Comments on: Translation and its discontents, part quatre

By: Patrick Cotter

Patrick Cotter — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:15:33 +0000

Goransson bewrays himself to be deeply unreliable through his remarks concerning Haaken Sandell.

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:37:10 +0000

Pretty bad timing, I see, on sending that comment above, given the loss in Ron’s family. There is nothing untoward in the comment, but I feel bad about the circumstances of it, since the loss obviously far exceeds in importance any controversy of the moment.
Kent

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:01:24 +0000

Thought this might be relevant to the topic, just sent under Ron Silliman’s post of Friday,
March 6.
Kent
***
Quoting a paragraph entire, as the statement really is quite extraordinary:
>”Just as glaring an absence I would think is the complete absence of poetry in translation, or in another language. Part of this, of course, may well be that very little literature in translation genuinely qualifies on its own as great literature – The Rubiyat, The King James Bible, that just might be the entire roster.”
“Of course”? A lot of unpacking to do with that little interjection alone, Ron. There are cake-layers of apparent assumptions about “translation” in your claim. Here are a few quick questions, for starters:
The unstated but evident premise of your dictum above is that literary “greatness” is a function of “origin” and “authenticity.” This seems ironic, to say the least, coming from you. Are you asserting that an original work in one language is always and necessarily aesthetically superior to any of its possible transmutations within others? How would you defend such logocentrism, if you’ll pardon that term?
More specifically, do you mean such paucity of “greatness” is characteristic of “literature in translation” *in principle,* as in translation in *all* languages, or do you mean just in English? If the former, general case, and safely assuming you are highly fluent in no more than, say, seven Indo European languages, how do you know?
Or if the latter (i.e., just English), do you more strictly mean translation in “formal,” “literal” modes? *If you don’t* mean that, and you indeed believe that translation in principle is more or less incapable of achieving literary significance, on what theoretical basis do you argue this? After all, there has long been a range of the possible in translation practice, including (nothing new in saying so) the seeking of deeper fidelities through strategies–sometimes radical–of linguistic and cultural dynamic equivalence. If such creative approaches are legitimate options within the task of translation, which they certainly are, what exactly are the ipso-facto elements that prevent translations in such “freer” modes from ever reaching high literary achievement
– or as you put it, becoming “great”? (In fact, the two works you mention as constituting the tiny roster of exceptions are examples of creative translation–FitzGerald’s text is significantly invention, actually–so you can perhaps see the corner you’re painting yourself into…)
Are you saying that no work among the many Renaissance translations of classical literature, for example, rises to the quality of literary greatness? (If you would like me to list you some candidates in English and Spanish, let me know. But so much, I guess, for Keats’s impressions of Chapman’s Homer!)
More up to date, are you saying that Pound’s Cathay, which changed the whole history of modern English-language poetry, is not a great work of literature? Or if it is, is it because it’s not a *real* work of translation?
Likewise, are you saying that Louis and Celia Zukofsky’s Catallus is not a great literary work? Or would you argue that it is great but not a work of “translation”? Again, which one is it not, since the logic of your pronouncement fairly prevents it from being both.
Just kind of scratching the surface here in mild stupefaction…
But I have always wondered, Ron, why, in your great outpouring, you hardly ever mention poetries outside English, which of course leads directly into matters of translation. After reading your quote above, I’m honestly wondering if the answer is this: that the subject is largely off your poetic radar. That would be a shame, if so. Because there’s no American Tree without the water of the other, brother.
Kent

By: thomas brady

thomas brady — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:12:58 +0000

James,
Thanks for responding.
I’m not confusing amoral and immoral; only an immoral person would do that! Amoral is the last refuge of the immoral.
However, you did describe “poetry” as amoral, and not the poet, so in that case I will agree with you, but only in the sense that Poe articulated: a tale should have “a moral,” but the moral should be artistically concealed.
When you say “justification of life,” do you mean in Milton’s phrase “justifying the ways of God to men?” Are we in the realm of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor? How do we reconcile God with evil? Is that what you mean? And how is the “logic of poetics” attempting to do that for you? I’m curious.
Actually, in the workshop circles I run in, “klil your darlings” is uttered all the time.
“looking for a way to formulate the single argument that will give his life meaning-” This is very, very ambitious, I think, for poetry, and you’ve got me beat there, but all power to you!
If you want to explain a little bit more, I’d love to hear, but I understand if you feel this is not the place.
Thomas

