Week 8 Exercise + Other explorations
Outline how you think the metaphor is functioning, and why Benjamin used it—how it reflects the task of translation; what labor it seeks to describe or solicit. Then produce a translation that tries to use this metaphor as a guiding methodology
In “The Task of the Translator,” Benjamin writes about how translations reveal the “kinship of languages” because all languages supplement each other in their intentions. As translators, we want our translations to have an effect that echoes the intention of the original in a way that has less to do with ‘meaning’ and more to do with ‘language’ itself.
I found Benjamin’s metaphor of the original text and its translation as fragments “of a vessel” (81) particularly helpful in understanding what he considers to be the task of the translator. Instead of wanting to “communicate something” semantically, the translator should translate with the aim of bringing two languages into harmony. What is most important about the vessel made by the two languages is not the ‘meaning’ it might carry, but the construction of the vessel itself; when reading a translated work, one should always see the echo of the original. The vessel stays afloat because it is built from the fragments of two languages, strengthened by the “pure language” of “linguistic complementation.” So, I decided to incorporate Benjamin’s suggestion about copying syntax into my guiding methodology for translating the following poem from the Song dynasty. The goal was to achieve a sense of unfamiliarity that coexists with harmony, to move both the writer and the reader to a neutral space where they can be left in peace.
Zhègū tiān
hán rì xiāo xiāo shàng suǒ chuāng, wú tóng yīng hèn yèlái shuāng.
Jiǔ lán gèng xǐ tuán chá kǔ, mèng duàn piān yí ruì nǎo xiāng.
Qiū yǐ jìn, rì yóu zhǎng, zhòng xuān huáiyuǎn gèng qī liáng.
Bùrú suí fēn zūn qián zuì, mò fù dōnglí jú ruǐ huáng.
Winter sun bleakly shines on the latticed window,
the parasol tree must resent last night’s frost
Wine after more favor brick tea’s bitterness,
dream snapped better suit camphor’s fragrance
Autumn is already ending, days feel long,
Zhong Xuan’s nostalgia drearier
Might as well vessel before inebriate,
Not disappoint the eastern bamboo fence’s yellow chrysanthemums
Like last time, I used the prompt of the writing exercise to inspire a preliminary translation and then revised that translation to end up with something closer to what I would include in my final portfolio. While I tried to make poetic choices in the first draft (as opposed to the strict literalism of last week’s exercise), the rigidity of the syntax produced an almost Google Translate-like effect in the translation, skewing the meaning of several lines. Indeed, the 6th line actually signifies the opposite of what the author intends; she means to say that her nostalgia is drearier than that of Zhong Xuan, although the direct syntactical translation suggests the opposite.
Yet what preserving the syntax helped me retain in some cases was the brevity of the lines (e.g. “dream snapped better suit camphor’s fragrance”) and the sense of ambiguity we also touched on last time regarding Chinese poetry: poets construct lines mostly made up of verbs and nouns, leting the reader figure out how they connect. In my revised translation, there is an element of syntactical strangeness preserved in lines 3-6.
However, I nonetheless chose to break Benjamin’s ‘rules’ in a number of places. For instance, I ‘corrected’ the semantic problem in the Zhong Xuan line by adding “I feel,” which also conveniently parallels “feel long” in the line below, creating rhyming sounds to compensate for the fact that I lost all the ending rhymes of the original in this translation (I couldn’t get over this, so I ended up producing a second revision that sort of rhymes). I also changed “vessel before inebriate” (to get drunk by downing the contents of a wine vessel) into “drown my sorrows,” which is an example of me moving the writer towards the reader instead of occupying that neutral space of ‘pure language’ in between. For workshop, I would be interested in hearing what people think about these decisions, as well as ways I could more poetically obscure or clarify meaning in further revisions.
Partridge Sky (revision 1)
The cold winter sun bleakly climbs the lattice window,
parasol trees must resent last night’s frost.
Bitter brick tea we always favor after drinking wine,
the camphor’s fragrance always sweeter
upon waking from interrupted dreams.
Drearier than Zhong Xuan’s longing I feel,
Now autumn is fading, and the days feel long.
I might as well drown my sorrows
to not disappoint the yellow chrysanthemums
growing on the eastern bamboo fence.
Partridge Sky (revision 2 with rhymes)
The cold winter sun bleakly climbs the lattice window,
parasol trees must resent last night’s frost.
After wine we always prefer bitter brick tea,
the camphor’s fragrance sweeter
upon waking from dreams lost.
Drearier than Zhong Xuan’s longing I feel,
As autumn is fading, and the days feel long.
I might as well drown my sorrows
to not let down the yellow chrysanthemums
that along the eastern bamboo fence still grow.
After reading the non-rhyming version above and this rhyming one, which direction do you think I should continue revising in? There are some end rhymes in the latter that seem forced (I also almost wrote “chrysanthemums yellow”), but perhaps I could revise to make them seem more nuanced. Does adding rhymes make the poem seem trite?
