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The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature.

The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. This is why Ezra Pound and Christopher Logue were such good translators. Pound translated into English the Analects of Confucius, a bunch of Noh Plays, and many other works of Chinese and Japanese literature. But he was barely capable of reading Chinese or Japanese at all. He was provided with rough word-for-word translations by friends like Ernest Fenollosa, and he translated those into literature. Logue didn't know any Ancient Greek, but his rendition of a part of the Iliad is probably the greatest achievement of late 20th century poetry. He simply re-worked the (many) existing English translations into something more lyrical and contemporary. In effect, he reinterpreted the existing body of translations -- and, in his own way, heightened their effect, and captured much of the spirit of the original. I find that most translations -- especially of poetry -- tend to be altogether too mechanical. Pound and Logue had it figured out.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Le Guin's version of the tao te ching fits into this category too.
nataliste 3y ago
I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it. Sure, they could talk about Homeric epithets for days and knowingly reference the "wine dark sea," but the actual ethic and humanity of the Iliad eluded them. And when you do get those aspects (as Logue did), the actual choice of idiom by the translator becomes irrelevant, whereas if you don't get them, no matter how "technically accurate" the idiom is, it's just farcical. To my mind, these ersatz translations become the Homeric equivalent of English as She Is Spoke.
- wolverine876 2y ago
  > I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it Homer's world is very alien to ours. I realized at one point, reading the Odyssey, that it is myself who didn't get it. There was a chasm between me and Homer, and if I wanted read and understand Homer in a meaningful way, I was going to have to cross it. Unless I have personal expertise, how can I evaluate who 'gets it', Logue or others?
  - nataliste 2y ago
    >ours
- sapphicsnail 2y ago
  As someone who can read Ancient Greek, Homer is unlike anything we have in English. No translation can "get it." It's oral poetry meant to be performed for hours at a time with a bunch of repetitive stock phrases. I don't feel like I "get it" reading it in Greek. It's absolutely beautiful but even when I read it in Greek, I feel like there's this huge gulf between me and the context it which it was created. I think you should just choose whatever translation you find beautiful but there's also value if someone wants to read something that's worded more closely to the Greek.
Daub 2y ago
Once or twice I have 'translated translations' of Chinese movie subtitles. The basic translation done by a Chinese native who speaks Engkish, with my contribution being to bash the English into shape. I do this in discusiion with the director. I wish more subtitles were done in this way. Rubbish subtitles are endemic in the industry.
- wolverine876 2y ago
  I see that in other places too. I fear it reduces the films to the level of camp. Do the directors not think it matters? Do they not have easy access to fluent speakers of English?
  - Daub 2y ago
    I have seen this more in art house movies and frankly cant understand why it is not a larger issue. I once offered this service to a director I liked, only for him to refuse it. His final subtitles were atrocious.
  - philipov 2y ago
    It takes more than a fluent speaker to write good literature. And that's the rub - you need someone who is themselves capable of writing good literature, regardless of whether it's original or a translation of an existing work.
    - wolverine876 2y ago
      The errors I'm talking about could be fixed by any fluent speaker.
- pjc50 2y ago
  I encountered this with Hero, when the single giant calligraphy character that is critical to the film had a different subtitle in the cinema and on the DVD. One of these days I'd love to read a deep dive into how that aspect of the film is understood by native speakers. Which I suspect might be longer than the film itself, dealing as it does with the politics of Chinese unity.
wolverine876 2y ago
> The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. If I want to read inspired Ezra Pound or Christopher Logue, that's the way. If I want to read Confucius, I get a lot of Ezra Pound mixed in, and in a way that is impossible for me to distinguish one from the other. The same goes for wanting to read Homer and getting a lot of Logue. (For Confucius, Arthur Waley was both leading translator and poet, and Waley's translations are highly recommended for their knowledge of the original and their English poetry.)
candiodari 2y ago
I would say it greatly depends: 1) contract/legal/diplomatic translation: capture the meaning as exact as possible, even if that means the translation is boring and double, or even ten times the length of the original. 2) literary translation: translate to keep things interesting and engaging. EVEN where that means changing the meaning, order, ... of things. Making some changes to accomplish that can be acceptable, for example changing the behavior of a polite character or a policeman or a person of authority to match expected behavior for those kinds of people in the target country. Matching the structure of the original text is just not a concern at all. The translation itself should be a literary work. Obviously not separate from the original, but not 100% the same either. 95% the same, with the remaining 5% providing maximum "flavor". 3) educational translation: depending on the level of the reader, evolve from literal translation, even putting the words in the wrong order for the target language just to match the original text as closely as possible, or leaving some words untranslated. Slowly evolve towards more "interesting" translation. In any case keep the structure, sequence and word use of the original text 100%. 4) conversational translation: translate as quickly as possible, for example not waiting for complete sentences to start translating. Try to get feedback going between both speaker and listener, as the purpose is having them communicate, not having exact translation, or interesting translation. Just translate 5 words at a time, even when they don't form complete sentences.
lmm 2y ago
Nah. If you want to write an original work of literature, write an original work of literature. If you're writing a translation, it should reflect the original, good and bad, and you absolutely need to understand the original language to do that.
VelesDude 2y ago
This is why there are SO many translations of the Tao Te Ching. Some are very mechanical, others miss the point entirely. And then there are those one where it is almost like Poetry, they went beyond just the immediately presented content. To that I would recommend the translation of it by Red Pine (Bill Porter), not only is is a wonderful translation but it does so much to add additional context via others commentary on the chapters through out the ages.
082349872349872 2y ago
I had wondered why Pound went fascist when he seemed so open at the start of his career, doing all these translations. Although I couldn't find "the gentleman who wrote a 'translation' by avoiding the work of translating" in Dorothy Thompson's party game in Harper's, it does seem to explain it nicely.
- dri_ft 2y ago
  Woefully glib.
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    for more detail: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=082349872349872%20pound&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... of which the most relevant is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208047 What's your explanation of why Pound went Fascist? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3C3nfF3SMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3C3nfF3SMA
    - dri_ft 2y ago
      >for more detail: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Oh, I see. We actually discussed Pound about four years ago - just a little back and forth about the ABC of Reading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196681 >What's your explanation of why Pound went Fascist? I'm not sure I particularly have one; I haven't read any of his longer political or cultural (i.e. non-literary) works. I just think it's silly to correlate an approach to translation that you dislike with fascism. Especially as I'm not sure it even makes sense on its own terms: I can only read your comment as 'lazy translator? Figures that he would be a fascist', but if I imagine the type of translation a fascist would approve of, the approach I picture is fastidious, fussy, concerned with fidelity to the point of stickler-ishness. (Isn't that from where we get 'grammar nazi'?) And oh, well, since you ask I'll take a shy at it: my vague sense is that he became fascist because saw a society in decline due to it becoming more and more a sham society: opulence without virtue, power without vigour, money no longer tied to actually existing goods. (Of course, all of this shades easily into antisemitism.) He saw fascism as the answer; It's easier to see in retrospect that it wasn't.
sapphicsnail 2y ago
There is no perfect translation. Different translations have different aims and that's ok. I love Anne Carson's translations of Sappho but I always give the caveat that she takes a lot of liberties with Sappho when I recommend it to a friend. Having a more literal, dry, translation is fine too.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Le Guin's version of the tao te ching fits into this category too.

