Pride and Prejudice and Translation

[Subhash Jaireth]

Hi All,

Just one last point.
My approach to translation is from the point of view of a writer and a poet
(I have published three collections of poetry and two works of prose
fiction). I have also done Russian to English, English to Russia (just a
few) Hindi to English and English to Hindi translations.
Recently at a conference of Creative Writing I gave a very brief paper
discussing two translations of Mandel'shtam's poem. One translation was by
Clarence Brown and the other done as a collaboration with an Australian
poet. Reading English translations of Mandel'shtam I always miss the
beautiful sonority of Mandel'shtam's Russian, and not only because the
original verse is rhymed. In my talk before I read the poem in the original
before reading each of the translation. I ended my talk with this brief
remark:
My aim is not to force my readers to decide which of the two translations
is better, but to draw attention on their complimentary nature. To me they
appear like two good friends engaged in a heart-to-heart conversation.
As you see, my aim is not to denigrate the art of translation or to put
limits on discussing the art of translation but to highlight that all
translations matter. In fact we need to translate more and more and have as
many translations of the same text as possible.
I am sorry for offending some of you with my brash intervention. I do
apologise and would be more careful in future.

Best wishes,

Subhash


-- 
Subhash Jaireth
45 Noala Street, Aranda
ACT 2614, Australia
(02) 62517438
http://sites.google.com/site/subhashjaireth/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/seelang/attachments/20130915/61c28711/attachment.html>