New. Renewed. News.

This is interesting: For the first time, circa high school, I've reverted to the blog. Reverted in a bad way?—depends who you ask. And for the first time, circa graduate creative writing mandates, I've found my way—a manifest destiny, of sorts, if you will—back to words. But this go around, these words are in postmodern suspension, wanting laissez faire but desperate for the sure hand of...well, form. I'm a skeptic of skeptics. And what do we even make of pop culture these days? Women are in pieces; the female body butchered and sutured by the female body. And living in postmodernism, nothing gives. Or, at the very least, nothing gives back—unless you are wanting push (puss?) back. Don't get me wrong; I'm not for formalities and tongue-in-cheek clicks of the tongue. But thank God I'm not a Millennial.

So, I am a writer. A good one or bad? The way I see it: in a world where no one cares about the dangling participle of self and the yin-yang is overused as bic pens, the chances of this blog being read is probably relative to the relative theory. And that's why I am here. Besides, swallowing words makes for a rather Hemingway-esque, sordid lifestyle. Personally, I don't find romanticizing fantasized suicide a cathartic gesture.

Theoretical Translation Prob., Wk 5.

Q: Why does Dante-poet construct this sense of decorum and language, translation and comprehension? Why must Virgil play the intermediary, if we look beyond the surface-level reasons Virgil offers to Dante-pilgrim. (Remember: Virgil, too, is but a character in Dante-poet's epic.) And why must Dante carry the discussion in the following canto, which, all the obvious differences aside, treats the same sin?

A: I must admit; this is a difficult theoretical problem we're tackling. Let me try: Dante-poet pointedly associates character-Virgil (among others, such as Ulysses) and Latin (as well as Romance languages) as part of the ancient world--which seemingly creates a dichotomous binary between Virgil (with his old-world language) and Dante-poet (with his modern, Italian, language). Because of this stark binary, the construction seems to insinuate lingual barbarism, as well as a ghettoization of the Italian language; that, in turn, appears to underpin Dante-pilgrim (and his language) as improper and almost, somehow, blue-collar. Or is this arrangement, this infernal 'decorum' doing something else? We must remember Dante-poet has purposefully placed these characters in Hell, even Virgil. In addition, Dante-poet's punishment for Fraudulent Counselors, "clothed in flames that burn them" (Mandelbaum, 239), is far more severe than murderers, blasphemers, etc. So, perhaps, Dante-poet, in part, yet again camouflages his condemnation of language and translation in Hell; yet, this is still too generic. And, of course, this canto resounds parody/satire. But so what? This only provides us a surface-level reading of the particular moves Dante-poet continually makes in the text. So, again, why does Virgil have to play intermediary here? On the one hand, this is Dante-poet's political and lingual vendetta; Dante-pilgrim (and his God-ordained guide, Virgil) serves as Dante-poet's means of usurping those whose language intentionally reducts another language; whose speech is both idyllic and self-aggrandizing. On the other (and simultaneously), Dante-poet unhinges the redundant topos of Hell--essentially highlighting the misappropriation of language as nothing more than 'smoke and mirrors'. For example: he portrays the language of Ulysses (and, arguably, of Virgil) as a rhetorical (epic) convention of pre-Christian exegesis; a sinful language in pursuit of and invested in obtaining knowledge--as we noted in class: a lingual translation of copy of a copy of a copy. 


My brain hurts. And I'm (probably) blowing smoke. 

Translation Problem, Wk. 5

Original Poem:

Morte del cinghiale

Era un cinghiale, la macchia nera sui sassi,

brulicante, cinghiale

prima di giungere qui, sul sentiero di roccia

e castagne, forse appunto attirato

dalle dolci castagne, dal sole

che filtra e s'incendia, e trafitto

dal sole, dal tempo, e ben altro: difficle

dire palottola, meglio la peste

suina, o uno squarcio segreto, subdolo

che lavora sotto la corsa e il grugnito, sotto l'ansia

di corsa e grungnito, da fame

e di piacere che lo spinge la notte per foreste 

e dirupie, e intanto un sordo

tradimento cresce piano, 

in silenzio, nel frusciare

di rovi e cespugli divelti, 

di muschi sconvolti

come da frana

o vita che si spezza, magro bosco

perduto ed ora esausto, il punto estremo

dove un nervo s'inalbera, un muscolo

arresta e s'impenna, e anche il sangue si gela: qui, dunque, 

la fine, il caro verbo deponente

di vespe e castagne autunnali, finghetti e ruscelli

che appena più oltre gorgheggiano, merlo e ghiandaie.

Neppure carogna, ormai, ma un teatrino di pelle

smangiata che s'incrosta nel terriccio, una tradotta

allegra di vermi bianchi e di formiche, 

un banchetto concluso. La pelle, 

le setole scure, le zanne, e poi niente. 