nataliste 3y ago

I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it. Sure, they could talk about Homeric epithets for days and knowingly reference the "wine dark sea," but the actual ethic and humanity of the Iliad eluded them. And when you do get those aspects (as Logue did), the actual choice of idiom by the translator becomes irrelevant, whereas if you don't get them, no matter how "technically accurate" the idiom is, it's just farcical. To my mind, these ersatz translations become the Homeric equivalent of English as She Is Spoke.

wolverine876 2y ago
> I stumbled upon War Music after discarding (almost) every other translation of the Iliad because the translators cleary didn't get it Homer's world is very alien to ours. I realized at one point, reading the Odyssey, that it is myself who didn't get it. There was a chasm between me and Homer, and if I wanted read and understand Homer in a meaningful way, I was going to have to cross it. Unless I have personal expertise, how can I evaluate who 'gets it', Logue or others?
- nataliste 2y ago
  >ours
sapphicsnail 2y ago
As someone who can read Ancient Greek, Homer is unlike anything we have in English. No translation can "get it." It's oral poetry meant to be performed for hours at a time with a bunch of repetitive stock phrases. I don't feel like I "get it" reading it in Greek. It's absolutely beautiful but even when I read it in Greek, I feel like there's this huge gulf between me and the context it which it was created. I think you should just choose whatever translation you find beautiful but there's also value if someone wants to read something that's worded more closely to the Greek.

