist values as well as translation practices were not in favor. It is undeniable that many poets and translators knew, or even were influenced by Pound to some degree, but they have often gradually opposed Pound’s translation strategies and praised the “new,” three-centuries-old ones.

Alfred Fitts is an example of such a poet/translator who was widely known and published. His views, which at that time were dominant in the Anglo-American translation, are reflected in the foreword to Mary Barnard’s 1958 translation of “Sappho,” where he stated her “precision that the Greek texts were written in a ‘pungent downright plain style,’ requiring an appropriately ‘plain English’” (Venuti, 1997: 211-212). He also praised the translation for being “homogene,” “exact,” and using “current English without any ‘spurious poeticism, none of the once so fashionable Swinburne Symonds erethism,’” Symons, J.A and Swimburne, A.C. being modernist translators.

Zukofskys’ translation that appeared in 1968 was, to some degree, influenced by Pound’s translation strategies, as discussed in the third chapter. If Pound advocated the closeness to music in poetry, Zukofsky pushed it as far as he could, to create the Latin-sounding poem; if it was Pound who for many years advocated the use of archaisms, Zukofsky was the one who used them constantly; finally, if Pound was the one who praised heterogeneity, Zukofsky used it constantly. It is opposed to such a point that Moore, another translator of Catullus recommended not any minor changes to the Zukofskys’ translation, but the most domesticating ones imaginable: “a wholesale Anglicanization of the Latin text, down to using the most current English (Asexy”) and discarding the Latin name for a British-sounding one (“Coldham”). (Venuti, 1994:223)

No wonder, that Zukofskys’ translation is stored in the “rare books room” in a library, although, miraculously, one copy could also be found with all the other, more “commonly distributed” books. Melnick’s homophonic translation of the Iliad could not be found among other ‘rare books’ since, as I was told, “it looked like a pamphlet and someone must have misplaced it”. In other words, it was probably stacked carelessly among other books.  Books of homophonically translated nursery rhymes, as well as  Brisset’s and Wolfson’s works--with only one exception in favor of Brisset--had to be ordered through interlibrary loan. This points out to the fact that most of these materials are printed in limited editions and “marginal” small-circulation magazines. As Venuti concludes, “The marginality of modernist translation project like the Zukofskys’ has extended into the present, both in and out of the academy” (Ibid: 223)... Academy, should not the academy be responsible for introducing such texts? After all, they seem to be more difficult to read for most people who are often discouraged from reading them. Why not to make it a goal for the academy to familiarize students with these texts, rather than spending too much time on “transparent” and “clearly-written” texts?

 

 

Academy and Media

 

So a guy comes over to me, very agitated—we’re just a block from the Lincoln Center, across the

street from the new Sony Imax theater--and he says, “How d’ya get to Carnegie Hall”?

“Theory.”

(Bernstein, My Way.)

 

Academic institutions, largely responsible for creating the audience and shaping their aesthetical and literary tastes seem to simplify their task. Instead of introducing and supporting new approaches to criticism and writing (of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry), they take the easiest approach: to introduce and promote selected works from the past, as well as the very mainstream works of the present. This approach, I believe, should not be banished all together, but rather “modified,” in order to “let in” the new developments in literature, not only the mainstream ones.

A close look at the state of poetry, for instance, reveals promotion and production (on the side of the so-called poet and the publisher) of mainstream poetry. As Charles Bernstein states in his essay “Against National Month of Poetry as Such,”

 

National Poetry Month is sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, an organization that uses its mainstream status to exclude from its promotional activities much of the formally innovative and "otherstream" poetries that form the inchoate heart of the art of poetry. The Academy's activities on behalf of National Poetry Month tend to focus on the most conventional of contemporary poetry; perhaps a more accurate name for the project might be National Mainstream Poetry Month. Then perhaps we could designate August as National Unpopular Poetry Month. (...) This program is intended to promote safe reading experiences and is based on ARF's founding principle that safe poetry is the best prophylactic against aesthetic experience.

 

Bernstein points out two important characteristics of the attitude to poetry generated by the Academy. One is, that the “safe,” straightforward reading is promoted, leaving all the innovative projects--homophonically translated works doubtlessly included—“out of the picture.” Poetry which is easy to understand will, according to the Academy, encourage more people to read it and, in turn, be of a higher marketable value for the big publishing companies that release the mainstream poetry.

