Volume 2, No. 4
October 1998 |
Michael Walker is a writer, cultural theorist, visual artist, and poet.
He lives in San Francisco, California. Walker is perhaps best known to
the academic and biomedical communities for his work on the reformation
of Mongolias health care system, and has also authored a number of
journal articles on various aspects of Mongolian technological and legal
reform. His other areas of research interest include HIV/AIDS education
and prevention, geography and navigation, feminist themes in literature,
and how the arts and sciences interact in various cultural settings.
With regard to languages, his interests include: English, Spanish,
Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, Hebrew, Hurrain, Arabic, and Persian. His
personal interests include: soccer, running, hockey, cooking, and music.
Mike can be reached at: mikewalker@geocities.com
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Translating Poetry The Works of Arthur Rimbaud From French to English by Michael C. Walker
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Few writers
depend so heavily on the intricacies of a given language as
the poet, for whom each word is often essential. Every major language
can provide examples of fine poetry, rich in the demeanor and presence
of language, filled with the richness that makes a language unique and
interesting. Some would argue that without the variance found in
dissimilar languages poetry would fail us as a comprehensive art; could
we have the peculiar grammar of Emily Dickinson beside the lyricism of
Baudelaire if both poets were constrained to the same language? However,
such richness provides difficulty for those who are called upon to
translate poetry from one language to another, a common task in the case
of well-known poets and a growing area of interest for the works of
lesser-known contemporary poets. This article examines issues germane to
the translation of poetry using the works of the nineteenth century
French poet Arthur Rimbaud as its example.
Rimbaud is, with no room for argument, one of the greatest and most
unusual poets in the history of French literature. He began writing in
earnest as a young boy, displaying an uncanny aptitude for lucent
thought and a way with his native language which bespoke a depth of
character far beyond his years. Perhaps most remarkably, Rimbaud wrote
the entirety of his poetical works during his adolescence, turning away
from poetry altogether in his late teenage years to pursue a precarious
career of trading in Yemen and Africa. Although Rimbaud was
knowledgeable about the works of the leading poets of his time and often
mimicked (and mocked) their forms in his own work, it was his unique
style that earned him a rightful place among Frances notable writers.
Since his death in 1891 and the gradual establishment of interest in his
works, his poetry has been translated into at least twenty-five
different languages, including the four other Romance languages and most
remaining European tongues. One of the first languages to receive
Rimbauds work was, logically, English. Rimbaud had not pursued
translating his French poems into this language, thus all translations
we have in English of Rimbaud are the efforts of others, almost
exclusively successive to his death.
While many translators have worked with Rimbauds poetry and have
produced volumes of his work in English, perhaps no single individual
stands out as crucial to bringing Rimbaud to an English-reading audience
as Wallace Fowlie, a noted professor emeritus of French at Duke
University. Fowlies approach to Rimbaud was to present the original
French side-by-side with his English translations in book form, to allow
the reader a direct comparison of the works in both languages.
Therefore, Fowlies efforts are a true treasure for anyone curious to
the process of translating poetry from one language to another. The
epistemology of Fowlies logic in word choice and the restructuring of
phrases is clear and easy to discern from these comparative
presentations. Furthermore, the variance in grammar is readily apparent,
demonstrating the intricacies of both Rimbauds verse and French in
general. Fowlie has attempted to preserve not only the meaning and tone
of Rimbaud in his English translations but also the energy and empirical
structure of the poets art. Such is no small feat given Rimbauds often
bizarre handling of his native tongue.
The transcendent aspects of Rimbauds voice do allow some agency in the
selection of foreign words to match his verse in translation, but the
particular nuances of French as a language cannot be underestimated in
the context of Rimbauds works. French is often hailed as the language
of romance, and it does impart the Romantic in every sense of that word,
from its origins in Latin to its embodiment of the great Romantic age
traditions in art and literature. The idea of belles lettres is in
itself a French concept, and French poetry does stand apart even from
the poetries of other Romance languages in its lyricism. The French of
Rimbaudthough swift and strident oftentimesis overtly soft,
dulcet, and flowing in its cadence. To this end, Rimbaud amplifies the
French language, somehow making it even more French than it would be
in another application or scenario. I pair Rimbauds written French with
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis spoken French: soft, even, and
ever-melodious. English, and most other, non-Romance languages
certainly all the Germanic and Slavic languageshave difficulty in
replicating such subtitles as these graces are not intrinsic to these
languages. How then, are Rimbauds thoughts best translated into another
language without the loss of his breath, his tone? Certainly, this is
not an issue limited to Rimbaud aloneor to French writers alone,
either, as other languages present examples of the same challenges, such
as the case of translating Tsvetaeva out of the Russian.
