Comments on: Translation and its Discontents: Part 2 (some preliminary examples of attitude)

By: mearl

mearl — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:18:55 +0000

Mark,
This conversation has probably outstripped the parameters of my original post, especially since we are talking about an event that very few, if any, of the other commentators, or readers witnessed. I’d wondered if you could give us your version, but maybe we should save that for another day. American literature, and those writers who have observed America as outsiders (De Tocqueville, Dickens, Henry James and many others) have always extrapolated from individuals to create types, which in turn create the basis for generalizations. I simply don’t see the point of removing that tendency from the discourse. Especially since the examination of individual’s differences, particularities, eccentricities and the like are at the base of the process. But you do have a point, albeit a kind of something-rotten-in-the-state of Denmark point – but you’re absolutely right. We need to take care about how we reach our generalizations. I just hope you’re not suggesting that we do away with the fun of finding our way towards large conclusions. Some of them do, in the end, stick.
Henry Gould makes a fabulous point at the end of one of his comments, about balance: “The difference between Europe & America is medieval Christendom vs. “E Pluribus Unum”. We have to be careful not to tip the balance too far in either direction. They’re both miraculous & terrible.”
We’ll talk,
Martin

By: Mark Wallace

Mark Wallace — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:59:12 +0000

I don’t mind some generalizations, Martin, especially in casual conversation. I like them less when they are made as authoritative statements in authoritative forums. I suppose the Harriet blog lies rather uncomfortably between those two poles.
But to assume that the character of the people of a given country can be generalized on the basis of statements made by public figures or leaders of that country contains the assumption that those leaders achieved their positions by reflecting the character of the people. Most leaders do not come into power that way, although perhaps rarely they might–and of course even winning an election is hardly the same as proof that one as a leader is reflecting the character of the people. Certainly most poets who become famous do not become famous because they express the attitudes of most other poets.

By: james stotts

james stotts — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:24:51 +0000

the violence of translation is partly in trying to strap a poem down, and make it a stable target–this is what all the slow, painstaking reading is for.
the second aspect comes in when we put the author’s name of the original on the cover–so that it’s pretty hard to argue that the translation is not being passed off as a representation of the original, then you have to account to all the damage that’s been done, one language forcing itself on the other.
a lot of violence occurs in the mind of the translator as well, as the poem is memorized (inspired) and then the mental work of turning it into english begins–a lot of people might have noticed this, but once you know and internalize a poem in a second language, the brain refuses to let it stay as it was and will start the process of translation all on its own, subconsciously, finding ways to conceptualize, paraphrase, rhyme, etc. in the translator’s mother tongue. that is, it is snuffing out the original language, making the original obsolete, which is the ultimate aim of a translation anyway: to have the poem without needing its language, to extract it from the foreign culture. this is what i call erotic compensation (erotic in the sense of an operation of making whole), where we take the severed existence of a russian poem in an englishman’s head, and turn it into an intentional english poem.
it’s rape, necromancy–necrophilia, vivisection, and cetera.
and to assume that the original poem never changes after a translation–i don’t believe that either. that’s the same as saying it doesn’t change after it’s been read. maybe virgin eyes can go back to that original poem someday, but i never can.

By: mearl

mearl — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:20:40 +0000

There’s a hell of a lot of material in this thread that I haven’t had time yet to address. Let me take up what I think is most salient, working from the bottom up. In the last comment, W. says some rather remarkable things and highlighting them will certainly contribute to a furthering of what we’ve all been talking about. First, what he says about Engdahl and the “numbers game”. He’s right there; Engdahl’s comments are based partly upon a statistical realty: we don’t translate as much as the Europeans. But the real situation is more complicated. Individual European countries make money by importing American (and obviously not only American) products, including cultural products. There is a demand for them, and these countries cannot answer that demand by supplying their citizens with just one kind of a car (the Trabant syndrome). Sweden (the most Americanized country in Europe) would be a boring place with only Swedish movies, Swedish novels and clogs. Translation is part of this market dynamic. It’s natural that American’s do not need the Swedish influence, as much as the Swedes need the American influence. This is as much an economic issue as it is a cultural one.
W. then goes on to say that “translation is an intimate, problematic, usually violent overcoming of text’s language, EXACTLY as a good essay is an intimate, problematic, usually violent overcoming of text’s meaning.” This would imply stable language and stable meaning. Violence needs a stable target, or at least an unflappable trigger finger. I’d be curious to know what others think about this idea.
Finally he speaks of “DEDICATED forms of reading.” I find this notion fascinating.
Johannes comment of February 12 which begins “I’m actually about to give a little talk at the AWP…” addresses precisely this issue of how the economic realities of the literary translation industry create a kind of hubris on our part when it comes to other national literature. I would love to see a link to the talk he gave at the AWP. Maybe he could post it on his blog – just click on his name at the bottom of his post and you’ll get to Exoskeleton.
Brent Cunningham engages in what has become somewhat typical of these threads: a “clarification battle”. He starts by agreeing with Johannes but then disagrees with the implications of his own agreement: “If the idea is that it’d help if Americans read and absorbed more translations, that’s fine, but in its generalized form this proposal easily comes across as exactly the kind of high-handed imperialism it’s supposedly battling.” I’d encourage Brent to expand on this, on why the generalized from of J’s proposal somehow morphs into exactly that which it is trying to counter.
I’m glad Mark Wallace has chimed in with some background to the Creeley affair. I’d be very happy to learn more about his take on the event. But, about the question of generalization. If we can’t make generalizations about America, based on the behavior of individuals (especially public individuals, who know they are public individuals and therefore must deal with that mantle of being representative that public individuals can’t help but wear, and deal as well with the responsibilities that accrue) then how are we to generalize at all? Or should we avoid generalizations altogether? Over the last twenty-five years I have, by default, become a kind of observer of American behavior abroad. One’s natural tendency is to study the particularities of individuals, and then make one’s conclusions. These conclusions or generalizations should be starting points for further discussion, especially because they are always provisional, despite the confidence with which they are often made.
Martin