Group (Anastasia, Taylor, and me) Translation (versions may vary):

Death of the Wild Boar:

It was a wild boar, black spots on stones, 

swarming, wild boar

before arriving here, followed on the path of rock

and chestnuts, maybe just attracted 

to sweet chestnuts, to the sun

that sparks and bursts into flames, pierced 

by the sun, by time, and much more: it's hard 

to say bullet, better than the porcine

plague, or one secret gash, slyly

working under the flow and grunt, under the panic

of flow and grunt, through starvation

and pleasure pushing him in the night toward forests

and crags, while a dull

betrayal grows slowly, 

in silence, in the rustling

of brambles and uprooted bushes, 

of moss devastated 

as if in a landslide

or life that breaks, a thin forest

where a nerve rears, a muscle

seizes, spazzes, and the blood turns cold: here,

then, the end, the familiar verbo depondente 

of wasps and autumn chestnuts, little mushrooms and streams

that scarcely roll over them, blackbird and blue jay. 

Not even carrion, now, but a tiny theater of skin 

eating away that encrusted soil, a military train

of excited maggots and ants,

an ultimate feast: this skin,

the dark bristles, the tusks, and then nothing. 

My individual translation:

Death of the Wild Boar:

It was a boar, a black spot on stones,

swarming, a wild boar

before arriving here, on the path of rock

and chestnuts, just attracted, perhaps, 

to sweet chestnuts, to the sun

that sparks and bursts into flames, pierced

by the sun, by time, and much more: it's hard to say

if by bullet, but better than swine fever or

one secret gash, slyly

working under the flow and grunt, under the panic

of flow and grunt, through hunger

and its pleasure pushing him in the night, toward

forests and crags, while a deaf betrayal 

grows slowly, in silence, in the rustling 

of branches and uprooted bushes,

of moss devastated, as if in a landslide, or life

that snaps-- a thin forest lost 

and now exhausted, the final point 

where a nerve rears, a muscle seizes, spazzes, 

and the blood turns cold: here, then, the end,

the familiar verbo deponente

of wasps and autumn chestnuts, little mushrooms 

and streams that blackbird and blue jay scarcely warble

over. Not even carrion now, but a tiny theater

of skin, that encrusted the soil, 

gnawed away by a military train 

of maggots and ants, an ultimate feast: this

skin, the dark bristles, the tusks, 

and then nothing. 

Discussion:

I really enjoyed this translation project. Though initially working without an Italian student during transliteration, we (Anastasia, Taylor, and I) found the process more excitingly exhaustive than cumbersome and tedious. Conversely, our unfamiliarity with the language (and, especially, our lack-of intimacy with the culture) greeted us with (unavoidable) transliteral roadblocks. That is, we were (more often than not, it seemed) either struggling with verb conjugation (e.g., recognizing a verb in its conjugated form) or the actual transliteration of a word or line based on its cultural context. We constantly fumbled between meanings. *Note that--albeit a copy of collective collaboration--we still espoused transliteral variations.* But those moments, for me, became the most academically and cross-culturally constructive, as well as the most rewarding.

As for my translation of the poem: the transliteration did not change so much as the architecture. Because I, too, dabble in writing poetry, I am (architecturally) neurotic when it comes to line-breaks, the lengths of each line, how the poem looks on the page, etc. What's more, with the poem I also had to worry about syntax, about transliteration abstraction and Latinate words without superimposing or misconstruing the imagery/narrative the of original source. This, my friends, can be a migraine (if allowed). As you can see, I mostly changed line-breaks and hedged, as it were, the inconsistent line-lengths.

Response to Peer's Post, Week 4: Jenna, on Carson's Preface

Jenna: (Regarding your concluding paragraph) I wonder if our concern should lie in trusting the translator. By which, I really mean this: Given the fact that Carson admits to and underpins the difficulty of transliteration in particular portions throughout the source text, the act of prefacing, of noting, as it were, handing over the translation proper is of merit; it's almost a way of gaining my respect for his theoretical application(s), for the choices and philosophies favor over others. Moreover, I also wonder if, or to what degree, we should approach Carson's translation with distrust or in a reserved manner solely based on his young familiarity / knowledge of the Italian language? Arguably, we should call into question Carson's capabilities, his competency, to translate such a heavy, monumental, text when the source text is written in a language relatively new / foreign to the translator. And yet, to play devil's advocate, does this, should it, matter? In saying that, like Damrosch asserts, each of these translations, "good" and/or "bad" translations, are 'contingent'-- which applies to all nuances transposed.  Does that make sense?

