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."

Translation Problem Week Five

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: difficile
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 grugnito, da fame
e di piaceere che lo spinge la notte per foreste
e dirupi, 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, funghetti e ruscelli
che appena piu 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.

Version close to the group                 Version I did by myself later

Death of the Wild Boar

Death of the Wild Boar

It was a wild boar, a black spot on stones, swarming, wild boar, before arriving here, on the path of rock and chestnuts, perhaps attracted just  to the note of sweet chestnut, to the sun that sparks and bursts in flames, and pierced by the sun, by time, and much more: difficult to say if it was a bullet, better the porcine plague,  or one secret gash, sly  under the flow and grunt,  under the anxiety of the flow and grunt, the hunger and the pleasure that pushes him toward the night forests and crags, and meanwhile a dull betrayal grows slowly, in silence, in rustling brambles and uprooted bushes, upset moss like a landslide or life that breaks apart, thin forest  lost and now exhausted, the extreme point where a nerve shoots up, a muscle arrests and rises up, and also blood freezes: here, then the end, the dear deponent verb of wasps and autumnal chestnuts, little mushrooms and streams that scarcely warbles over them, blackbird and bluejay. Either carrion, or almost, but a little theater of skin eats away what encrusts in the soil, a military train alive of bright white maggots and ants, a conclusive banquet. The skin, dark bristles, tusks, and then nothing.

It was a wild boar, a black spot on stones, swarming, the wild boar before arriving here, on the path of rock and chestnuts, maybe attracted just to the note of sweet chestnuts, to the sun that sparks and ignites flames, and pierced by the sun, by time, and much more: it’s difficult  to say if it was a bullet, better than the swine fever, or one secret tear, sneakily working under the flow and grunt, under the panic of the flow and grunt, from hunger and pleasure, pushing him through the night’s forests and crags, meanwhile a deaf betrayal grows slowly, in the silence, in the rustling brambles and uprooted bushes, in devastated moss like a landslide or broken life, in the lean forest, lost and now exhausted, the extreme point where a nerve inflames, a muscle seizes and spazzes, and blood freezes: here, then, the end, familiar verbo deponente of wasps and autumnal chestnuts, little mushrooms and streams that slightly warble over them, blackbird and bluejay. Not even carrion, nearly, but a little skin theater gnaws away what corrupts the soil, a military train  alive of bright maggots and ants, an ultimate banquet of skin, dark bristles, tusks, and then nothing.

    The hardest part to translate, for me, was the line “da fame/e di piacere che lo spinge la notte per foreste” which literally translated to: from/the hunger and the pleasure that he/she/it pushes the night into/from/toward/through forest. The reason this was so difficult was one, I had to either decide to gender the wild boar, and two, I had to figure out the structure of the second half of the line. I imagined it to mean that hunger and pleasure pushed the boar through the night’s forest, the darkness, so that’s why I shifted it a little bit.
    The other part of the piece that really confused and challenged me, was with “il punto estremo/ dobe un nerve s’inalbera, un muscolo/ arrests e s’impenna, e anche il sangue si gela” which literally translates to: the point extreme where a nerve shoots up, a muscle arrests and fletches and also the blood freezes. The word “fletches” confused me after the native speaker had to Google Translate it. I figured it to mean something like “rises up,” which is what the dictionary said it to mean. The other problem I ran into was the idea of sounding like a translation. It’s pretty obvious to me that “shoots up,” “arrests and rises up,” and “also blood freezes” sound like a translation. The question I dealt with was figuring out what a better, more English-y way of saying these things would be. I guess one might say that I was trying to bring the reader to the poet, or trying to bring the poem into colloquially, and I am, but because it sounds more normal that way.
    So I ended up thinking about exercise and the way one strains their body to the ultimate point of exhaustion: what would that be called? I couldn’t come up with the word, so I settled for the “extreme point” and moved on. The “nerve shoots up” part would never be said anywhere, so I tried to think about what that actually meant. Coming up with “inflames” was my way of making “shoots up” more direct because shooting up with pain was most likely inflaming.
    Then comes the part about “arrests and rises up” having to do with muscles. Arrests was pretty easy to think about, because when one is arrested, they are stopped or seized, held. From there, rises up was somewhere along the lines of inflamed, but more physical. So when I think about rising up, I think about losing control, and that means a muscle spasm. So “rises up” shifted to “spazzes.” This way there is also a little bit of alliteration with “seizes and spazzes.”
    The final part of that catalog, the part about blood, was only funky sounding because of the “and also.” So, in order to make it smoother to the ear, I took out “also” because “and” inherently means “also.”
    There were a couple of little words that I switched around, like the original “l’ansia” which transliterated into “anxiety,” but I changed it to “panic” because it made a more visceral sound, and I cannot imagine a wild boar being anxious. Panicked, yes. I also cut “vita che si spezza” (life that breaks) to “broken life” in order to allow the piece to move quicker and I didn’t think that from a meaning standpoint or poetry standpoint the piece lost anything by those cuts. I also changed “di muschi sconvolti” (of moss upset) to “of devastated moss” because the “landslide” that comes after makes “upset” seem so much more intense. Which is also why I changed “s’incrosta nel terriccio, una tradotta” (incrusts in the soil, a military train) to “corrupts the soil, a military train.” The corruption kept with the militaristic feel of the rest of that line.
    These were the biggest changes that I made to smooth out the piece. I made some small flip flops in modifiers, since in English modifiers come (mostly) before the noun.

