Introduction to Literary Translation

Dr. Noor Al-Abbood

language known as the target language. Every judicious translator must therefore be aware of
the context of the original text as well as of the grammatical rules, writing styles, and idiomatic
expressions in both languages and follow them accordingly in order to transfer the original text
faithfully, grammatically, and fluently. In literary translation, however, s/he needs to add to the
above requirements ‎‫ عط‬stylistics and literary conventions of the target language. Since literary
translation ‎‫ كأ‬an art whose success rests ‎‫ ده‬the cultural background, erudition, skill, experience,
and craft of the translator, this book revolves around the idea of practicing translation instead of
theorizing about it. Instead of cramming students' heads with theoretical terms, | prefer ‎‫ م‬follow
the practical approach that teaches students translation by practicing rather than by talking
about it. That's why the problems ١ discuss in the Introduction are practical issues derived from
my experience in literary translation in general and from my translation of the texts included in

this book in particular.

Needless to say, literary translation covers all genres: fiction (tales, fables, short stories, and
novels), drama, and poetry. However, this book is concerned only with the translation of prose
fiction for two simple reasons: 1) the translation of poetry has been excluded because it requires
higher skills than expected for the exercises in this book—it being an introduction to literary

translation—while the translation of drama does not require a more sophisticated skill than is
applicable to that of literary prose, and he who translates the one can translate the other; 2)
because | want this book to reflect my own involvement with the translation of literary prose,
outside which ١ have no experience worthy of mention.
According to Schlegel there exists a spiritual affinity between the translator and the work he

translates. What this means is that translation is in effect a labor of love not a drag or an
unpleasant chore. Denys Johnson-Davies, the most famous translator of modern Arabic literature
in the twentieth century, speaks of translation as a form of addiction. In his book Memories in
Translation, he says, "١ continually promise myself, with each book translated, that it will be the
last, and ‎‫ بتعلا‬like the nicotine addict, ١ find myself returning ‎‫ م‬the habit."* And I certainly chose

to translate the texts included in this book only because of such spiritual and intellectual affinity.
Although these texts are 'songs of experience,’ they are not all | have translated. Rather, they
represent only a slim sheaf of my translational harvest over the years. Their inclusion here,
however, is justified by their potential value to learners of practical translation.

pleasure and a practical advantage. The practical advantage, according to Ali Al-Kasimi, is
heuristic in the sense that translation instructs the translator how to become a creative writer

himself? Moreover, translation is an intercontinental bridge for intercultural trafficking, It is a

waters in the host culture.’ Translation is thus not only a means of intellectual communication
and intercultural dialogue, but also of bringing peoples closer together. Perhaps none needs to
build such bridges more than the Arabs of today—especially bridges with the West. This can be
achieved through the translation of Arabic literary masterpieces into European languages in
hopes of shattering those unfair stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims so entrenched in the

Western mentality.

Who Is Qualified to Translate Literature?

In principle, lterature should be translated only by a belletrst who s also a translator. For
instance, the translation of poetry needsto be undertaken by a poet-translator, and that of drama

by a dramatist-translator, and so on, simply because none is better equipped for the translation
of poetry and drama than the poet-translator and the dramatist-translator respectively. But in
reality, belle-lettres and translation may not coexist in the same person, or, if they do, the
belletrist who masters another language may not wish ‎‫ م‬become a "second-degree writer" of
somebody else's work—even though this might bring him more fame and prestige than his own

* Denys Johnson-Davies, Memories in Translation: A Life between the Lines ‎‫ اه‬Arabic Literature (New York & Cairo:
The American University in Cairo Press, 2006), p. 129.

451 ‫( ص‬9002 05591 ‫ مكتبة لبنان‬:‫ دراسات في النظرية والتطبيق» (بيروت‬:‫ «الترجمة وأدواتها‬,‫ علي القاسمي‬2
89 ‫ ص‬0102(1 ‫ دار الحصاد‬:‫ «العربية المعدَّبة» (دمشق‬,‫> موسى الحالول‬3
work. A case in point ‎‫ كا‬the English poet Edward FitzGerald who was little known before his

famous translation of Rubaiyyat of Khayyam. So was also the case of the German poets August
Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck whose fame was catapulted not on account of their own works
but on that of their translations of Shakespeare's plays.
So, what to do now? | repeat what | said at the beginning of the foregoing paragraph:
literature should be translated only by a belletrist who is also a translator. But a belletrist in my

opinion is not necessarily a writer with published books, or whose name is often cited in
newspapers and journals, or one who is enthusiastically interviewed on TV and radio stations. A
belletrist is also that erudite person with a refined literary taste and a heightened sense of
language. He is the kind of person who occasionally flirts with the notion of the belletristic
vocation but eventually does not succumb ‎‫ م‬its titillation—as Ali Ibn Al-Jahm says of himself: "١

said, Lady, you misjudged me: | am no poet/Even though poetry sometimes stirs in my breast.”
Now, if the mastery of a foreign language ‎‫ كا‬added to the above-mentioned ingredients, then we
have the perfect translator's recipe.

