The Eight Stages of Translation by Robert Bly was a helpful framework to approach translation. It was interesting to overlay my current process as a beginning translator and recognize what I have been intuitively doing, as well as all the steps I have been missing out on! Funnily enough, I feel like I often stop at what Bly described as stage three: taking it from the literal translation to something that functions in the English language. I usually skip the translation into "American" and try to understand if the tones are similar, but this is not something I think I succeed greatly at. One of my bents is to think about the sound of the poem as well, so I will sometimes skip to this step before some of the other stages.
I like Bly's notion of having a sort of process. Taking each factor into consideration, one at a time, rather than over-bearing the mind and creative instinct by trying to stay true to all the parts all at once. I also find his process refreshing in that he will translate into "American," but step back if he feels it doesn't honor the writing of the original author-- something I would be interested in trying out in my own work. His process feels very true to the original author while also presenting it to a new audience, which is something I value in translation.
Nabokov says, "The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase." In many ways, I agree, but there is also, provided there is some transparency, great value in getting the perspectives of many different translators. It is through this comparison and contrast that I feel we can get the closest to the original text without knowing the source language. Often, I skew towards preferring the clumsy, literal translation, but the more I learn about translation, the more I see value in both types of translations.
Lauren
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