By: james stotts

james stotts — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:30:19 +0000

maybe you’re confusing amoral for immoral; i’m saying morality is beside the point. and that a justification of life is the impossible argument that they (we) are attempting to make possible through a logic of poetics; it’s impossibility is what makes it an endless struggle, and the fact that all the unsatisfactory arguments have to be put behind. this last point i think is an interpretation of faulkner’s imperative to kill our darlings that makes more sense than the cornball one i hear all the time (e.g., faulkner’s telling us that sometimes we have to edit out our prettiest lines in order to streamline our writing).
the poet doesn’t formulate impossible arguments, in the plural. he is looking for a way to formulate the single argument that will give his life meaning–something harder to come by the more critical he is of himself, the more he sees of the world, the closer he gets to a death that can’t be avoided.
and i’m out.

By: thomas brady

thomas brady — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:12:14 +0000

James,
Could a great pickpocket ever be a good person because he is a great pickpocket?
Let us say no person is necessarily good, no matter how great a poet they are.
So we absolutely sever then, in terms of cause and effect, these two types of good, but in order to do so, we must be cognizant of these two types of good, and one of those is moral, and the other is skill, and by severing them, we say a skill never makes someone moral. and so if we cannot say a great poet is a great poet because they are moral, we also cannot say a great poet is a great poet because they are amoral. And this is what you said.
And now you say the great poet formulates “impossible” arguments.
Again, it sounds like you are pounding a square peg into a round hole. It sounds you are like spouting, which God knows, we all do. Look at me. What did I say? “It could be argued that morality and courage are the same.” I think I still might safely say that. If you’re in the mood to respond, I’d be curious as to what you think.
Thomas

By: james stotts

james stotts — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:57:35 +0000

as a note about all the babel: in her famous elegy to rainer maria rilke, marina tsvetaeva noted that in the afterlife we become ‘not nil, but all-tongued.’
that is, it’s only in heaven[s] that languages ever correspond.

By: james stotts

james stotts — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:22:16 +0000

are great poets necessarily good people? if not, then courage and morality aren’t the same thing. the poet who continues to be important is the one who is still complicating his justification of life and logic, which is the opposite of making all the possible arguments–it’s an attempt to formulate the impossible one.
i hesitated to respond to any of thomas brady’s comments before, for what i think should be obvious reasons, but…
my two cents.

By: thomas brady

thomas brady — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:41:59 +0000

Doodle,
Resemblances and differences always mutually depend on each other. You sound a bit ‘pie-in-the-sky’ for my taste, though I appreciate you disliking the herd. Who doesn’t want to stand out from the herd?
As for differences, this was my point up thread when I said a (translated) Swedish stand-up comic making fun of Danes and Finns would teach us a great deal more about Sweden than Swedish Expressionist poetry translated into English. Not that I want to make poetry unfairly compete against other genres, but ultimately I don’t think we can escape from this kind of ‘competition.’ If this kind of comparison is not flattering to poetry, that’s too bad. Poets shouldn’t live in some inflated, fantasy world, should they? Won’t they just be worse poets for it, in the end?
James,
“Great poetry is always one of our last reserves of courage—acultural, amoral, greater than other kinds of heritage, deeper than language (inside of language).” This sounds ‘pie-in-the-sky’ also. Why is the amoral courageous? In fact, it could be argued that morality and courage are the same.
Thomas

By: james stotts

james stotts — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:05:58 +0000

and about the problem of overstylized american english, of all foreign poetry sounding like modern poetry, and so being made to sound like a single modernism:
i have to confess, that when i was working on tsvetaeva (who is almost impossible to translate (completely impossible, according to celan) and looking for solutions and ways of working with her style, her drive, etc., that i decided to start looking back to early 20th century women whose work might give me the right words, the startling prospective, to remind me of ways language can be used that i’m not used to using in my own writing. first of all, i was convinced she had a million things in common with dickinson, and not just all the dashes–but i was reading bogan, h.d., moore, mina loy–and i know it affected my own translations (i meant for it to) even though i can’t say exactly how since i never worked with a systematic approach.
i know, this is sexist (it would be feminist if a woman translator did it), reductive, unfair to tsvetaeva, unfair to both languages, is counter-intuitive if what i want to express tsvetaeva’s unique voice and argue for her special place in poetry. but i was pretty happy with the results, and it was a very productive move on my part.
i know some who told me the only solution might be homophonic translation, since she created meaning out of sound (think, zukofsky’s catullus). so i toyed around with that, too, and got a few fortuitous words out of it.
openness is important. and, in the end, all that matters is if you can write some decent poems, which takes all the resources one has.