Poetry Translating As Expert Action

Poetry is a highly valued form of human expression, and poems are challenging texts to translate. For both reasons, people willingly work long and hard to translate them, for little pay but potentially high personal satisfaction. This book shows how experienced poetry translators translate poems and bring them to readers, and how they not only shape new poems, but also help communicate images of the source culture. It uses cognitive and sociological translation-studies methods to analyse real data, most of it from two contrasting source countries, the Netherlands and Bosnia. Case studies, including think-aloud studies, analyse how translators translate poems. In interviews, translators explain why and how they translate. And a 17-year survey of a country s poetry-translation output explores how translators work within networks of other people and texts publishing teams, fellow translators, source-culture enthusiasts, and translation readers and critics. In mapping the whole sweep of poetry translators action, from micro-cognitive to macro-social, this book gives the first translation-studies overview of poetry translating since the 1970s."

Author of Encyclopedia of Translation Terminology (2007), A Dictionary of Translation and Interpreting (2002), and A Linguistic Study of the Development of Scientific Vocabulary in Standard Arabic (London: KPI 1987) Intended for poetry-translation scholars, teachers, students, and practitioners, this book provides an in-depth look at poetry translation as an act of creative recreation. Clearly written and amply illustrated, it is designed to help readers understand the nature of poetry, the key elements of its language, the various types of challenges frequently encountered in its translation, and the procedures, methods and strategies required to translate poems into poems. It provides important and penetrating answers to questions such as: What makes poetry translation a special case within literary translation?? Is poetry translatable?? Does poetry really get lost in translation?? How should a poem be translated? What makes a “good” translation? Is it preferable to translate a poem literally, or should the translator endeavor to recreate the effect of the original poem as a poem in its own right in the target language? Is poetry translation a matter of reproduction or an act of recreation? Who translates poetry? Should a poem be looked at as a “renaissance painting”? Why is poetry translation referred to as “the art of compromise”?

This volume provides an account of collaborative poetry translation in practice. The book focuses on the 'poettrio' method as a case study. This process brings together the source-language poet, the target-language poet, and a language advisor serving as a bilingual mediator between the two. Drawing on data from over 100 hours of recorded footage and interviews, Collaborative Poetry Translation offers both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the method in practice, exploring such issues as poem selection, translation strategies, interaction between participants, and the balancing act between the different cultures at play. A final chapter highlights both the practical and research implications for practices of collaborative translation. This innovative work is situated in an interdisciplinary framework of collaborative translation, poetry translation, poetry and creative writing, and it addresses concerns ranging from the ethnography of collaboration to contemporary publishing practice. It will be of interest to students, scholars, and specialists in translation studies, comparative literature, literary studies, and creative writing, as well as creative practitioners.

While the sociology of literary translation is well-established, and even flourishing, the same cannot be said for the sociology of poetry translation. Sociologies of Poetry Translation features scholars who address poetry translation from sociological perspectives in order to catalyze new methods of investigating poetry translation. This book makes the case for a move from the singular 'sociology of poetry translation' to the pluralist 'sociologies', in order to account for the rich variety of approaches that are currently emerging to deal with poetry translation. It also aims to bridge the gap between the 'cultural turn' and the 'sociological turn' in Translation Studies, with the range of contributions showcasing the rich diversity of approaches to analysing poetry translation from socio-cultural, socio-historical, socio-political and micro-social perspectives. Contributors draw on theorists including Pierre Bourdieu and Niklas Luhmann and assess poetry translation from and/or into Catalan, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swahili and Swedish. A wide range of topics are featured in the book including: trends in poetry translation in the modern global book market; the commissioning and publishing of poetry translations in the United States of America; modern English-language translations of Dante; women poet-translators in mid-19th century Ireland; translations of Russian poetry anthologies into modern English; the translation of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in post-colonial Tanzania and socialist Czechoslovakia; translations and translators of Italian poetry into 20th and 21st century Sweden; modern European poet-translators; and collaborative writing between prominent English and Spanish poet-translators.

This anthology is not about poetry translation, nor is it a book of translated poems, but rather a book of poetry and translation. Each of the 16 poems in the book has been chosen to illustrate a general issue that translators encounter in their daily work.

As a meaningful manifestation of how institutionalized the discipline has become, the new Handbook of Translation Studies is most welcome. It joins the other signs of maturation such as Summer Schools, the development of academic curricula, historical surveys, journals, book series, textbooks, terminologies, bibliographies and encyclopedias. The HTS aims at disseminating knowledge about translation and interpreting and providing easy access to a large range of topics, traditions, and methods to a relatively broad audience: not only students who often adamantly prefer such user-friendliness, researchers and lecturers in Translation Studies, Translation & Interpreting professionals; but also scholars and experts from other disciplines (among which linguistics, sociology, history, psychology). In addition the HTS addresses any of those with a professional or personal interest in the problems of translation, interpreting, localization, editing, etc., such as communication specialists, journalists, literary critics, editors, public servants, business managers, (intercultural) organization specialists, media specialists, marketing professionals. Moreover, The HTS offers added value. First of all, it is the first Handbook with this scope in Translation Studies that has both a print edition and an online version. The advantages of an online version are obvious: it is more flexible and accessible, and in addition, the entries can be regularly revised and updated. The Handbook is variously searchable: by article, by author, by subject. A second benefit is the interconnection with the selection and organization principles of the online Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB). The taxonomy of the TSB has been partly applied to the selection of entries for the HTS. Moreover, many items in the reference lists are hyperlinked to the TSB, where the user can find an abstract of a publication. All articles (between 500 and 6000 words) are written by specialists in the different subfields and are peer-reviewed. Last but not least, the usability, accessibility and flexibility of the HTS depend on the commitment of people who agree that Translation Studies does matter. All users are therefore invited to share their feedback. Any questions, remarks and suggestions for improvement can be sent to the editorial team at [email protected].

This volume provides an in-depth comparative study of translation practices and the role of the poet-translator across different countries and in so doing, demonstrates the need for poetry translation to be extended beyond close reading and situated in context. Drawing on a corpus composed of data from national library catalogues and Worldcat, the book examines translation practices of English-language, French-language, and Italian-language poet-translators through the lens of a broad sociological approach. Chapters 2 through 5 look at national poetic movements, literary markets, and the historical and socio-political contexts of translations, with Chapter 6 offering case studies of prominent and representative poet-translators from each tradition. A comprehensive set of appendices offers readers an opportunity to explore this data in greater detail. Taken together, the volume advocates for the need to study translation data against broader aesthetic, historical, and political trends and will be of particular interest to students and scholars in translation studies and comparative literature.

His book investigates the problems and possibilities in the translation of literature, especially poetry. The investigation is based on a comparison between Catullus' sixty-fourth poem and English translations of it published between 1870 and 1970. Several strategies for translating are analyzed, and their comparative merits and faults are discussed. The book also tries to describe the position translation and translation studies should occupy in the wider context of the study of comparative literature. --from publisher description.