The other characteristic is dependant on the first one and it is related to the fact that “safe” poetry creates a strong opposition to the “aesthetic experience” of “otherstream” poetry. While the “safe” one can be easily understood by a large audience, the latter appeals only to a small number of readers, since, because of its difficult--or rather less commonly used structures (linguistic patterns, vocabulary, etc)--it has to be “translated,” as Bob Perelman remarks:

 

... I first want to acknowledge how difficult it is to place their [Stein’s, Joyce’s, Pound’s, and Zukofsky’s] works in any arguments that does not ultimately lead back to the works themselves: they are articulated to such a pitch of singularity that attempts to include them in other discourses are doomed to a rather daunting amount of translation. In fact, translation of various kinds dominates the criticism.

(Perelman, 1994:8).

 

If “translation,” more or less accurate, is the main criticism available and if there is nothing else but paraphrases available, many readers may feel discouraged to read the less “safe” readings, since they may seem unworthy of reading: generating only “translation” and not any engaging discussion of specific issues that the authors had had in mind when writing their works.

There is, it seems, a so-called closed circle, where the audience looking for “aesthetic experience” may be discouraged because of available criticism on the works that are supposed to generate such experience. Criticism, however, does not present too many innovative ideas because most of the audience is unfamiliar with the criticized sources, or specific issues that seem to be overlooked in the sources that are discussed to some extend. What is, for instance, the purpose of discussing homophonic translation of “Man in Aida,” if most of the readers are not familiar with the concept of homophonic translation, or even of the historical and literary background sufficient enough to encourage them to reach for “Man of Aida” in homophonic translation in the first place.

Again, there is the issue of availability that is important here: not only that David Melnick’s translation is only available in “Rare Books Rooms,” but there are few references leading to the translation. The references, in turn, are mostly provided by people like Charles Bernstein who is enthusiastic about homophonic translation himself, and who, as is evident from his essay on “National Poetry” as well as his other writing, is not a “mainstream” poet himself. Moving further, it seems that “homophonic translation” is not a topic that will generate more than several, if any, entries in library catalogs and linguistic databases. It is included in very few books that discuss translation strategies.

The tension between the audience, supposedly craving for “safe” readings, and the academic institutions that do not offer a big resource of alternatives. It seems as though the “otherstream” works are too often “disqualified” by serious scholars, and therefore not even given the chance to be introduced to the students.

As I was surfing the internet in the hope to find some references that may guide me to  information on homophonic translation, I came across a Dictionary of Homophones. Fascinated by the idea, I wrote to its author, a scholar,  in order to ask him if I could possibly use the dictionary in my thesis. Upon getting a very friendly response, in which I was informed that he  did not specialize in linguistics but had been interested in homophones and etymology for years, I found myself encouraged to tell him about Jean-Pierre Brisset, who had such a creative and coherent approach to both. In response I received an e-mail that said: “I haven't heard of Brisset. I'll keep an eye out for him, though I must say that his approach sounds more playful and impressionistic than is to my taste. I prefer etymologies that respect and explore the complexity of linguistic history.”

- “Was Brisset’s approach any less “complex”?, I wondered.

 

 

Alternatives to the Circle

 

The responsibility to widen or even break the eternal circle falls upon the audience as much as the publishing industry and critics. There is no point of judging who has the most important role: all three groups of individuals need to be involved, none can be left out, as they are heavily dependant on each other.

The writers are the ones who have to start, or have actually started to change the situation, mainly, break the hegemony of the mainstream literature, by breaking out from it, publishing their literature either in small publishing houses or on the Internet, free of charge. Internet is one of the best places to begin promotion of the “otherstream” poetry. Not only it is not constrained by editors and sales conditions of big publishing houses, but it is easily accessible: instead of being stored in “Rare Books Rooms,” the “rarely published” works can now be found online, often found “by chance,” i.e. browsing from link to link or simply mistyping the web page address.

When the audience encounters new approaches, it is their task to respond actively. In his essay “The Revenge of the Poet-Critic, or The Parts are Greater than the Sum of the Whole,” Charles Bernstein points out to the phenomenon that he calls “the rise of mediocrity.” He does not put the entire blame on the audience, but rather on key figures, i.e. poets and critics appearing in major magazines, i.e. The New York Times over the last decade. He concludes that

 

The idea that complex or unfamiliar ideas, indeed the compound-complex sentences, are “elitist” must be countered as demagogic populism and quasi-totalitarianism. It is not that writers and artists and intellectuals, any more than listeners or readers, are ignorant; but the constraints enforced in public spaces produce, protect, and defend ignorance.

 (Ibid 16)