Translation Question Week Five

"...consider a particular moment in the eighth circle (for your Wednesday reading), when Dante and Virgil encounter Ulysses (Odysseus). You will note that Virgil instructs Dante to remain quiet, that he (Virgil) will speak to Ulysses. The reason he offers is that Ulysses may be "disdainful" (in Mandelbaum's translation) of Dante's Tuscan dialect. Interestingly, however, in the next canto, Dante meets Guido da Montefeltro (still in the circle of the fraudulent counselors). In that episode--which I know you are not reading for class--Virgil says the opposite: "You speak; he is Italian."

I find it fascinating that this is only part of the Inferno in which two cantos are dedicated to the same sin: fraudulent counsel. And here, at this most curious spot of the Inferno, we have an issue, I believe, of translation. 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?"

Dante-poet constructs a two canto’ed circle because the reader must deal with two different versions of Dante-pilgrim and Virgil. In the canto with Ulysses, we see Dante-pilgrim/listener, who must allow Virgil to talk and be the intermediary for Dante because there is a sense that Dante might not understand the importance of intelligence. Dante-poet, as the writer of the “Christian epic” put Ulysses in Hell because of the stock he put on finding knowledge and having intelligence. Dante-pilgrim is not on this quest for eternal knowledge, but Dante-poet interjects with a conscious censoring of his knowledge. Virgil, and Dante-poet, might be working as an intermediary in order to modulate his intelligence because he doesn’t understand the Greek ways like Virgil does: “I crib and confine my intelligence” (Mary Jo Bang, XXVI:21). In the next canto, however, Dante is familiar with Guido da Montefeltro and might have been in Ravenna while Dante was exiled there. He was a Ghibelline captain but worked against the Ghibellines later in life. This man was not as thirsty for knowledge as Ulysses was and would not have been disdainful of someone lower in status, as the Italians would have been to the Greeks. Virgil allowed Dante to talk because it was safer for him and more would have been accomplished. Dante-poet constructs a sense of decorum and language because language is the easiest way to discuss status. The fact that Virgil was familiar with the Greek tradition and Dante was not, allowed for Virgil to communicate with someone of that stature. This is a commentary on the importance of knowledge, and when one does not gain the same knowledge as the rest of the world, then that puts one behind. Dante must carry into the next canto to differentiate between the levels of fraud, between the differences in these characters.

Translation Response Week Five

This is a response to Ashley's blog post found here.

   I find myself questioning the reinsertion of footnotes because as you have said, it seems to make the piece harder to read. I question the fact that it brings the reader closer to the original text, it seems to do just the opposite, because it might be translating more than what was in the original. I believe it was Eco who warned against bringing more to the translation than what was originally in the text. I find that footnotes do exactly what they are supposed to do: fill in the blanks without being intruding to the text but when the footnotes are reinserted as part of the text, it takes away from what the original was trying to convey.
    In can see how this eliminates the necessity for the extra pages of information, but how many of the questions regarding the reinserted references are actually answered? Footnotes, in my opinion (and Mary Jo Bang is sparse with hers), are more helpful in the end than the reinsertion technique seems to be. I’m curious as to how the footnotes in the text works with James’ idea of foreignizing. It seems footnotes in the piece would aid foreignizing because of the convoluted nature of each new line. However, he also talks about how this is making the piece accessible to the reader, but it doesn’t seem that way in reality. It’s like a contradiction.
    Plus, he keeps a rhyme and rhythm, so that must also help to keep the piece a little foreign, but not in the sense that he was aiming; it butchers the English to fit so many different spaces: from the footnotes to the rhyme, the English language is doing more work than the Italian did in the original and that’s where I find the translation most interesting. It seems as though James and Bang (and maybe even Carson) are creating more work for English than Dante created for Italian.

