Monday, February 24, 2014
Literalness and Surrender -- Dawlat's Question
(Apologies that Blogger doesn't allow for line-breaks!) I am providing a literal translation of Al- Jubouri's poem "My Mother after occupation" in order to allow a comparison between the "original text" and Howell's version of it. The literal translation, though it might look and sound clumsy as poetry, reflects the accurate meaning of the poem. I am basing my question on a possible comparison between the "accurate meaning" and Howell's translation. I hope this makes sense!//
A literal translation of “My mother after occupation” // Like all old women, my mother grew anxious / Till her prayer become correlated (contingent on) with the chant of confusion / We are sick of this democracy / There used to be one president / There used to be one fear / There used to be one party / All wars used to be one war / One terror / The taste of democracy became stale / We are tired of this democracy / My eyes cannot stare at the promises of democracy any longer / Its slogans have died in our hearts long time ago //
In translating Darwish, Fady Judah sticks to literal translation except when the language becomes idiomatic and literal translation completely fails to transmit the meaning. The result shows great faithfulness to the original text and, in Spivak’s words, I think, a real “surrender to the text”.
In the interview, Howell declares that she does not believe in literal translation and that she “find[s] solace in Willis Barnstone’s idea that the act of translation makes it possible for poetry to be a ‘living text,’ a text that continually moves forward into new communities, new places, new times”.
Do you agree with me that opposition to literal translation and the tendency to treat the text as a living thing that should evolve and adapt to time, place and cultures where it lands result in surrendering the text to the translator and not the other way around?
I am aware that Howell’s translation is “Al-Jabouri approved”. How do you see the relationship between poet, translator and text in Howell's translation of Al-Jubouri?
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Dawlat,
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to read the literal translations. What are the differences that you find most unsettling? For me, I found the word "hymn" in the Howell translation troubling. She explains her choice of this word in the preface: "I chose to augment the effect of [Al-Jabouri's] religious imagery by occasionally using Judeo-Christian expressions more common in English-language literature" (xix). The choice of "hymn" is a clear attempt to make the this line more accessible for English readers, which I don't feel is necessarily a bad thing. But "hymn" allows the English reader to stay in their comfort zone a bit too much. Reading translation should be a practice to challenge our beliefs and our conceptions of language.
I think there is always a balance between faithfulness to a literal translation and taking into account the audience of the target language. A translation done now versus a hundred years from will likely be different, even if the translators both are striving for the same degree of faithfulness to a literal translation. I'm ok with a translator taking liberties and not being 100% accurate with the translations if they acknowledge this (I guess in the preface) and explain their rationale. In this case, however, I did not find Howell's justification particularly convincing, at least on this point.
-Dickson
Dickson, you are right, Howell's justification of taking liberties is not convincing, but her application of these liberties is way worse than her justification! In translating Eid El Fitr Before Occupation, she not only strips the poem of all that connects to its original environment, but makes it sound like a western poem. In Aljabouri’s Arabic text there is no mention of “peace to all the world”, it is simply happiness to everyone. Howell does not only mistranslate Aljabouri, but also the greatest Arab singer (greatest by consensus of all Arabs, not my opinion) Umm Kulthum! There is also no mention of any diaspora of any sort and above all the term holocaust is out of place and not common in Arabic poetry/literature or any Arabic discourse. This term is not likely to be used in an Arabic poem for it touches a sensitive issue where Arab masses consider their Palestinian brethren as the victims of the holocaust victims.
DeleteIt is clear that Howell's practices fail to keep a balance between faithfulness to the text and the need to make it accessible to readers in a different language.
I agree, Dickson, that I didn't find Howell's justification of some of her choices to be particularly convincing, especially in changing the line breaks. This might be because I was so convinced by Fady Joudah's justification (in his Translator's Preface to Butterfly's Burden) for keeping certain features of the Arabic original, like the line breaks, which he says he chose to do to allow “physical mimesis” to occur. Or perhaps it's because the only thing I can understand from the original is the physical shape of the poem, so when that doesn't match, I'm suspicious of Howell's methods.
ReplyDeleteFrom your literal translation, Dawlat, I'm really struck by how different "The taste of democracy became stale" is from "Democracy, I lost my taste for you." That seems to be a slightly different sentiment, to me.
The inclusion of the term holocaust made me uncomfortable as well, for the reasons you mentioned, Dawlat. And I agree, Liz, those lines about democracy are noticeably different.
ReplyDeleteTo play devil's advocate, I imagine Howell's defense of using terms that jar the reader, such as "holocaust" and "hymn," is to make the reader recognize commonalities between Arabs and Westerners. On these grounds, does she succeed? Does this goal have merit in a translation project, or is this merely another way for a hegemonic language to enact its power?
-Dickson