Let's Translate!
Now, let's take the following fable by Aesop and try ‎‫ م‬render it into Arabic:

The Crab and Its Mother

"Why ‎‫ مك‬you walk so crooked, child?" said an old crab to her young one. "Walk
straight!"

"Mother," ‎‫ عط‬young crab replied, "show me ‎‫ عدا‬way, and when ١ 566 you moving
straight ahead, I'll try ‎‫ م‬follow."*
‫سرطان الماء وأبوه‬
‫ "لماذا تمشي بهذا الشكل الملتويء يا بُني؟ افش‬:‫سأل سرطانٌ ماءٍ عجوزٌ صغيرّه‬
"!‫باستقامة‬
‫ فستجدني من‬.‫ وعندما أراك تمشي باستقامة‬,‫ يا أبتي‬,‫ "كن قدوةً لي‬:‫فأجابه الصغير‬
””.‫الطائعين‬

* Aesop, Aesop's Fables, selected and adapted by Jack Zipes (London: Pengin Books, 1996), p. 44.
34 ‫( ص‬1002 ‫ دار الحامد؛‬:‫" إيسوب؛ «حكايات إيسوب» ترجمة د موسى الحالول وسمر حسيب رزق (عمان‬
3
 ‫ صا‬addition to the lack of literal correspondence between‫‏‬ ‫ عدا‬two titles (for a reason that will‫‏‬

soon be clarified), we notice three changes necessitated by narrative techniques and other‫‏‬
requisites in Arabic. First, narration has been given precedence over direct speech—though the‫‏‬
case is not so in the original. Second, the direct speech of each interlocutor has been rendered in‫‏‬
one uninterrupted breath, whereas in the original there is direct speech, then narration, then‫‏‬
direct speech again. Third, | changed the original gender of the crab from feminine into masculine.‫‏‬

This latter change is justified on purely linguistic grounds: the Arabic equivalent of "crab"‫‏‬ ‫سرطان‬
is masculine not feminine—and, by a queer collusion of language and culture, this linguistically‫‏‬
justified change titillates our male-dominated Arab culture where it is the father, not the mother,‫‏‬
who is the role model and the example‫‏‬ ‫ م‬be emulated. You may have also noticed that there is‫‏‬
no literal correspondence between the source language and the target language (a trap many‫‏‬

beginning translators fall into), and that when you read the Arabic translation, you get the‫‏‬
impression that Aesop's fable about the crab and its young one was written originally in Arabic.

Does the Translator Have the Right to Change the Original Title of the Translated Work?
It is said that when the American automaker Chevrolet produced a new car called Nova in the

mid 1960's, simple folks in Mexico, south of the US border, showed no interest whatsoever in
buying the car. Reason? Nova is simply a homonym for the Spanish sentence, No va, i.e. "It doesn't
work."
Translation, too, is a product to be sold to consumers; and in order to attract the consumer
to your product, ‎‫ ناولا‬need a bit of advertisement. As such, the translator must choose a title that's

attractive to readers, not one that repels them or nip their reading impulse in the bud. Here, we
must remember that the title is a double key: a key by which the writer enters the heart of the
reader, and a key by which the reader enters the heart of the work. Now, as the translator is a
second writer of the translated work, s/he knows better than the author what's best for their

native audience. Thus, if a literal rendition of the original title serves the translator's purpose, so

be it. But if s/he finds that such literal fidelity impedes marketing the work among their targeted
audience, then they must look for a title that's suitable ‎‫ عط م‬tastes of their readers, but at the
same time it should be, if not literally derived from, at least inspired by the work itself.
Sometimes a translator might make a slight or radical modification on the original title for
pure linguistic/stylistic or cultural/marketing reasons. An example of the slight modification is
what | did with the title of Yousef El-Sharouni's story ‎‫( الضحك حتى البكاء‬literally, "Laughing unto