Theoretical Translation Prob., Week 4

Mandelbaum seems, to me, a (theoretical) cosmopolite. In his introduction, Mandelbaum appears to selectively pick from and adopt theoretical nuances of translation. Perhaps a more universal, a more liberal, yet academically aware and versed, theory of translation--as espoused by Mandelbaum (in his introduction)--is this: "If a text can engender a second, perhaps the engendering need never end, and no antecedent need be forgotten" (xv). I like Mandelbaum's concept; the point, though arbitrary and slightly too permissive (too unrestrictive?), reiterates the need for multiple and continual translations of a text, all the while remaining--as for Borges, as well as Jackson Matthew (being quoted by Musa)--"faithful" and "a good lover" to the original; yet, as a translator, remain well-aware of proceeding translations, which seemingly parallels Damrosch's theoretical assertion: "It has often been observed that translation age fairly rapidly. As a culture's literary values change, a generation's best translations soon begin to turn into period pieces, all too obviously failing to reproduce the source text's tone and values, and no longer working effectively with the evolving culture in which they were produced. True though it is that few translation outlast their immediate generation, it is a mistake to adopt a position of pure relativism, as though one translation is as good as another, or perhaps as bad as another, since all are contingent, and every translation expresses some person's or group's literary values" (Damrosch, 426). Similar to Damrosch, Mandelbaum appears to consider, to welcome all--past, present, and future-- translations of the original 'source' text. I don't perceive this as an act of kindness, on either Damrosch or Mandelbaum's behalf; it is, however, a means of eliminating, to an extent, ignorance and exhibiting (unlike Nabokov) unconceited confidence, as one translator--of the same text--among many.

However, Mandelbaum also adopts and utilizes facets of both Schleiermacher and Nabokov's theories of translation. For example, Mandelbaum, in the concluding half of his introduction, underpins, in part, his version of the Inferno as such: "For the most frequent word termini in Italian are vowel-consonant-vowel termini; and that VCV echoes, on still another level ABA of the first two levels. English, with its even-numbered metrical positions in each line (even Milton, the most sensitive to Italian of our major poets, has little taste for feminine endings in his major work) and its paucity of vowel-consonant-vowel termini can never mime the depth of that prosodic intuition. That is not the reason for my forgoing tercet rhyme in this translation (which was simply dependent on my need to reach as clean and precise a rendering as possible); but it is the reason for the close phonic packing, whether in stressed or unstressed positions, which I have sought throughout this translation---with pure rhymes, pararhyme, assonances, alliterations, and consonances often called into service" (xx). As you can see, Mandelbaum aligns with Schleiermacher, in that he (Mandelbaum) favors and, in part, agrees that: "one cannot possibly produce in another tongue a replica of a work of rhetorical art that in its individual parts would correspond perfectly to the individual part of the original, but that given the differences between languages, with which so many other differences are essentially caught up, we have no other recourse but to contrive a copy, an entire work comprised of parts that differ noticeably from the parts of the original, yet which in its effect comes so close to the original as the differences in the material permit" (Schleiermacher, 48). Though not harped on in the introduction, these conceits, these attributes, of Schleiermacher's become more prominent and self-evident in Mandelbaum's verse translation. I would argue that Mandelbaum measures out just the right amount of theory from both Schleiermacher and Nabokov: when mixed together, Mandelbaum's verse translation is an attempted "pure" 'imitation' that "describes in a series of footnotes the modulations and rhymes of the text as well as its associations and other special features" (Nabokov, 125).

One final passage, that I want to note briefly, derives from Mandelbaum's concluding remarks in the introduction:  "Sages, Elders, Emenders, Perpenders, Paraphrasts, Querists, Amphibolists, Nebulists, Quandrists, Phetors, Wreckers, Embalmers, Bores, and Picadors--so many Exegetes, living and dead, from Dante's time to our own have contributed, at some point, to the understandings and misunderstandings that, over some two decades, have made this translation possible" (xxii). I want to point out and highlight the mirroring resonance of this passage with that of Nabokov's pretentiously (in)conspicuous denouncement of who is and is not equipped for, not capable of, "proper" translating. Regardless, I am undecided with Mandelbaum's acknowledgement, and (sincere?) gratitude of all included above. Is he, like Nabokov, taking a moment to brag, to underpin his translation of Dante's Inferno as one of the better in existence? Perhaps. And yet, here Mandelbaum does seem to respectfully pay homage--those both "bad" and "good"--to an amalgam of translations, all of which helped in the (re)production of his own translation.

Translation Prob., Week 4

See Taylor's blog for the transliteration: http://taylorboltz.blogspot.it/

Theoretical Translation Prob., Week 3

"The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase" (Nabokov, 113). 

On the one hand, I concede with Nabokov here; a literal translation, even if 'clumsily' transposed, seems more conducive to the purpose of translation. I cannot discern the benefits of producing an ornate and aesthetically sensual paraphrase when it risks masking or convoluting the translation. Nabokov smartly underscores the necessity of transliteration, of establishing and providing a concise, palpable translation; yet, for Nabokov, this requires (or seemingly so) the translator to approach the text (in transit) with clinical scrupulousness. Though not necessarily a bad or poor route to take, it does appear exclusive. 

On the other hand, I think Nabokov is a little too catty, a dash too peppery. That is, though I understand and see the value in literal translation, the practicality of absolute, word-for-word transliteration(s) seems improbable and nearly impossible. By extension then, this Nabokovian theory of translation not only disregards those words which cannot be literally translated, as well as those that when translated bear no sociocultural sustenance once transposed into a different language, but also undermines former theorists and their application of translation. In doing so, I think Nabokov, to an extent, manages to create a type of caste system within translation theory--essentially underpinning himself as an elitist, as, somehow, endowed. Nevertheless, Nabokov's theories (as we've found with the others) offer both advantageous and suspicious conceits.