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Just a couple of words because it is Monday morning here and I have to run (how can you people write so much?) They taught me at the Translator's and Interpreter's School that the translator has to be void, a _medium_ (not someone involved in spiritism -jeex- a simple empty container, what about that! They forge you to be nobody, and they tell you that if you are nobody then you will excell). You forget who or what you are and you read the text, reprocess it, and write it down into the other language. Your proof-read as many times as you can (I usually stop when I see that I am changing again the same words I previously changed, which means that I am cooked) and that is it. There is no Anny in there, I am so sorry. If I want an Anny to come out, I write a pOm. This said, there are many levels to be considered while translating. And if you want to know if you are a translator, see if you agree with what Rebecca wrote here: And yet to the translator, it's most interesting, since it's precisely there that one is being riddled by the original. It's also those knots that are often most interesting to me as a poet in reading other's work or my own. I agree with much of what you say about reading in English or as a poet with one's own sensitivities and practice. I suspect part of the difference here is that generally I read translations with a translator's head, which is to try and circumvent my own sensitivities and practice and have a kind of identity void, full of various presences and possibilities, a willingness to be haunted by whatever the phantom is, always a most interesting encounter in translating in part because it can take me outside of my own taste and practice and poetic thinking, Do you like those knots? Yes, you are a translator. There is something of a mathematician in a translator, you have to like the problem because it is the problem that pushes you to (google things, how easy it has become now) or (to get your heavy bottom all the way to the library if you do not have enough reference books, as I used to do before). This said, I _must_ run. Take care, Anny Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 7:13 AM Subject: Re: Mark, two translations/same Cavafy poem > Hi Alison, > > No, no offence, that 'never' 'never' was just goofing. > > But in thinking about this later, I think the difference between reader's head and > translator's head is the plasticity of the text. In other words, in reading, the text > is given; however much suspension or circumvention of expectation there may > be, and I don't significantly disagree with your description of the activity of > reading, the text is there. As a reader, I anyway give myself to it. But in > 'translator's head' the text itself has alternatives, the very present alternatives of > the other translations also there, and the body of the original which may or may > not be known or known in partial degrees, and which may exist no more than as > a shimmering phantom which arises from the gaps between various given texts. > So the activity in "translator's head" is akin to being reader and writer > simultaneously but without being settled in either, the text has a sort of > plasticity. I don't know, but for me, it was most instructive to have to translate > for hire works that I ordinarily might not have. In other words, generally as a > poet who translates, I've translated works that I've been drawn to, caught in the > forcefield of, wanted to spend a lot of time with. But it's much different to be > given a text and asked to translate it, particularly if the work might not be > congenial or might not attract one's own sensibilities and so there's a much > greater sense of becoming a void. You asked how one communicates with a > void, but I'd guess the real answer is that the communication is the resulting > translation. Not sure if that makes any sense. And on the other hand, I have the > temptation to start singing (fortunately the web is inaudible for the most part) > that song, probably about 68, and surely given the knowledge existant among > listmembers someone will know whoever sang it, "yes, we have no bananas," > > best, > > Rebecca > > > Hi Rebecca > > Cool bananas. No offence taken, and none meant. > > Best > > A > > > Alison Croggon >