Crying"), where | thought it best to render it as "Fits of Tears and Laughter." Let's also look at
‎»‫«تلك العتمة الباهرة‬, a novel by the Moroccan Taher Ben Jalloun. This novel, originally written in
French and entitled Cette aveuglante absence de lumiére, was translated by the late Bassam
Hajjar. Such a title ‎‫ مق‬be easily and literally rendered into English as That Blinding Absence ‎‫اه‬
Light, while in Arabic it cannot be rendered literally without some remarkable sacrifices. That's

why the translator had to translate absence de lumiére (literally, "absence of light") as ‎‫العتمة‬
(literally, "gloom™), while the adjective aveuglante (literally, "blinding") was translated into Arabic
as ‎‫( الباهرة‬literally, "the dazzling"). Now, had it not been for the demonstrative Cette, which
means that the noun following it ‎‫ كا‬perforce definite, it would have been easy to translate the
original French title literally and correctly as ‎‫غيابٌ ضوءٍ يُغمي الأبصار‬. But such a rendition does

not account for the omission of the demonstrative Cette nor for the indefiniteness of absence de
lumiére.
Radical modifications, which are totally unrelated to original titles, are found in more than
one place in this book. However, | will only mention two stories here. The first story is "Paul" by
a contemporary American writer from Alaska named Mary Lockwood. Needless ‎‫ م‬say, Paul is a

Christian name that has an Arabic equivalent: Boulos, albeit a corruption of the Greek Paulos. As
the targeted audience for this book is the Arab (mostly Muslim) reader, | chose to give the story
a title of my own, that is, ‎‫( الهدية القاتلة‬literally, "The Deadly Gift"). | believe this oxymoronic title,
which is inspired by the finale of the story, is more likely to entice the Arab Muslim reader than
the plain "Paul.” | am sure you are now wondering, How could a gift ‎‫ عط‬deadly? Well, if you want

the answer, all you have to do is read the story!

The second story whose title | have drastically changed ‎‫" كا‬What We Wanted to Do" by the
contemporary American writer Ron Carlson. If literally rendered, the title would be ‎‫ما أردنا أن‬
‎‫نفعله‬. However, | personally find such a title too plain in Arabic. That's why | have replaced it by
‎‫( الزيت المغلي‬literally, "The Boiling 011"(. | hope the reader will find this not-so-farfetched title

more attractive. Finally, | only need ‎‫ م‬add that | am neither the first translator ‎‫ ف‬modify original
titles of literary works, whether slightly ‎‫ عه‬drastically, 7or the last, | suppose.

Should We Use the Same Punctuation Marks Used in the Original?

To begin with, punctuation marks in modern Arabic are a recent importation, via translation,
from European languages such as English, French, and others. And though the use of these marks

in modern Arabic started well over a century ago, many Arab writers and publishers today still
cannot use them correctly. Hence the current chaos in numerous Arabic publications, which adds
another burden to the woes of the translator from Arabic. Yet, despite temptations to the
contrary, | have left unchanged all punctuation in the Arabic texts used in this book. However, in
my English translations of these texts, | have followed the conventions of the target language.

Related to punctuation ‎‫ كا‬the use of other marks such as!italics

in English, which is not
without significance. ‎‫ ما‬Maya Angelou's story "The Peckerwood Dentist and Momma's Incredible
Powers," there are whole paragraphs in italics. The heroine, Maya Angelou herself, tells the story
of a racist white dentist who refuses to treat her because she ‎‫ كا‬a "Nigger." In her recollection of
this incident, Angelou jumbles facts and fiction together, using the stream of consciousness

technique. Ths, facts are written in normal script, whereas what she wishes to have happened is

render these italicized paragraphs into bolded ones—simply because | find italics ‎‫ ما‬Arabic, which
‫ صا‬the above-mentioned story by Ron Carlson, the idiotic narrator (who‫‏‬ ‫ كا‬also the defense‫‏‬
official in a town constantly under attack) wants to assure his compatriots that the last enemy‫‏‬
attack on their town was not so bad as reported by the media. While the narrator pathetically‫‏‬
tries to cover the sun with a mosquito net (where he admits to plunder happening but not to

pillaging, as if they were different), el otice thatsthe wiiter had)ealicized the phvase in which
the narrator denies any pillaging! Of course, we know that, unless it stylistically offsets the title
of a book, the purpose of italics is to emphasize a certain word or phrase. The narrator says, "The
Visigoths... did penetrate the city and rape and plunder for several hours, but there was no
pillaging" ١١ this case, | chose ‎‫ م‬translate the italicized phrase as if it were written in normal
script, then | added to it the phrase ‎‫( أؤكد‬literally, "I assure"), concomitant couplers, and other

discourse markers: ‎‫ فاغتصبوا وسلبوا لعدة ساعات؛ لكني أؤكد لكم‬... ‫لقد اخترق الغوط الغربيون المدينة‬

‎‫ أنه لم يكن هناك نإهبطلاقًا‬1 acded ight: seeim a bit Superfiuous, while in fact all I did ias|
verbalize what's already suggested i the punctuation of the text, and I had no other way.
Though the use of italics has not yet been domesticated in Arabic narrative norms, | have
used it myself ‎‫ صا‬my English translation of "The Dictator's Delicacy” by Ahmad Al-Nu'aimi. When
 ‫ عط‬dictator of the story wonders a la Don Quixote, What if I pulled the Sun by her braids and,‫‏‬

with a slap from my hand, piled the Moon‫‏‬ ‫ مه‬top of her, killed them both, and wrested my past‫‏‬
out of their jaws? | rendered the dictator's speculation in italics to underscore the fact that these‫‏‬
daydreams come from a recess too deep even for his unconscious to articulate in public. Thus,‫‏‬
these daydreams need ‎‫ م‬be offset ‎‫ صا‬format from ‎‫ عط‬rest of his otherwise verbalized speech.

