Comments on: Translate This, Part Deux

By: Vivek Narayanan

Vivek Narayanan — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:18:08 +0000

Since you quote extensively from his introduction in your earlier blog post, it appears that Michael Hamburger (for eg. http://www.forward.com/articles/10977/ ) is a deliberate omission from your “top 4 list”. But why? I like his versions very much. (I haven’t read the Joris yet.) In general in these posts on translation, I’d appreciate it if you went into greater detail, perhaps giving examples, to defend your preferences, because the reasons for your choices are not automatically clear to me.
There’s also a larger question here. It seemed to me that on one hand you repeat the (potentially irresponsible) cliche that a translator must take liberties to succeed, but on the other you seem to be searching for the most “authentic” Celan translation, rather than taking the point of view (argued by many) that all the translations must be read together, that each Celan translation is valuable for the particular quality of Celan that it brings out. This, it appears to me-who-does-not-have-German, would be especially correct in the case of PC.
Finally, I genuinely like it when you say, “This is how Celan must be”– an act based more on instinct and attempted divination than a knowledge of German. I often have similar reactions, even when reading translations in languages I don’t know, and it comes out of the intimacy one begins to feel with a poet, even in translation. It’s interesting also that with Celan and Mandelstam you seem to have chosen the poets that must be the hardest to translate, how their aura seems to gather even despite this. (Though that aura, alas, also has not a little to do with the romance of their biographies.) At the same time, one must keep in mind that often poets find the idea of the shamanic seductive even when they are clearly not. We ought to be humble when stating our guesses. So my question is, what is it about a translation that seems to tell you, almost beyond language, that it is authentic? What is it about that particular hall of mirrors that a “good” translation generates?
As a series about translation from someone who doesn’t know the originals, I think this series of blog posts could potentially be a profoundly fascinating and important exploration; however, I feel that you are not thinking through that aspect directly enough as of yet.
Hope you find it worthwhile to answer these queries.
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By: Major

Major — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:16:50 +0000

I am motivated to seek out more of his work beyond the few poems I know and love of his. Thanks, Reginald.
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By: Pierre Joris

Pierre Joris — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:19:31 +0000

Reginald,
Although, as you say, the Neugroschel translations have long been out of print, I used a number of them in my own Paul Celan: Selections (University of California press), which also contains selections from other early US translators of Celan (Jerome Rothenberg, Cid Corman & Robert Kelly) as well as a large selection of my own translations, both new ones of early and very late poems, and from among the three complete Celan books (Breathturn, Thradsuns and Lightduress) which I translated & published with Sun & Moon and which are now available from Green Integer.
best,
Pierre
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By: james hoch

james hoch — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:53:23 +0000

“Though Celan often questioned the possibility of communication, he never questioned its necessity; there is in all of his work a communicative urgency, almost a desperation to make contact with the other.”
Dear Reginald Shepherd,
This distinction, apt and poignant of Celan, is somehow lost in the conversational bi-ways of the poetry world. It’s the kind of observation that destabilizes the poles of poetic discourse and one that I find hopeful.
I appreciate it as I have appreciated much of your commentary.
James Hoch
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