Translating Contemporary New Zealand Poetry into French: Anna Jackson and Robert Sullivan

<p>This thesis aims to explore the translation process through an in-depth analysis of a large corpus of texts: the works of two contemporary New Zealand poets, Anna Jackson and Robert Sullivan, which I translate into French. The work of both poses translation challenges particularly in terms of intertextual and cultural allusions. These are exacerbated where there are profound differences between source and target cultures. I argue that poetry translation problematises the concepts of equivalence and faithfulness. In resonance with Christiane Nord’s skopos theory and her focus on the principle of loyalty, I suggest that an ideal balance can be reached, emphasising the translator’s responsibility as a mediator between cultures, chiefly by way of techniques of compensation, borrowing, transposition or modulation, explicitation or implicitation of the underlying cultural or intertextual layers, and by resorting to creativity. This emphasis does not do away with pragmatism. On the contrary, I justify my choices when confronted with a range of specific challenges, for instance between domesticating and foreignising, or in Nord’s terms instrumental and documentary translations, on the basis of a case-by-case analysis, thus prioritising a heuristic and experimental approach. Translating New Zealand poetry into French shows that, while it may be crucial in literary translation studies, particularly with regard to poetry translation, the distinction between instrumental and documentary nevertheless needs to be transcended. The two types not only overlap but need to do so for a translated poem to function in the target culture. To translate both Jackson’s recurrent references to text and Sullivan’s to culture – or as an umbrella concept, to translate allusion – I show that it is best to think in terms of balance rather than equivalence. Balance not only highlights the need for the translator to be creative and measured, it is a central element in the harmonisation process inherent to poetry translation.</p>

Translating Contemporary New Zealand Poetry into French: Anna Jackson and Robert Sullivan

<p>This thesis aims to explore the translation process through an in-depth analysis of a large corpus of texts: the works of two contemporary New Zealand poets, Anna Jackson and Robert Sullivan, which I translate into French. The work of both poses translation challenges particularly in terms of intertextual and cultural allusions. These are exacerbated where there are profound differences between source and target cultures. I argue that poetry translation problematises the concepts of equivalence and faithfulness. In resonance with Christiane Nord’s skopos theory and her focus on the principle of loyalty, I suggest that an ideal balance can be reached, emphasising the translator’s responsibility as a mediator between cultures, chiefly by way of techniques of compensation, borrowing, transposition or modulation, explicitation or implicitation of the underlying cultural or intertextual layers, and by resorting to creativity. This emphasis does not do away with pragmatism. On the contrary, I justify my choices when confronted with a range of specific challenges, for instance between domesticating and foreignising, or in Nord’s terms instrumental and documentary translations, on the basis of a case-by-case analysis, thus prioritising a heuristic and experimental approach. Translating New Zealand poetry into French shows that, while it may be crucial in literary translation studies, particularly with regard to poetry translation, the distinction between instrumental and documentary nevertheless needs to be transcended. The two types not only overlap but need to do so for a translated poem to function in the target culture. To translate both Jackson’s recurrent references to text and Sullivan’s to culture – or as an umbrella concept, to translate allusion – I show that it is best to think in terms of balance rather than equivalence. Balance not only highlights the need for the translator to be creative and measured, it is a central element in the harmonisation process inherent to poetry translation.</p>

The Translation of Verse Form. A Revision of Holmes’ Model Based on the Spanish Translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

While an essential component of poetry, form has been frequently overlooked in research on poetry translation or has been addressed under rather prescriptivist approaches, with notable exceptions (Holmes 1994, Jones, 2011, among others). This paper deals with the translation of the poetic form from a descriptivist perspective from a corpus of 69 Spanish translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets published between 1877 and 2018. It addresses, particularly, the outer form or macrostructure of the poems using one sonnet of each translation as a prototype. This analysis will serve as a basis for classifying these translations according to James S. Holmes’ metapoem forms and for proposing a revision of this model. While there are certain forms or patterns repeated throughout, the diverse solutions show that there is no single favoured way of rendering these sonnets, not even during a specific period (beyond the preference for verse over prose).

Translation of Islamic Arabic Poetry: A Two-Stance Methodological Framework

This study investigates whether it is possible to translate Islamic Arabic poetry, as a universal literary religious genre, into English to a high level of quality. A global-local translation framework (Halimah, 2020) is applied to the translation of Imam Ashshafi’ee’s[i] poem “الرضا بقضاء الله”/ “Accepting Fate with Pleasure” into English, where a methodological collaboration between a bilingual translator and an English poet manifests a two-stance methodological framework. The results, along with the qualitative and quantitative analysis of poetic extracts used in this paper, indicate that this framework has resulted in improving the quality of Islamic Arabic poetry translation. The translated materials proved to be ‘novel and appropriate’, achieving a very high 90% of approximation of the original text against ACNCS criteria. This framework can also be applied by translators of other literary and non-literary texts to bring more structure and clarity to the discipline of translation.[i]Muhammad bin Idrees Ashshafi’ee (DoB:150H/767A.D died in 204H/820A.D.) The founder of the Sunni School of Law مذهب الشافعية

