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The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue
Poetry is supposed to be untranslatable. But many poems in English are also Pope's Iliad , Pound's Cathay , and Dryden's Aeneis are only the most obvious examples. The Poetry of Translation explodes this paradox, launching a new theoretical approach to translation, and developing it through readings of English poem-translations, both major and neglected, from Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue.
The word 'translation' includes within itself a of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire, or succumbing to passion; of taking a view, or zooming in; of dying, metamorphosing, or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion.
Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's Aeneid because he thinks Virgil's Aeneid opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way, translation can continue the creativity of its originals.
The Poetry of Translation puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature, allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.
The word 'translation' includes within itself a of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire, or succumbing to passion; of taking a view, or zooming in; of dying, metamorphosing, or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion.
Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's Aeneid because he thinks Virgil's Aeneid opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way, translation can continue the creativity of its originals.
The Poetry of Translation puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature, allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.
386 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2011
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April 17, 2015
This is the best of all the books I've read on translating poetry. Although Reynolds reviews the field and the main issues for translation theory, he does so in an introductory set of chapters, then side steps the usual attempts to create a single unifying theory, or develop an increasingly restricted taxonomy, by studying the metaphors poet-translators have used to describe what they were doing from Chaucer to Logue.
As such the book escapes from the usual theorised gloom and authoritarian discourse which surrounds translation studies, and examines what people did. For Reynolds the poetry of translation occurs when the metaphor for translation develops from the poem being translated and finds its way into the final product. There are detailed readings of translations by Pope, Dryden, Wyatt, Browning, Pound, Heaney, Logue and many many more. This allows Reynolds to show how different metaphors dominated in different periods, and how the ideals of translation varied. It all makes an implicit criticism of the idea that this rich variety could ever be described or confined within a unifying theory.
What the book also goes a long way to showing is how endemic translation has been in English Poetry. The foundation myth, Bede's story of Caedmon, is a story about translation, in translation, and while English was historically used as a method of imperial and colonial control, the history of English poetry is characterised by linguistic insecurity and a lingering sense of cultural inferiority. A history of English poetry could be easily written in terms of which foreign poet, or foreign language was the dominant influence at any given period.
As such the book escapes from the usual theorised gloom and authoritarian discourse which surrounds translation studies, and examines what people did. For Reynolds the poetry of translation occurs when the metaphor for translation develops from the poem being translated and finds its way into the final product. There are detailed readings of translations by Pope, Dryden, Wyatt, Browning, Pound, Heaney, Logue and many many more. This allows Reynolds to show how different metaphors dominated in different periods, and how the ideals of translation varied. It all makes an implicit criticism of the idea that this rich variety could ever be described or confined within a unifying theory.
What the book also goes a long way to showing is how endemic translation has been in English Poetry. The foundation myth, Bede's story of Caedmon, is a story about translation, in translation, and while English was historically used as a method of imperial and colonial control, the history of English poetry is characterised by linguistic insecurity and a lingering sense of cultural inferiority. A history of English poetry could be easily written in terms of which foreign poet, or foreign language was the dominant influence at any given period.
Displaying 1 of 1 review