Outline how you think the metaphor is functioning, and why Benjamin used it—how it reflects the task of translation; what labor it seeks to describe or solicit. Then produce a translation that tries to use this metaphor as a guiding methodology
In “The Task of the Translator,” Benjamin writes about how translations reveal the “kinship of languages” because all languages supplement each other in their intentions. As translators, we want our translations to have an effect that echoes the intention of the original in a way that has less to do with ‘meaning’ and more to do with ‘language’ itself.
I found Benjamin’s metaphor of the original text and its translation as fragments “of a vessel” (81) particularly helpful in understanding what he considers to be the task of the translator. Instead of wanting to “communicate something” semantically, the translator should translate with the aim of bringing two languages into harmony. What is most important about the vessel made by the two languages is not the ‘meaning’ it might carry, but the construction of the vessel itself; when reading a translated work, one should always see the echo of the original. The vessel stays afloat because it is built from the fragments of two languages, strengthened by the “pure language” of “linguistic complementation.” So, I decided to incorporate Benjamin’s suggestion about copying syntax into my guiding methodology for translating the following poem from the Song dynasty. The goal was to achieve a sense of unfamiliarity that coexists with harmony, to move both the writer and the reader to a neutral space where they can be left in peace.
Zhègū tiān
hán rì xiāo xiāo shàng suǒ chuāng, wú tóng yīng hèn yèlái shuāng.
Jiǔ lán gèng xǐ tuán chá kǔ, mèng duàn piān yí ruì nǎo xiāng.
Qiū yǐ jìn, rì yóu zhǎng, zhòng xuān huáiyuǎn gèng qī liáng.
Bùrú suí fēn zūn qián zuì, mò fù dōnglí jú ruǐ huáng.
Winter sun bleakly shines on the latticed window,
the parasol tree must resent last night’s frost
Wine after more favor brick tea’s bitterness,
dream snapped better suit camphor’s fragrance
Autumn is already ending, days feel long,
Zhong Xuan’s nostalgia drearier
Might as well vessel before inebriate,
Not disappoint the eastern bamboo fence’s yellow chrysanthemums
Like last time, I used the prompt of the writing exercise to inspire a preliminary translation and then revised that translation to end up with something closer to what I would include in my final portfolio. While I tried to make poetic choices in the first draft (as opposed to the strict literalism of last week’s exercise), the rigidity of the syntax produced an almost Google Translate-like effect in the translation, skewing the meaning of several lines. Indeed, the 6th line actually signifies the opposite of what the author intends; she means to say that her nostalgia is drearier than that of Zhong Xuan, although the direct syntactical translation suggests the opposite.
Yet what preserving the syntax helped me retain in some cases was the brevity of the lines (e.g. “dream snapped better suit camphor’s fragrance”) and the sense of ambiguity we also touched on last time regarding Chinese poetry: poets construct lines mostly made up of verbs and nouns, leting the reader figure out how they connect. In my revised translation, there is an element of syntactical strangeness preserved in lines 3-6.
However, I nonetheless chose to break Benjamin’s ‘rules’ in a number of places. For instance, I ‘corrected’ the semantic problem in the Zhong Xuan line by adding “I feel,” which also conveniently parallels “feel long” in the line below, creating rhyming sounds to compensate for the fact that I lost all the ending rhymes of the original in this translation (I couldn’t get over this, so I ended up producing a second revision that sort of rhymes). I also changed “vessel before inebriate” (to get drunk by downing the contents of a wine vessel) into “drown my sorrows,” which is an example of me moving the writer towards the reader instead of occupying that neutral space of ‘pure language’ in between. For workshop, I would be interested in hearing what people think about these decisions, as well as ways I could more poetically obscure or clarify meaning in further revisions.
Partridge Sky (revision 1)
The cold winter sun bleakly climbs the lattice window,
parasol trees must resent last night’s frost.
Bitter brick tea we always favor after drinking wine,
the camphor’s fragrance always sweeter
upon waking from interrupted dreams.
Drearier than Zhong Xuan’s longing I feel,
Now autumn is fading, and the days feel long.
I might as well drown my sorrows
to not disappoint the yellow chrysanthemums
growing on the eastern bamboo fence.
Partridge Sky (revision 2 with rhymes)
The cold winter sun bleakly climbs the lattice window,
parasol trees must resent last night’s frost.
After wine we always prefer bitter brick tea,
the camphor’s fragrance sweeter
upon waking from dreams lost.
Drearier than Zhong Xuan’s longing I feel,
As autumn is fading, and the days feel long.
I might as well drown my sorrows
to not let down the yellow chrysanthemums
that along the eastern bamboo fence still grow.
After reading the non-rhyming version above and this rhyming one, which direction do you think I should continue revising in? There are some end rhymes in the latter that seem forced (I also almost wrote “chrysanthemums yellow”), but perhaps I could revise to make them seem more nuanced. Does adding rhymes make the poem seem trite?
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