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Quite in contrast is an Indian poet who,
through an excellent poem, tries to define the tremendous
responsibility of the translator through these lines, which
are self-evident:
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Poetry translation
is A transfiguration.As a fish dives through water the translator
moves through minds. On the bank of each word, in the thick
sand, he kneels, studying the colour of each shell, blowing
each conch.37).
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Poetry translation is
the embarrassing head- transposal of the Vikramaditya tales.
The translator supports another poet's head on his trunk.
Each line is a lane worn out with war, misery and boredom.
A bylane of music along which parade immortal men, gods and
trees. An abyss opens where a line ends. The souls of the
dead quench their thirst in that pool of silence.
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O, Those who come this
way, please remove your footwear and leave your armaments
here.You must sneak through naked, like the wind in the valley.
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One day I dreamt of myself
translating my poetry into my own private language.
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| All
of us translate each poem into our own private language and
then we quarrel over the meanings. |
| It
seems to me that the Babel will never be complete. |
| K.Satchidanandan
(1984) |
| 0.2.TRANSLATION
AS REWRITING: ACCOLADES AND BRICKBATS |
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The moot question is not whether the translator has any
right to deviate by deliberately undertranslating texts or
by bringing in 'suppletions' or substitutions. Rather the
question is whether such deviations can also lead to literary
innovations in their own right, and if so, can involve rewriting
inevitably. Recall what Bassnett and Lefevere(1993) said:
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"Translation
is, of course, a rewriting of an original text. All
rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain
ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature
to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting
is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power,
and in its positive aspect can help in the evolution
of a literature and a society".
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There are times when a translator who is
himself a powerful writer and has original genius, accepts,
quite voluntarily, a 'subordinate' role in allowing the transposition
of an original author in his or her language. We know about
the Spanish ballads in English mainly through Byron's versions.
When Wilhelm Meister (1824) was translated by Carlyle, he
freed the resultant text from the mannerisms and tricks of
the original. Such interests as the English nation has been
induced to take in German literature date from the appearance
of Carlyle's translation. Such could be the influence of a
translation. What the world knows as Illiad and Odyssey today
exist, thanks to the excellent, but sometimes quite creatively
deviant, efforts by Pope who brought them out in 1715-20 and
1715-26, respectively. In fact Dryden said very clearly about
what should be an ideal aim of a literary translator in the
following words:
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"A translator
that would write with any force or spirit of the original
must never dwell on the words of his author. He ought
to possess himself entirely, and perfectly comprehend
the genius and sense of his author, the nature of the
subject, and the terms of the art or subject treated
of; and then express himself as justly, and with as
much life, as if he wrote an original; whereas he who
copies word for word losses all the spirit in the tedious
translation".
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