By: -w

-w — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:06:00 +0000

Not sure if this’s been brought up – but I think Engdahl’s critique is much most a numbers game – from %40 of Germany’s books being to translations to less than a percent of America’s.
I agree with you re:politics – politicizing aesthetic is CRUCIAL, yet everyone’s doing it wrong here. The same way Cold War Russian translations – the ones that popped up in time with each new development in that drama – were wrong.
Benjamin is my key in this – I want to clarify the light you refer to: a translation is an intimate, problematic, usually violent overcoming of text’s language, EXACTLY as a good essay is an intimate, problematic, usually violent overcoming of text’s meaning.
(I think Bernstein’s polemical courses against translation are the dumbest embrace of post-structuralism. Tho I do understand his critique of the pretenses involved in translation – the Language poets were masters of overcoming forms of language in their own works, I don’t think they needed the pretense of worldliness, and that certain older poets were holding their inability to translate from one author from one language was closing poetry.)
My point being that a culture that lacks translations is missing something the same way that a culture lacking criticism is missing something – an ecology of DEDICATED forms of reading.

By: Brent Cunningham

Brent Cunningham — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:44:56 +0000

Johannes,
Since I led with agreeing with you, maybe structurally you felt implicated in the caveats that followed, but I was pointing to a general moralistic aura that can adhere to imperatives to read translation. Really wasn’t saying you’ve exhibited that aura, sorry you got that impression. Knowing your critical work, I’d expect your talk would be very careful about avoiding suchlike…
yrs,
Brent

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:50:18 +0000

My apologies to Brent for irascible tone.

By: johannes goransson

johannes goransson — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:50:07 +0000

Brent,
I did not say: we should read a little translated text to become better people. I merely very briefly pointed out a dynamic of the situation. I’ve always opposed such a quick easy fix. I don’t understand how you could have gotten that from my post.
Johannes

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:15:24 +0000

p.s. & let’s not forget Africa, Brent. Africa is… a continent. One of my favorite translators is Peter S. Thompson, an expert in the francophone poetry of Africa. He knows the languages, the history, he’s met & befriended the poets (the ones who are alive). He’s a pro. His books are on Amazon, if you’re interested. (Nabile Fares is one, from Algeria. The poems were originally written in French, then translated into Spanish, by the author. Peter provides the English.)
I know, it sounds awfully post-colonialist-imperialist, doesn’t it? & we wouldn’t want to worry the lamb-like soft little brains of young politically-correct Americans with anything that smacks of COLONIALISM, would we? Heaven forfend! Better not to translate, period. Who’s ever heard of Peter S. Thomson, anyway? Does he go to AWP? I doubt it. Who is he? Is he a Flarfist? Has he been to California?

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:14 +0000

Brent,
Americans are blind the way Russians & Chinese & Indians & Indonesians are blind. They’re big, & caught up with their own problems. Whereas most of the world is small (small countries), & caught up with their own problems. Which, often as not, include the problems imposed by big countries (& their respective ego-trips).
Europe, & the Middle East, & Southeast Asia, & Polynesia, & the Catholic Church, & Islam, & Buddhism (gradually becoming one big conglomerate – call it Esperanta) are slightly different. They are not “big” in the same way (they are not nation-states).
We’re all pretty blind, actually. It’s not a bad idea to read poems from other countries.