Translation Response Week Five

This is a response to Gabby's post about Ciardi's preface found here.

"Gabby: I find it very interesting how Ciardi stays true to the ear and places importance on the sound and rhyme rather than the meaning. I kind of agree with his idea of transposition: there is no way to be exactly the same when two languages are so different, but I’m curious about the difference between transposition and translation, since the two are the same idea of bringing some work from one group to another. In my mind, transposition is more jarring than a translation because in a sense, translation has been mended for the ear. So, what does one lose by sticking with a transposition, all the while meshing in a rhyme and standard conventions for English? I admire the use of rhyme and I think Ciardi does it in a way that doesn’t butcher the language so bad, but I’m curious as to why sound and rhyme matters more to him than the meaning. Maybe it’s the stretch it creates for English, the work it puts on himself as a translator and the language as a whole."