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays is a collection of fifteen essays by a team of internationally recognized experts specially commissioned to commemorate in 2019 the three-hundredth anniversary of Addison’s death. Almost exclusively known now as the inventor and main author of The Spectator, probably the most widely read and imitated prose work of the eighteenth century, Addison also produced important and influential work across a broad gamut of other literary modes-poems, verse translations, literary criticism, periodical journalism, drama, opera, travel writing. Much of this work is little known nowadays even in specialist academic circles; Addison is often described as the most neglected of the eighteenth century’s major writers. Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays sets out to redress that neglect; it is the first essay collection ever published which addresses the full range and variety of his career and writings. Its fifteen chapters fall into three groupings: an initial group of five dealing with Addison’s work in modes other than the literary periodical (poetry, translation, travel writing, drama); a central core of five addressing The Spectator from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (literary-critical, sociological and political, bibliographical); and a final set of five exploring Addison’s reception within several cultural spheres (philosophy, horticulture, art history) by individual writers (Samuel Johnson) or across larger historical periods (the Romantic age, the Victorian age), and in Britain and Europe (especially France). Joseph Addison: Tercentenary Essays provides an overdue and appropriately diverse memorial to one of the eighteenth century’s dominant men of letters.

Analysis on the Translation of Mao Zedong’s 2nd Poem in “送瘟神 ‘sòng wēn shén’” by Arthur Cooper in the Light of “Three Beauties” Theory

Based on “Three Beauties” theory of Xu Yuanchong, this paper conducts an analysis on Arthur Cooper’s translation of “送瘟神”(2nd poem) from three aspects: the beauty of sense, sound and form, finding that, because of his lack of empathy for the original poem, Cooper fails to convey the connotation of the original poem, the rhythm and the form of the translated poem do not match Chinese classical poetry, with three beauties having not been achieved. Thus, the author proposes that, in order to better spread the culture of Chinese classical poetry and convey China’s core spirit to the world, China should focus on cultivating the domestic talents who have a deep understanding about Chinese culture, who are proficient not only in Chinese classical poetry, but also in classical poetry translation.

The Affective Aspect of the “Poetics — Poetry — Translation” Paradigm

В статье с переводческой позиции рассматривается эмоциональный эффект, производимый короткими стихотворениями о Великой Отечественной войне. Предметом исследования является выразительность, понимаемая не как экспрессивность тропов, фигур речи или авторских окказионализмов, а как эффект воздействия на читателя, достигаемый всей совокупностью средств письменного художественного текста. Особое внимание уделяется неброским проявлениям выразительности, приобретающим смысл только в конкретном тексте. Исследуется взаимодействие и взаимозависимость лексических, синтаксических, фонетических и пунктуационных способов выразительности, их смысловой потенциал, пути достижения компрессии, а также способы передачи создаваемого впечатления в переводе. Авторы предлагают свое видение основной задачи поэтики в отношении поэтических произведений с присущей им компрессией, где любая самая мелкая единица текста, включая знаки пунктуации, участвует в создании тона, авторского голоса и производимого эмоционального впечатления. Исследование выполнено на материале четырех стихотворений отечественных классиков середины ХХ века — А. А. Ахматовой, А. Т. Твардовского, К. М. Симонова и А. А. Тарковского. Переводы стихотворений на английский язык сделаны авторами статьи. The paper examines, through the lenses of a translator, the emotional effect produced by short poems about the Great Patriotic war. The study focuses on the notion of expressiveness, but not the kind of expressiveness that catches the eye with original tropes and figures of speech or the author’s nonce-words. It is treated as the effect produced upon the reader by a whole array of descriptive and expressive means employed in written texts. The authors examine the interaction and interdependence of lexical, syntactical, and, especially, less conspicuous phonetic and punctuation means of meaning-making. It is stated that a compressed and unaffected manner of expression in poetry may have a far greater impact than an excessive use of tropes or most inventive nonce-words. The authors suggest their vision of poetics in reference to poetry, with its tendency for compression, where every component, however unobtrusive (like punctuation signs, for instance), participates in creating the right tone, in rendering the poet’s voice and producing the intended emotional impression. The research is based on four Russian poems written in the 1940’s–1970’s by Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Tvardovsky, Konstantin Simonov, and Arseny Tarkovsky. The translations belong to the authors of the paper.

Classroom Translation of Tabib's Poem: A Practical Model for Analysis and Evaluation of Poetry Discourse Translation

Poetry Translation is a high-quality open access translation of classical texts by famous poets, the characteristics of poetry can be based on sound, syntax, structure or pragmatics. In addition to text transformation, poetic translation is concerned with the perception, discourse and action of and between people and textual agents in a material and social context. A public poetry translation project generally aims to feature one or more poets. Poetry translators are interested in interpreting the meaning layers of the source poem, they rely on reliability to judge this and produce a poem in the target language that is readable and pleasing to the literary text. They are responsible for making their writing easy to understand. The reader is also responsible for understanding the translator's translation. The possible solutions to these problems are collaboration between authors and translators. This article highlights the challenges associated with translating poetry. Although poetry makes up only a small percentage of the world's translation output, case studies and examples from poetry have dominated theoretical construction in translation studies to the detriment of genres translated more often.