Translation Response Week Four

I actually responded to Jenna's post about her translation's preface because I just love discussing Dante translations.

You can find the original post here.

My response:

Jenna,
Obviously, I'm not going to think the fact that Carson brings Dante to us as a bad thing: Bang does it as well and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. The fact that I don't have to work so hard is quite nice when it comes to such a subject as Dante, and I think the colloquial nature of the piece offers something else in terms of meaning. I find it quite hilarious that Carson tries to terza rima, but I also admire it. I guess we could consider him butchering the English language, but isn't that just an inverse of what our translators are doing to the originals? Especially mine, in a sense. The terza rima attempt differentiates Carson from Hollander or Ciardi, but also offers something to talk about and understand from a translators perspective. He's trying to capture the importance of terza rima, which was immensely important at the time. Granted, he's butchering English, as I mentioned before, but that doesn't matter to him as much as the rhyme does. I can't remember if it was just something we talked about in class or if it was a theorist, but every translator finds something important from the original. Bang chooses to focus on the meaning and the content, Carson, I think, is focusing on the rhyme. I think it's cool that he does that.

Translation Question Week Four

When reading Mary Jo Bang's Inferno, her preface speaks large volumes on what she finds translation to be. On page 10, she writes "Translation is a method of bringing the past back into the present--across geographies, across different time periods, and across cultural difference--and sharing what is common to all. That act is both homage and theft...Translation keeps a work of literature alive by simultaneously dismantling and reclaiming it. For the translator, there is an intense--and paradoxical--intellectual pleasure that comes from making a text that has already been made by someone else. It is a strange collaborative camaraderie." 


While reading this, I immediately thought of the Ortega y Gasset article, where they say: "Translation is not a duplicate of the original text; it is not--it shouldn't try to be--the work itself with a different vocabulary...translation is a literary genre apart, different from the rest, with it's own norms and own ends...translation is not the work, but a path toward the work...no more than an apparatus, a technical device that brings us closer to the work without ever trying to repeat or replace it." (61)

I think this is what Mary Jo Bang is trying to get at when she says translation is both homage and theft. Because a translation cannot be exactly the same, inherently translation is an interpretation of the original text, it will be a refraction of the original. The extent is up to that translator. That is also what she means when she says that translation is about dismantling and reclaiming. She has dismantled the original Alighieri Inferno and in its wake is a reclaimed Bang Inferno. By bringing it over to the reader, she is doing what Schleiermacher calls "moving the reader toward [the writer]"
 (49). She aids the readers by bringing Dante into the present, which she says, in another part of the preface, shows Hell as a never changing place. She shares references that are common to all so as to help the reader understand the original in a way that is relevant to the current age.

This also dates a piece, makes it its own relic, which Bang understands. I think this version of Dante has its own place in the record books of Dante translations because it offers something that the others do not: modernity.

Translation Problem Week Four

This is the transliteration for Sydney's, Anastasia's, and my poem.

Death of the Wild Boar

Age the wild boar, the spot black on the stones,
swarming, wild boar
first to arrive here, path of rock
and chestnut, maybe note attracted
to the sweet chestnut, to the sun
that filters and bursts in flames, and pierced
by the sun, by time, and much more: difficult
to say if it was bullet, better the plague
porcine, or one secret gash, sly
that works under the flow and grunt, under the anxiety
of the flow and grunt, the hunger
and the pleasure that he pushes the night toward forests
and crags, and meanwhile a dull
betrayal grows slowly,
in silence, in the rustling
of brambles and bushes uprooted,
of moss upset
like a mudslide
or life that breaks apart, thin forest
lost and now exhausted, the point extreme
where a nerve shoots up, a muscle
arrests and rises up, and also the blood freezes: here, then
the end, the dear deponent verb
of the wasp and autumnal chestnuts, little mushrooms and streams
what scarcely over they rumble, blackbird and bluejay.
Either carrion, or almost, but a little theatre of skin
eats away what encrusts in the loam, a military train
alive of white maggots and of ants,
a banquet conclusive. The skin,
the bristles dark, the tusks, and then nothing.