Should | Keep the Same Order of Paragraphs As in the Original?

That depends on the narrative techniques in Arabic and English. For instance, the following
two paragraphs from Abdo Khal's tale, "Spare Me the Advice," ‎‫ صق‬be easily incorporated in one
paragraph in order to keep the narrative flowing and be in sync with narrative norms in English:

‫ فمر به طائر‬¢ ‫ويضاةف ؛رة الظلال‬

‫كان السمندل مسترخياً بتكاسل متناةٍ تحت ظل شجرة عر‬
: ‫وصاح فيه‬
‫ يا صاح الشجرة مائلة وتوشك أن تسقط عليك فانج بنفسك‬-

A salamander was lazing out in absolute relaxation under the plentiful shade of a big
tree when a bird passed by and called out ‎‫ م‬him, "My friend, the tree ‎‫ كا‬bending and

is about to fall on you. So, run for your life!"

You will have noticed that | changed the dash (—) at the beginning of the second paragraph
into double quotes (") and that | embedded the bird's speech within the narrator's. Were it not

for these double quotes and the capital M in "My," you would not have guessed, by the look of

things, where the bird's speech began. All of these changes were of course made in keeping with
narrative conventions in English, which you must master if you wish to translate an Arabic
fictional text into English and you want your translation to be taken seriously.

How Good Is Literal Translation?

Western translation experts often cite this typical sentence, 7/76 cat chases the mouse, to
claim that it is the only sentence that can be translated literally, where no two translators, even
if they were machines, will differ in translating it in the same manner into other European
languages. However, the flexible structure of Arabic will demonstrate that even such a simple
sentence can be translated in a number of different ways. For instance, it can be translated into
a simple nominal sentence ,ifill ‎ٌ‫القطةٌ تطارد‬, or even ‎ٌ‫القطةٌ الفأرة تطارد‬, or, alternatively, into two

nominal sentences prefaced with an emphatic determiner such as: ‎‫ إنَ القطة تطارد الفأرة‬or i,iill f,!
‎‫ بتُطاردها القطة‬or into a simple verbal 56016066 such as ‎‫تُطارد القطةٌ الفأرة‬
The great Mexican poet Octavio Paz says we are wrong to believe that translation exists only
between two foreign languages. On the contrary, says he, it exists within the same language as
well. As an example, he cites the case of the child who asks his mother about the meaning of an

unfamiliar word he hears for the first time. In this case, the child practically asks his mother to
translate the new word into an already familiar word, which ‎‫ كا‬essentially what translation ‎‫ كا‬all
about. Arabic is rife with culture-specific or historically resonant phrases which cannot be literally
translated in a manner that produces the desired effect.
Take, for example, a phrase like ‎‫( قميص عثمان‬literally, "Othman's shirt"). It originally refers

to the murder of the Rightly-Guided Caliph Othman Ibn Affan in Medina and how his followers
took his blood-stained shirt to the holy city of Mecca in order to stir up people there against his
assassins. Thus, the phrase came ‎‫م‬ ‫ مقعم‬in Arabic ‎‫خلافية‬ ‫( مسألة‬i.e,, "a controversial issue").

You see here that the translation of a phrase like this is a two-tier process: first, from idiomatic
Arabic into literal Arabic, and, second, from literal Arabic into English.

A similar phrase is 53..; ‎ٌ‫( نعم؛ وما أنصق القوم‬roughly, "Yes, people were unfair to Dhabba"),
which ١ used in my own story ‎‫"( أبانا الذي في الفاتيكان‬Our Father Who Art in the Vatican"). But
where does this phrase come from? And who is this Dhabba? A simpleton from the tribe of Asad,
Dhabba is a man famously satirized by Al-Mutanabbi in a well-known poem which begins as
follows, "Unfair were people ‎‫ م‬Dhabba, 50 were they ‎‫ م‬his hag of the sagging ‎‫ دا "كات‬this poem,