Daub 2y ago

Once or twice I have 'translated translations' of Chinese movie subtitles. The basic translation done by a Chinese native who speaks Engkish, with my contribution being to bash the English into shape. I do this in discusiion with the director. I wish more subtitles were done in this way. Rubbish subtitles are endemic in the industry.

wolverine876 2y ago
I see that in other places too. I fear it reduces the films to the level of camp. Do the directors not think it matters? Do they not have easy access to fluent speakers of English?
- Daub 2y ago
  I have seen this more in art house movies and frankly cant understand why it is not a larger issue. I once offered this service to a director I liked, only for him to refuse it. His final subtitles were atrocious.
- philipov 2y ago
  It takes more than a fluent speaker to write good literature. And that's the rub - you need someone who is themselves capable of writing good literature, regardless of whether it's original or a translation of an existing work.
  - wolverine876 2y ago
    The errors I'm talking about could be fixed by any fluent speaker.
pjc50 2y ago
I encountered this with Hero, when the single giant calligraphy character that is critical to the film had a different subtitle in the cinema and on the DVD. One of these days I'd love to read a deep dive into how that aspect of the film is understood by native speakers. Which I suspect might be longer than the film itself, dealing as it does with the politics of Chinese unity.

wolverine876 2y ago

> The objective of a translator should be to retain the spirit of the original, and have the translated piece stand on its own two feet as a work of literature. If I want to read inspired Ezra Pound or Christopher Logue, that's the way. If I want to read Confucius, I get a lot of Ezra Pound mixed in, and in a way that is impossible for me to distinguish one from the other. The same goes for wanting to read Homer and getting a lot of Logue. (For Confucius, Arthur Waley was both leading translator and poet, and Waley's translations are highly recommended for their knowledge of the original and their English poetry.)

candiodari 2y ago

I would say it greatly depends: 1) contract/legal/diplomatic translation: capture the meaning as exact as possible, even if that means the translation is boring and double, or even ten times the length of the original. 2) literary translation: translate to keep things interesting and engaging. EVEN where that means changing the meaning, order, ... of things. Making some changes to accomplish that can be acceptable, for example changing the behavior of a polite character or a policeman or a person of authority to match expected behavior for those kinds of people in the target country. Matching the structure of the original text is just not a concern at all. The translation itself should be a literary work. Obviously not separate from the original, but not 100% the same either. 95% the same, with the remaining 5% providing maximum "flavor". 3) educational translation: depending on the level of the reader, evolve from literal translation, even putting the words in the wrong order for the target language just to match the original text as closely as possible, or leaving some words untranslated. Slowly evolve towards more "interesting" translation. In any case keep the structure, sequence and word use of the original text 100%. 4) conversational translation: translate as quickly as possible, for example not waiting for complete sentences to start translating. Try to get feedback going between both speaker and listener, as the purpose is having them communicate, not having exact translation, or interesting translation. Just translate 5 words at a time, even when they don't form complete sentences.

lmm 2y ago

Nah. If you want to write an original work of literature, write an original work of literature. If you're writing a translation, it should reflect the original, good and bad, and you absolutely need to understand the original language to do that.

VelesDude 2y ago

This is why there are SO many translations of the Tao Te Ching. Some are very mechanical, others miss the point entirely. And then there are those one where it is almost like Poetry, they went beyond just the immediately presented content. To that I would recommend the translation of it by Red Pine (Bill Porter), not only is is a wonderful translation but it does so much to add additional context via others commentary on the chapters through out the ages.

082349872349872 2y ago

I had wondered why Pound went fascist when he seemed so open at the start of his career, doing all these translations. Although I couldn't find "the gentleman who wrote a 'translation' by avoiding the work of translating" in Dorothy Thompson's party game in Harper's, it does seem to explain it nicely.

dri_ft 2y ago
Woefully glib.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  for more detail: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=082349872349872%20pound&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... of which the most relevant is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208047 What's your explanation of why Pound went Fascist? Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3C3nfF3SMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3C3nfF3SMA
  - dri_ft 2y ago
    >for more detail: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Oh, I see. We actually discussed Pound about four years ago - just a little back and forth about the ABC of Reading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24196681 >What's your explanation of why Pound went Fascist? I'm not sure I particularly have one; I haven't read any of his longer political or cultural (i.e. non-literary) works. I just think it's silly to correlate an approach to translation that you dislike with fascism. Especially as I'm not sure it even makes sense on its own terms: I can only read your comment as 'lazy translator? Figures that he would be a fascist', but if I imagine the type of translation a fascist would approve of, the approach I picture is fastidious, fussy, concerned with fidelity to the point of stickler-ishness. (Isn't that from where we get 'grammar nazi'?) And oh, well, since you ask I'll take a shy at it: my vague sense is that he became fascist because saw a society in decline due to it becoming more and more a sham society: opulence without virtue, power without vigour, money no longer tied to actually existing goods. (Of course, all of this shades easily into antisemitism.) He saw fascism as the answer; It's easier to see in retrospect that it wasn't.

sapphicsnail 2y ago

There is no perfect translation. Different translations have different aims and that's ok. I love Anne Carson's translations of Sappho but I always give the caveat that she takes a lot of liberties with Sappho when I recommend it to a friend. Having a more literal, dry, translation is fine too.