Translation Question Week Three

"The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase" (113). I'd like for you all to consider that comment, particularly in light of Schleiermacher, Borges, Jakobson, and Eco. For haven't most of them championed translations that defy literalness, that even presuppose its impossibility (or at least illegibility)? What particular baggage does Nabokov (an emigre' Russian polyglot and literary provocateur) bring to bear on this argument? What does he mean, for example, by a literal translation's supposed "use" value? What, in other words, lurks behind that comment? What does it tell us about Nabokov's theories of translation? 


So, the thing that killed me about Nabokov, was the fact that the man was a tennis pro in France, a translator and writer in three languages (Russian, French and English), and an amateur butterfly collector (or something like that.) That baggage, the knowledge of so many things, is what Nabokov brings to this argument of literality. For him, it seems that so much of translation comes from learning about what is happening and giving that to his reader. He brings up the question of “can a translation…keep the form of the original, its rhythm and its rhyme” while being faithful to the whole text (119). He believes it can happen, since above that question he mentions the idea that literal translation is redundant because anything that is not literal is not a translation. I think, for Nabokov, the translation is supposed to bring the reader into the world of the writer. Footnotes are utilized to explain things to the reader, since twentieth century English readers would not understand aspects of ancient Greek works. I think his idea of a literal translation’s use value speaks to what it offers the culture it is going into. For instance, the use value of a Dante translation would only work if it was a literal translation with numerous footnotes about the allusions and references. The translation’s use directly correlates to what it teaches a culture. That’s the reason for footnotes. That’s the reason for literality. That’s the reason behind usefulness. Everyone else (translators) don’t teach us with their translations because they make translations too accessible by already shifting the piece to fit the culture. Mary Jo Bang and Nabokov wouldn’t get along at all.

Translation Problem Week Three: Article

My original Italian:
"A Venezia mi accorgo di uno stato d'inversione di quasi tutti gli elementi. Mi è difficile distinguere tra ciò che esiste e ciò che sembra un'illusione, un'apparizione. Tutto mi sembra instabile, mutevole. Le strade non sono solide. Le case sembrano galleggiare. La nebbia può rendere invisible l'architettura. L'acqua alta può allagare una piazza. I canali rispecchiano una versione inesistente della città."

A translation:
"I notice a state of inversion for almost all the elements in Venice. It is difficult for me to distinguish between what exists and what seems to be an illusion, an apparition. All seems unstable, changing. The streets are not solid. The houses seem to float. The fog can render the architecture invisible. The high water floods the piazza. The canals reflect a non-existent version of the city."


What I find most interesting about this piece is that the words are extremely easy to translate (if I ended up doing this correctly). Yes, I did utilize some online dictionary action, but for the most part, I just read this and recognized a few things. Some of my classmates and I were talking about how Jhumpa Lahiri's writing style is very simplistic and easy to understand. It makes it easy to translate because not a whole lot is complicated. What I found most interesting while translating was the fact that she writes very poetically while still maintaining comprehension with the languages. I admire this for many reasons: one being that, as a creative writer, I imagine that meaning is easily lost in translation, but I don't believe that occurs. I found this piece, as I've said before, easily translatable, and I believe it is because she translates her own work, or at least that is what I remember being prefaced to this assignment. She is able to modulate the work herself, so that might aid to the translation's accessibility.

Translation Response Week Three

This is a response to Ashley's translation problem from last week regarding Moira Egan's back-translation project. Find the whole post here.

" Parthenocissus tricuspidata

   I see another
tree in the dark garden and
     I think it must be
     a weeping willow,
but when I ask, he says: No,
     it is a laurel
     bound in an immense tangle
of ivy that from it is hung.
     one that does not do
     harm to the host, but hangs
symbiotically, and that’s enough
     for posing poetic.
There goes
another dismal illusion,
     I say, and he laughs. "

My response:

I find a lot of the choices here extremely interesting, especially what to do with lugubrious. I, too, changed the word because it sounded too clunky, too syllabic. But the interesting question here, is why we both kept “symbiotically” and not “lugubrious.” For me, “symbiotically” was much more of a technical term that offered more to the piece than “lugubrious.” It offered something about the speaker, that they would know a lot about symbiosis and how it works. But in the same sense, lugubrious does that as well. I liked the fact that you chose “dismal.” It offers another connotation to the illusion that one may not get from lugubrious. Dismal makes the darkness continue. It allows for a sense of sadness that comes from your word “tangle,” which I admire as well. Tangle and maze are two very different words and I like the confusion and frustration that comes from “tangle.” I kept “maze” because it made this relationship seem orderly, and that’s a reason why I chose “elegiac” to replace “lugubrious.” You mentioned changing to “tangle” for that chaotic connotation, but doesn’t that directly contradict the idea of symbiosis? The “pose poetic” was rough for me. I like what you did with the “posing poetic,” making it seem like it’s a facade, but that also kind of contradicts with tangle, while still working with dismal and symbiotically. I really admire the fact that you stayed really close to the transliteration. I think the poet in me tried to go crazy. I also admire the fact that you kept the title. I forgot all about the title, and I really enjoyed your rational for keeping it. Personally, I agree with the idea that it offers a commonality across all translations and languages. I like the fact that most languages derive from one…It makes everything seem so much more accessible and that, in a way, everything is within our reach.

