The art of erasing sexual subtext German translation of the Holmes canon II
Sometimes it is hard to even find the Holmes stories in the German version for their titles have been changed. In Germany, we are very bad at translating titles of books, movies or series. Here are a few examples for your amusement before we start off with our two stories of the week:
„Monty Python and the Holy Grail“- „The knights of the coconut“
(„Die Ritter der Kokosnuss“)
„And now for something completely different“- „The wonderful world of gravity“
(„Die wunderbare Welt der Schwerkraft“)
„Music and Lyrics“ - „Right in the heart- a song for you“
(„Mitten ins Herz- ein Song für dich“)
„The good, the bad and the ugly“- „Two glorious scoundrels“
(„Zwei glorreiche Halunken“)
With this knowledge I wasn’t surprised that „The noble bachelor“ was called „The vanished bride“ (Die verschwundene Braut) in the German version. So, let’s start with that story then.
I thought I wouldn’t find anything interesting here, because there are no intimate relations between Holmes and Watson despite the “my dear Watson” which is translated correctly throughout the story. I found some parts that were left out because it would be too hard to explain the differences between the US and the UK (Holmes’ believe, that the US and the UK will become one country one day; The American expressions used between the bride and her maid) or that referred to things too English to explain at that time (Whiskey and Soda; The part were St. Simon is talking about the fear of his bride being in a too high class for her upbringing). But the “feature of interest” turned out to be the hints to sexual relations, that were completely wiped out in the German version.
Lord St. Simon talks about Flora Miller when he says: “[We have been on] very friendly footing […]. I have not treated her ungenerously” which clearly implies sexual relations, while in the German version he says, he “never acted on her without dignity” / “never acted un-noble on her” (“Ich habe nicht unnobel an ihr gehandelt”) witch clearly states that there had been no sexual relations between the two.
Also, Mrs Moulton says the night in the hotel had been her “true wedding”, again implying sexual actions. In the German version, she simply says how happy she is to be reunited with her husband (“Nun war ich wieder mit meinem Gatten vereint”).
Note: These are early translations who have their origins in the German Empire under Wilhelm II. At that time, censorship laws became more strict for more than 50 years. For the act of “spreading bawdily writings” you could go to prison for one year. The Emperor wanted to go as far as to forbid any writing that “violate the sense of decency without being bawdily” (Known as the “Lex Heinze”), but was stopped by liberal protesters who claimed, that he would then have to forbid every piece of art ever made. So the translators had to be extremely careful.
That is, what makes this translation interesting for us, because it shows what people at that time considered indecent subtext that had to be written out of the story. It shows that some parts of the story have this very clear subtext.
Now, we will have a look at “The second stain”.
Watson describes Holmes a “remarkable man” which was translated to “merkwürdiger Mann”. This is not wrong per se, but “remarkable” has a positive connotation while “merkwürdig” has a negative one and could be more read as “strange” or “odd” than as “notable” or “striking”. Yeah, hard to explain… I hope you get the point.
The description of Mrs. Hope is very accurate while in the description of her husband, the “[…] endowed with every beauty of body and of mind” is missing. Also, Holmes addresses Mr. Hope as “Mr. Trelawney Hope” in the English version and as “Mr. Secretary of State” in the German one (using his title rather then his name and creating a greater distance).
And of course, woman stays “Weib”.
I got another translation from the 80s from @lorelei-lee and I will have a look at it as soon as I can. Thank you!
So thank you for reading and thanks to all the people who read my last post! I was really happy about all your “hearts”.
@our-hubris @astudyincanon @solarperplexed