Al-Mutanabbi pretends to be sympathetic with Dhabba whose father was murdered and mother
gang-raped by the same people. As you ‎‫ صق‬665 a phrase like this ‎‫ صق‬throw a great deal of light
on the story in which it was used. Thus, you have two options: either to translate it literally (and
in this case, you have to explain in an ample footnote the meaning and historical origin of the
phrase as | did above) or, more conveniently, look for a cultural equivalent in English (which is

what | did when | translated my own story into English as follows: "True, and no one seems to
have given ‎‫ عدا‬devil his due"). It must ‎‫ عط‬noted, however, that cultural equivalents between the
source and target languages are not necessarily identical either in their historical origin or
symbolic value. Thus, they are to be used as mere approximations.
Now, let's take the following story, albeit slightly adapted, from 7/2 Compendium of Proverbs
by Al-Maydani:

‎‫ لا أنا ولا أنت حتى تُخرج هذه‬:‫ فقالت المرأة للزوج‬.‫ كبيرة‬3 ‫يُحكى أن رجلاً تزوج امرأةً وله‬
‎‫العجوز عناء فلما أكثرث عليه احتملها على عُنقه ليلا ثم أق بها وادياً كثيرَ السباع فرمى بها‬
‎‫ ما يُبكيك يا عجوز؟ قالت طرحني ابني ههنا‬:‫ ثم تنكّر لهاء فمر بها وهي تبكيء فقال‬.‫فيه‬
‎‫ تبكين له وقد فعل بك ما فعل؟ هلتادعين‬:‫؛ فقال لها‬.‫وذهب وأنا أخاف أن يفترسه الأسد‬
‎.‫ له ذلك بنأاَتُلَنِيِي‬b ‎:‫عليه؟ قالت‬

The first likely obstacle to face a green translator is how to render ‎‫( لا أنا ولا أنت‬literally,
"neither | nor you"), a phrase whose exact meaning might ‎‫ عط‬incomprehensibleto many. However,
the context of the tale reveals that this statement was said by a bride to her groom on their
wedding night. Thus, ‎‫ عط‬groom, under the great pressure of ‎‫ كا يكنا‬so compelled to please his

whimsical bride that ‎‫ عط‬agrees ‎‫ م‬put his own mother ‎‫ صا‬harm's way. And unless he does so, his
bride won't allow him to satisfy his lust. The second likely obstacle to arise is understanding the
words of the mother, ‎‫ تأ له ذلك بناتٌ يي‬which became an axiom. Here, 0066 again, we find
ourselves compelled to translate her words into contemporary Arabic first. And only when we
learn that her words mean ‎‫ على ذلك‬E,i.é?LLé ‎‫( إن قلبي لا‬roughly, "I do not have the heart for
that"), does it become possible to translate the whole tale into English, after dividing it into
paragraphs as required in English narratives:
It is told that a man wedded a woman, and that ‎‫ عط‬had an old mother. Now the
wife said to her husband, "There shall be nothing between you and me until you get
rid of this old woman!" When the wife persisted in her demands, he carried his mother

on his shoulders at night, took her to a valley full of lions, and threw her there.
Disguising himself, he then passed by her and found her crying.
"What makes you cry, Old Woman?" he asked her.
"My son discarded ‎‫ عد‬here ‎‫ اعمج‬left," said she. "And I'm afraid ‎‫ عط‬might be
devoured by the lions."

"You cry over him in spite of what ‎‫ عط‬did to you?" said he. "Why don't you wish
him evil?" he urged her.
"l don't have the heart for that," she replied.

In light of the above, | used the word wedded instead of married because the former refers
to the ceremony of wedding and other legal formalities, whereas the latter signifies the

consummation of marriage. | also translated the phrase ‎‫" وة لاأنا ولا أنت‬There shall be nothing
between ‎‫ ناولا‬and me." You may have noticed that | used shal/instead of the more common wifj,
as the former suggests a more adamant determination on the part of the bride to carry out her
wicked plan.
Of pertinence to the issue of literal translation is the order of words in the original sentence.

Here, you are under no obligation to translate word for word in the exact same order of the
original text—especially when you are translating between two syntactically incompatible
languages such as Arabic and English. The only obligation you have is to translate the meaning
faithfully (i.e., no omission or addition except where necessary), but at the same time your faithful
rendition of the original should not mean upsetting the stylistic or grammatical conventions of

the target language. As such, and for stylistic reasons that make your translation read smoothly,
you may choose to begin translating a sentence or paragraph from the very end. This compels
you to mentally rearrange the words of the original sentence or paragraph before you commit
them ‎‫ م‬paper. For instance, when ١ set out ‎‫ م‬translate ‎‫ عط‬opening paragraph in Dr. Mayya Al-
Rahabi's story, "The Epidemic," | decided ‎‫ م‬begin from the last sentence in that paragraph. When

| showed this ‎‫ م‬the writer,

who is fluent in English, she gave it her approval. Now to the paragraph
in question:

‫في بلاد لا تشبه بلادنا بشيء؛ ففيها السهول تتمادى مع الهضاب والينابيع تنبثق من أعالي‬
‫ وطقسها لا يشبه طقس بلادنا بشيء؛ فالخريف فيها يتلو الصيف والربيع يتلو‬.‫الجبال‬
‫الشتاء وفي زمان لا يشبه زماننا بشيء ففيه يقبع الناس جل وقتهم في بيوتهم وعيونهم‬
.ً‫معلقة بصناديق مضيئة لامعة؛ حدث ما لم يحدث في التاريخ أبدا‬
And here is how | rendered it—though with a pinch of personal spices:‫‏‬
It was a unique historical phenomenon. It happened in a land which was totally‫‏‬
unlike ours, for its plains adjoined the hills, its springs gushed out of‫‏‬
mountaintops, and its climate was totally unknown‫‏‬ ‫ ركنا م‬for its Autumn came‫‏‬

after Summer, and Spring after Winter. The age in which it also happened was no‫‏‬
less strange: for the people would spend most of their time at home, their eyes‫‏‬
glued to bright silver boxes.

What Should ١ Do about a Phrase in a Language Other Than the Source Language?

10
 There is a good convention in academic research called interpolation, where a bracketed text

is injected within a verbatim citation. Unless the citation is verbatim, the use of square brackets
is unnecessary. Interpolation is usually used: 1) to indicate the omission of something from the
original citation, and such omission ‎‫ كا‬indicated thus: [...]; 2) to interpret or explain an unfamiliar

word or phrase in the citation, with the understanding that the bracketed interpretation or
explanation should follow on the heels of the unfamiliar word/phrase; 3) to draw attention to a

typo, a spelling ‎‫ عه‬grammatical error in the original citation, and such errors are indicated by [sic].
The ultimate goal of interpolation is absolute fidelity to the literalness of the citation, which
stipulates that no omissions from, or additions to, the citation are to be interpolated without
indicating them. Even typos, spelling or grammatical errors are NOT to be corrected; however,
they should be pointed out so that the reader will know that these errors are in the original.

Since fidelity is also required of the translator, the convention of interpolation is equally
recommended. As this is an educational textbook, | have on occasion also used interpolation in
both the original and the translation. | have done so with discretion—in cases where | come across
a profanity, a typo, a spelling error in the original text, or where translation alone falls short of
the purpose and thus requires a bit of elaboration. On the other hand, interpolations in the

translations will be explained in the following paragraphs.

If there is a dialogue ‎‫ صا‬English between two characters, ‎‫ معط‬one of these said something in
Italian, for instance, | could simply translate the Italian statement into Arabic but should also add
‎]‫[( [بالإيطالية‬in Italian]) so that the reader knows that this ‎‫ كا‬the translator's interpolation. Let's
The story ‎‫ كا‬about an American
take the following example from "Cat in the Rain" by Hemingway.

lady stuck with her husband on a rainy day in an Italian hotel. When the lady peeks out of her
window overlooking the street, she spots a cat taking shelter from the rain under a table, and so
she decides to go downstairs to get it. At the entrance to the hotel, there begins an awkward
dialogue between ‎‫ عط‬American lady, who does not know Italian well, and the maid, who does not
know English well, either. Here is an excerpt:

The maid looked up at her.

" Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?"
And below is my Arabic rendition:
‎:]‫تطلعت الخادمة إليها وسألتها [بالإيطالية‬
‎"‫"هل أضعتٍ شيئًا يا سيدي؟‬

11
 One might ask, Was the translator's interpolation necessary? The answer is, Yes, because

how else will the reader of the translation know that that part of the original dialogue was in
Italian? And since the author was keen on making one of his characters speak in a language other
than English, this compels us to be faithful to the original, not to mention the necessity of drawing
attention to the aesthetic value of spicing up the language of the story with an occasional
foreignism.

But some texts with foreignisms in them may not, for various reasons, be as easy to deal with
as was Hemingway's above-mentioned text. Let's take the following example from Joseph
Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness.
Often far away there | thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness,
knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously

to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with
unconcerned old eyes. Ave. Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant.