Translation Response Week Two

I responded to Sydney's post here. 

Syd,

This is a super smart translation decision. I would have first tried to do something with ice cream, but like one of the readings said (I think Eco), you can't translate more than what was already given. I wonder how it would sound with something like "dream with your eyes open." It sounds weird out loud, but it's seems to be the opposite of that "eyes wide shut" idea. I know we talked in class how we don't really say "stop dreaming, open your eyes," but I think we do...but not in so many words. It's the idea of "follow the yellow brick road" or "if you can dream it, you can do it." So I would say first that I like what you chose, but second that I would wonder what something like "dream with your eyes open" would be like.

Translation Question Week Two

This week's question is regarding the idea of rebelling against your own language when you translate.

I find this question super interesting because it accurately portrays the translator as a ghost writer that doesn't have ties to a specific language or culture. When Ortega mentions the fact that a translator "is translating himself from a language to a terminology," it gets me thinking about how translation only works if both the writer/translator and the reader have "previously and individually come to an agreement" about the words and their meanings, so therefore, the idea of translating culture comes back into play, since each culture has their own connotations and definitions of words. This then results in a difficulty translating some phrases. For example, one of the readings talked about Sylvia's silvies, and we discussed the slang term from Gomorrah. Sometimes, words are just placeholders, and that makes the translator betray their own language when deciding on a substitute. You're translating a culture. So sometimes you must betray that culture for the sake of another.

However, I believe the translator betrays a little of both cultures and languages. Since there is no way to keep everything from the original in a translation, in a sense, the translator betrays the original by giving something up. After reverse translating the Egan poem, I feel like the pulvarization and molding that I had to do also betrayed the translation because I had to create something different from the original to attempt a reflection. It is here where I begin to question the ghostliness of the translator because as much as we want to believe that the original writer wrote what we read, technically, it's not true. Technically, it's the translator that wrote it because they had to betray their own language and act as the original writer.

Translation Problem Week Two: Moira Egan

I followed Sarah Stutt’s lead with the two translation idea and tried that for myself with the Moira Egan piece. In the first one, I tried to follow the transliteration closer like we saw Stutt do with the first of her two Rilke translations. In the other one, I allowed myself a little more creative freedom in terms of form. The “misery of translation,” as we discussed Monday, was the parts with the words “lugubrious,” “enough,” and the middle section when the ivy started to be brought in. I was very off-put by the multiple uses of the word “ivy” so close together in each line. I looked jumbled to me and I wanted to spread the moment out and elevate the language without changing the structure too much. I kept most of the commas and the way the line breaks, but I found that the word lugubrious didn’t give me the connotation that I think the piece wanted. When I read the word “lugubrious,” I found myself thinking of a burden or something that held back the subject (in this case, the tree), so I wanted to change the word to connote a togetherness and wholeness, even a “paying homage” type feel. I looked up synonyms for the word lugubrious and found “elegiac,” which to me, connotes all the things that I felt the ivy was trying to do for the tree, since there was no harm done, but it just hung there, using the tree as a home. The other instance that proved especially tricky was the “in pose poetics.” I had, and still have, no idea what that is trying to say, but I imagined it to be something along the lines of: the ivy is posed in the tree as they walk by, much like poetry is posed for the reader, almost fake. So I took out the “in” and just changed it to “posed poetics” because I like the assonance and alliteration.

The one on the left is the first translation (the closer), the one on the right is the second (the free-er).

I see another plant in the garden’s dark  and I think it must be a weeping willow, but when I ask him about it, he says: No,  it is a laurel  bound in an immense maze  of hanging ivy which does not harm  the host, but hangs symbiotically and enough, in posed poetics. It disappears in  another lugubrious illusion,  I say, and he laughs.

I see another plant  in the garden, dark and  I think it must be a weeping willow, but when I ask him, he says: No, it is a laurel bound in an immense maze  of hanging ivy, not harmful to the host,  but symbiotic and necessary, posed like poetry. Here it disappears  in an elegiac illusion, I say, and he laughs.