Certainly the rhyme-structure and rhythm of Rimbaud is difficult to
duplicate in English; like most poets working in a rhyme scheme, Rimbaud
chose certain words for their compatibility with other rhymed words.
When immensely lucky, the translator shall find an approximate word in
English which will also rhyme, but this is, of course, the happy
exception and not the arduous rule. As astute as Fowlies translations
are, he encounters this problem time and again. How Fowlie approaches
this quandary is interesting and instructive. For example, the original
line in Rimbauds Fêtes de la Patience (Festivals of Patience)
reads:
Oisive jeunesse
À tout asservie,
Par délicatesse
Jai perdu ma vie.
Fowlies translation of the above reads:
Idle youth
enslaved to everything,
through sensitivity
I wasted my life.
Fowlie has certainly preserved the meaning of the verse and the sense of
despondency and urgency of the French, but the sound of the language is
lost entirely. If there is no means of retaining the lyrical flow and
essence of a languagecharacteristics so important to poetryhow
then, does the translator possibly impart the poets intent into the
translation? One methodthough a controversial oneis via
innovations in punctuation. If cadence and flow may not be maintained
through the sound quality of the words, then possibly punctuation can do
what phonetics cannot. Often this is the case when translating Asian
poetryespecially Chineseinto Romance or Germanic languages. For a
poet such as Emily Dickinson, who made use of punctuation in rather
unconventional ways, this technique is not an option, but for Rimbaud
and most French, Spanish, and Italian poets prior to the mid-twentieth
century, it is often worth a try.
Another example from Fowlies translations should expose a secondary
problem of Rimbauds poetry: his words tend to bear a more pronounced
meaning in French than their English equivalents can often express.
First, the French:
Le premier habit noir, le plus beau jour de tartes,
Now, Fowlies English translation:
The first black suit, on the finest day of pastries
The precise, literal, meaning of both of the sentences above is very
close, yet something is missing in the English variant. Fowlie stays as
true as possible to Rimbauds meaning, and, in the context of the rest
of the poem, this sentence makes perfect sense. Where the difficulty
lies in this example is the difference in structure between French and
English. Had the task been to translate this passage into Spanish, it
would have been easier to retain the order and appearance of the words
Rimbaud provides. It is important in reading the French to note that
habit comes before noir, but there is no mechanism in English to
permit this flow of words; the adjective must precede the noun it
describes, efforts at doing otherwise seem only awkward. We could say
the first suit of blackon the day finestof pastries but this
solution is more cumbersome to the reader than Fowlies direct
translation.
While the translator preparing an entire volume of poetry with a
substantial budget to do so may elect to include the source text with
the translations, many who are confronted with translating a small
portion of poetry for other types of publications cannot justify such
maneuvers. Instead, constraints may dictate the most compact translation
possible. Here, the voice of the poet and to some degree the essence of
the source language should retain its unique character without ancillary
exposition or explanation. How can this challenge be met? Perhaps by
examining the intent of the poet in using his word choices. While
analysis of poetry is often beyond the translators purpose or
providence, simple examination and query can usually at least rule out
what should not be done. Rimbaud can illustrate this situation most
effectively, as witnessed in the following excerpt:
Morts de Quatre-vingt-douze et de Quatre-vingt-treize,
From the above one may reduce the translation to a simple:
The dead of 92 and 93,
None of Rimbauds purpose or flair is lost in using the numerals instead
of their written equivalents, and the sentence is shortened
considerably. In fact, if the numerals were spelled out as words in
English, the contemporary reader might be puzzled by the use of the
words instead of the numerals.
Some knowledge not only of poetry and literature but also the etymology
of whatever foreign language one is translating from is essential to
producing accurate translations, especially when dealing with poets from
other centuries. Most translators possess such a knowledge, but those
who specialize in scientific or business-oriented work may not need to
call upon their background in the history of a language so often as is
necessary for the dependable translation of poetry. The best person to
translate poetryother than the actual poetis someone who has
intensively studied the poet and his/her works, but lacking this, one
may resort to examining important criticism of the poet by scholars.
Centering oneself in the poetryeven brieflyin this fashion can
make all the difference between producing a mediocre translation and a
superb rendition. The duty of the translator in translating poetry is as
essential as when translating an important legal or technical document
as scholars in the recipient language will rely with good faith on the
translator to have produced a reliable work for their own purposes.
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