Keeping ego away from translation

"Great poetry lives in a state of perpetual transformation, perpetual translation: the poem dies when it has no place to go." This statement struck me as a poet and aspiring translator. Poetry is magical in its power to transform and be transformed. I of course knew of this notion of "perpetual transformation," but had not considered the perpetual translation." In our discussions of each other's poems during class, we have been considering our translations' closeness to the original; some poems were adaptations and some were translations. I have been trying to figure out what a translation is, or what a "correct" way of translating a poem would be (while being aware that there isn't one.) I can see now that a "great" poem lives to be translated over and over again. Brian Nelson's translation of Marcel Proust's The Swann Way points to this, calling out that Moncrieff's translation "language dated over time."

Looking at the poem by Wang Wei, we're shown different ways that translators worked with the poem. In reference to Chang and Walmsley's translation, Weinberger points out the attempt of the translator to "improve" on the original. I agree that "translation is dependent on the dissolution of the translator's ego. I think it would be a challenge for me to translate a piece that I think should change or be "improved" on. That begs the question: why translate a poem that you dislike? 

I'm not familiar with Proust's work and, reading the essays for this week, I wish I were. His very long novel is so fascinating.

Lydia Davis has written short short stories / micro stories / prose poetry. Her faithfulness to Proust's long sentences, and her dissection of the difficulties in translating the title alone, goes back to what Weinberger was stating about putting ego aside when translating. Davis states, "When I approach a translation I don’t generally read the book first, I translate more or less “blind,” looking only a page or two ahead, sometimes not even that." That is an interesting approach -- to look at the novel locally, not considering what lies ahead. When she explains her rules for translating, it's clear she approaches works individually, adding to her rulebook according to, here, Proust's novel.

- Hanan Akbari