Translation Problem Week One: Slogan

The slogan that I found was in an advertisement for a financial information book. I can only imagine that this book deals with what seems to be difficult information. The slogan reads, in Italian: IMPOSTE
Offresi guida veloce alle nuove tasse, detrazioni e agevolazioni

Now, as I was doing some research about the words in the advertisement, I found that "imposte" could mean "to offer/to post" or "to impose," or even "tax." The rest of the sentence came to something like, "offering guidance quickly to new taxes, deductions and concessions." When I thought about translating this into something that English speakers would be more inclined to pick up, I skipped the first word, since it can mean so many different things, and chose to focus first on the second part: "offering guidance quickly to the new taxes, deductions and concessions."

First of all, it's really wordy in English. I feel like I need to keep the idea of the new tax concessions and deductions, since that seems to be the whole reason for the book, but the "offering guidance quickly" has too many syllables for anyone to be attracted quickly. So, instead, I thought about "quick guide."

This advertisement seems like one of those Craigslist ads for someone soliciting themselves for tax help. In these sorts of ads, the first line of the ad was in all caps and full of financial jargon. I think that a book definitely needs an advertisement that involves that jargon to prove that it is legitimate.

So a smoother translation could be: "quick guide to the new tax deductions and concessions." But this doesn't capture the bottom of the advertisement which says "rivolgersi a: CORRIERE DELLA SERA." This translates to "turn to the Evening Courier." This conveys the sense of solicitation that "quick guide" doesn't convey. The "imposte" might help with this issue.

Imposte: I came to the conclusion, from the context of the "offering guidance" underneath it, that this word was in the verb form, thus meaning "posted." This then tackles the issue of being an advertisement. So: "POSTED: need quick guidance to new tax deductions and concessions? Turn to the Evening Courier." But this seems really long. Even though it combines the idea of offering services and the financial jargon.

POSTED:
Evening Courier provides the quickest guide to new taxes, deductions and concessions.

I switched "offers" with "provides" because it has the connotation that this is attainable for everyone, which, to me, is the point of the book: to provide accessible information regarding taxes. Plus, when I read "provides," for some reason I get the thought that only this book can give me this information. It connotes a sense of singularity to me.

I also got rid of the "turn to" before "Evening Courier," because the idea that the advertisement wants the viewer to pick their product is inherent without having to say "turn to." Instead, I made "quick" "quickest," in order to help the product stand out even more against any other books that might discuss the new taxes.

Translation Question Week One

The question posed in class today: "What do you mean that translation doesn't reflect but refract?"

I am extremely interested in this refraction idea because of the violence that we mentioned in class. Refraction connotes a sense of breaking apart, of separation and recreation into something else. Reflection connotes a sense of mirroring, of a legitimate duplicate of an original. Translation isn't a mirroring because there is no way for a translator to copy everything exactly the same from one work to another. We decided that a translation was bringing one culture over to another, and that requires some adaptation, because as we know from being in Italy, one culture is not the exact same as another. Everything bases itself upon perspective. Refraction creates the perspective of violence because in a sense, translators pillage the text for importance, for what to carry from the original into the new text. Translations, bringing across cultures, carry over some aspect(s) of the original culture into a new, adapted text, that allows this second culture the opportunity to experience the original culture in a way that is relevant to the second.
In a way, translation is about relevance, about accessibility. But for me, translation dissects one culture, pulls apart the original text and brings some aspect into a new text. We mentioned Dante multiple times because of the amount of translations available. Specifically, Mary Jo Bang's, which incorporates modern culture. Without having read much of it so far, I am really excited to see what she does with it: to see if she captures the politics of the original or if she forgoes that for the modernity factor. In discussing Dante, we focused on the idea of form: if the terza rima matters or if it is okay to move it into blank verse. I believe that this is the idea of refraction. Moving something from one culture to another causes something to change. Terza rima was the most important form of the time, blank verse is the most prominent form of our time, so when a translator decides to refract a text into blank verse, the translator decides to focus on the meaning of the text and the importance of what is actually in the text, therefore, refracting the original into a different form.
I find translation to be refraction, not reflection, because there can never be a mirroring of a text. It's relatively impossible to mirror an unrhymed dactyllic hexameter text or terza rima text in the English language because our words don't rhyme or have the same syllables as other languages. That's why it's refraction: something has to change, just like when light refracts or we go fracking for oil. Something changes from an original to a translation.