20 ene 2006

It's important, when you translate, that you suppress the rhetorical structure of the original. Make sure that, if there is syntactic parallelism in the original, that this is nowhere visible in your version. Make sure the form into which you translate has no relation to the original form. If all the lines in the original are end stopped, for example, make sure the translation contains many violent enjambments. If a particular word has specific connotations through its etymology, make sure that you choose a word devoid of such connotations. Translate "quimera" not as "chimera," but as "illusion." You wouldn't want the reader to think of the mythological beast. Your task is to translate some essential meaning in the poem entirely detachable from its language, not to bother yourself with the actual poetic devices that the poet used.

1 comentario:

Mike Snider dijo...

Jonathan, this is superb. I added a little something here.