Compendium of Translated Poetry

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Compendium of Translated Poetry

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As G. Sandulescu points out in his introduction to this bilingual anthology, translation is a matter of opinion, craft and teaching. The idea of this 700-page Compendium came while we were looking for a way of helping the MA graduate students of the Programme for the Translation of the Literary Text.

One reason why we relied mainly on Chronology has everything to do with the didactic intention of the compilers. There comes a time when one realizes that literature is in fact a succession of texts to be re-read, again and again. Revision is the mother of understanding. While coherent on the whole, our ages are never quite the same. And the older we grow, the more we want to reinvent what education has provided us with.

Why we mixed English and Romanian chronology, why we are listing poetical texts out of which some are translated while others are not, and why we choose to try and teach poetry via its translation, can all be answered briefly: we are looking for a guide to poetry, which will address all ages, all stages of education. The result, didactically speaking, is the idea that great literature was there long before the history of literature actually claimed it. This is a book that thrives on questions, while postponing answers in favour of deeper consideration (see the FrageStellung boxes before each text). Its compilers have been aiming at peeping at the text before its critics. They did so in a book of seven hundred pages, which probably beats the record of most anthologies on paper ever published by Bucharest University, of all books published by CLP so far.

Addressing now George Sandulescu’s major assumption that a translation is never right or wrong, but simply a matter of opinion – we must proceed by saying that, inextricably, the structure of this Compendium is a matter of opinion: it reveals the compilers’ opinion as to the training of the most recent three generations of poetry translators. It brings the proof of it, too: it leads to a clear idea why certain texts have so far been translated (some in more than one version), while others have not even been addressed yet.

We have also been trying to prove that not all internet sites are unreliable. In this respect, Contemporary Literature Press hopes to effect a significant change. It is a given fact that a 2011 student will resort to online information. Part of this reality is a miracle: you can have a whole library a click away. But you need to know how to use it. Like all education, in the realm of internet documentation school only begins when it ends. Then you are alone with what you know, and you feel your way ahead, towards more knowledge, of your own choice, on your own. One has to know what to take for granted and what to reject. One has to have an opinion.

Special thanks are due (in alphabetical order) to our contemporary translators C. Abaluta, S.G. Dima, I. Ieronim, St. Stoenescu and G. Tartler.

The last on the Editor’s list of elements defining the translation of literature was craft. When all is said and done, readers will understand the reason why a good translator wakes up in the middle of the night because he has found the one word that was a blank in his previous day’s translating work. What this compendium sets out to offer is an explanation of the mechanism, a guide to how a mind set on translating poetry could look for the spark. And the answer is: the way to the spark goes through a spell in hell, or, as T.S. Eliot put it in East Coker, poetry – and its translation, we may add – are a ‘raid on the inarticulate.’ Each translator chooses or is chosen by a text mysteriously. As Paul Valéry once said, it is a matter of plus élire que lire...

 

23 April 2011

Lidia Vianu


Please click on the link below and choose "Save file" to download the book in .pdf format

Compendium of Translated Poetry

Note: This is a large (3.1Mb) file. If you cannot open it above, nor save it before opening (by right-clicking on the link and choosing "Save Link As"), please click here to download it from SkyDrive.

 

 

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