In the last line, we note the presence of the Latin word Ave, followed by an English sentence,
then a Latin sentence. Here the nature of the text compels us to deal differently with these

Latinisms. The above text is an excerpt from a retrospective narration by Marlow about his first
meeting with two ladies in the headquarters of the Belgian company that sent him to the Congo.
When the old lady regards him with her "unconcerned old eyes," ‎‫ عط‬begins ‎‫ م‬think ‎‫ صا‬Latin. Of
course, this is not without significance. And unless the translator realizes this significance, much
is lost ‎‫ ص‬the translation—to the chagrin of the reader. Here ‎‫ كا‬how ١ translated the excerpt in

question:
‫ هاتان المرأتان الحارستان على باب الظلام؛ تحيكان‬,‫ولطالما خطرت ببالي؛ وأنا بعيدٌ هناك‬
‫ من تقديم الوجوه المرحة الحمقاء إلى‬JS5‫ واحدة لا ‏‬,‫صوقًا أسود كأنه نسيجٌ كفن ثخين‬
‫ آفيه [سلامًا] يا‬.‫ بينما الأخرى تتفحصهم بعينيها العجوزين اللامباليتين‬,‫مصيرها المجهول‬
.]‫ موريتوري تو ساليوتانت [لكِ من الموشكين على الموت سلام‬.‫عجوزًا تحيك صوفًا أسود‬

Here, the text made it impossible for me to interpolate a phrase like [in Latin], not to mention it
is not enough. Instead, | transliterated the two Latinisms in Arabic, followed by their bracketed
Arabic translations. | also added a footnote saying, "The reason why the narrator salutes the old
lady in Latin is that she reminds him of Roman emperors before wrestling matches, where the

12
contestants must stand in the arena and salute the emperor in the same formula, knowing all too

well that they have only two choices: win or die." Imagine how much of the text's humorous charge
would be lost if | were to make do with a simple translation of those Latinisms without bothering
to mention they even existed in the first place!
This leads us an old/new issue: Is what I'm doing translation or interpretation? Sometimes a
translator has to act as both a translator and an interpreter. However, we must stress the fact

that interpreting is of secondary importance and that it can sometimes be dispensed with;
whereas translation is, to state the obvious, always indispensable. But when can a translator give
up his role as an interpreter? This is possible if the text to be translated is intelligible, or without
some esoteric cultural or historical allusions that might be beyond the comprehension of the
reader. For instance, while working on my Arabic translation of The Complete Short Stories ‎‫اه‬

Ernest Hemingway | discovered that | had sometimes ‎‫ م‬perform ‎‫ عط‬double role of translator-
interpreter for two simple reasons. First, there are too many allusions in these stories to military,
political, and athletic personalities that were well known to Hemingway's American audience
when these stories were published several decades ago. The Arab reader, on the other hand, may
not have the luxury of knowing these personalities which have been long since forgotten. So, |

figured that ١ should supply the reader with all the necessary information that might shed light
on those dark nooks and crannies s/he comes across every now and then in Hemingway's stories.
The second reason has to do with Hemingway's skeletal, unembellished style. Hemingway called
this style the iceberg principle. He explains that an iceberg is one eighth above water and seven
eighths are submerged under the surface. This means that the reader
of a Hemingway story needs

to dive below the surface in order to uncover those seven eighths. But the Arab reader may not
be able to dive to those depths unless s/he is assisted and guided by the translator. For this
reason, | provided the translation with over 480 footnotes—all for the sole purpose of dispelling
the mist that might blur the vision of the unseasoned reader.

Colloquialisms, Puns, Anyone?

If you come across a colloquial phrase or sentence, you should mirror this in your translation
because, surely, no author uses colloquialisms without a good reason. For instance, when the
narrator in Ron Carlson's above-mentioned story speaks about the invention of a cauldron which
the villagers set up above the entrance of their village and fill up with boiling oil in order to pour

13
on the heads of their enemies when they attack, he initially describes this invention as "the

greatest strategic defense system in the history of mankind." But Carlson sometimes uses the
word potas a synonym for cauldron. And unless we take note of the sarcasm latent in his use of
pot, the translated story will ‎‫ عط‬stripped of that biting sense of humor peculiar to Carlson.
In the following excerpt, the narrator uses cau/dron twice and potonce; a judicious translator
with an eye on nuances of meaning will readily perceive this sudden shift with all its concomitant

sarcastic baggage.
The cauldron was expensive. We all knew that a good defense was going to be
costly. The cauldron was manufactured locally after procuring copper and brass
from our mines, and it took—as is common knowledge—two years to complete.
It is a beautiful thing capable of holding one hundred and ten gallons of oil. What

we could not foresee was the expense and delay of building an armature. Well, of
course, it's not enough ‎‫ م‬have a big pot, pretty as it may be; how are you going
to pour its hot contents on your enemies?
That's why | tried ‎‫ م‬find a word that will produce ‎‫ عط‬same humorous effect as pot, even if
this meant the use of a slang word in Arabic:

‫ لقد‬.‫ وكلنا كان يدرك أن الدفاع الجيد لا بد أن يكون مكلفًا‬.‫كانت تكلفة المرجل باهظة‬
‫صتّعنا المرجل محليًا بعد الحصول على النحاس الأحمر والأصفر من مناجمناء واستغرق‬
‫ ما‬.‫ إنه شيءٌ جميل يتسع لمئة وعشرة غالونات من الزيت‬.‫إكماله؛ كما هو معروف؛ سنتين‬
‫ بالطبع لايكفي‬.‫بناء هذه الترسانة والتأخيرات التي طرأت‬ ‫تأًكبهلهوفة‬
‫لم نستطع أن نتنب‬
‫محتوياتها‬ ‫ستصب‬ ‫ بل كيف‬:‫ بالعًّا ما بلغت من الجمال‬.‫أنتكون لديك صَنْجّرة كبيرة‬
‫الحارقة على أعدائك؟‬
It seems to me that in the last sentence Carlson wanted to interrupt the narrator of his story,
who has been in the previous paragraphs singing the praises of his deplorable invention, in order
to put things in perspective and tell the reader that what the narrator has called the greatest
strategic defense system in the history of mankind is actually no more than a pot! Of course, |

could have used the standard Arabic word ,a8 for pot instead of ‎‫طنجرة‬, but would it have the
same funny effect?
In Maya Angelou's story, "The Peckerwood Dentist and Momma's Incredible Powers," the
heroine imagines that her grandmother stormed the racist dentist's clinic, held him by the collar,
and scolded him while he was apologizing for his misbehavior. But her response to his apology is

14
in colloquial English. ١ could have translated this colloquial response into standard Arabic (as

elsewhere in the story) were it not for the fact that the narrator herself states ‎‫ م‬the next breath

that her grandmother's response was colloquial—thus leaving me no other option but to
acknowledge this fact and, in translational terms, follow her lead.
With just an edge of her disgust showing, Momma slung him back in his dentist’s
chair. "Sorry ‎‫ كأ‬as sorry does, and you're about the sorriest dentist | ever laid my

eyes ‎‫مه‬." (She could afford to slip into the vernacular because she had such
elogquent command of English.)
The question, however, is, Into which variety of colloquial Arabic ‎‫ | مك‬translate the
grandmother's response? There are various Arabic slangs, and choosing one over ‎‫ عط‬others
makes ‎‫ ناولا‬biased. So, | had to choose a slang which ‎‫ كا‬understandable ‎‫ م‬all native speakers of

Arabic but at the same time has no particular regional color.

‫ "يا حيف بش‬.‫ ثم قذفته لِتُعيده إلى كرسيه‬,‫لقليل‬Y]‫رمقثه جدتٍ باشمئزاز لم يَبن منه ا‏‬
‫ أخس طبيب أسنان شفته بحياتي" (كانت تطيق الانزلاق إلى العامية بسبب‬Sl‫‏‬ .‫عليك‬
.)‫تمكّنها من فنون البيان والفصاحة‬
While translating 7/56 Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, | had to face the

author's play ‎‫ ده‬words in more than one story, though dealing with this aspect was not
insurmountable in the final analysis. One particular story entitled "The Denunciation,” however,
initially seemed to present an unsolvable problem. The narrator asks a Greek captain, who came
to Spain to fight with the Republicans against the Fascists during the Spanish civil war, about his
opinion of Latin America. The captain's answer ‎‫ كا‬incomprehensible to ‎‫ عط‬narrator because of

the captain's mispronunciation:

"Is alright. Only too many oc-toe-pus."
"Too many what?"
"Oc-toe-pus." He pronounced it with the accent ‎‫ مه‬the ‎‫ عم‬as oc-toe-pus. "You
know with the eight arms."

"Oh," | said. "Octopus."

But before ١ give you my own Arabic rendition, let me ‎‫ الع‬you an anecdote that helped me
overcome the obstacle that faced me in translating the above excerpt. It is said that a British
prime minister, on a visit ‎‫ م‬a Scandinavian country, was once speaking to a huge crowd in a
football stadium, and that during the speech he told a joke. The joke, however, was language-

15
specific, thus untranslatable. Realizing the snag ahead of him, the quick-witted translator solved

the problem by saying, "His Excellency told a joke. Will you please laugh." And the audience did
oblige—and wholeheartedly, too. With his quick wit the translator thus saved the situation and
produced the desired effect of the original joke: making the audience laugh.
The literary translator, too, sometimes has to resort to similar ruses to achieve the same end,
albeit by different means. The miscommunication between the narrator and the Greek captain in

the Hemingway story is the result of: a) shifting the stress off the first syllable; b) elongating the
middle syllable in the tri-syllabic oc-to-pus through his mispronunciation of to; c) stressing this
syllable so that he pronounced it as if it were toe.
As stress in English ‎‫ كا‬mirrored by ‎‫ التشديد‬in Arabic, | had to stress the ‎‫ الباء‬in ‎‫الأخطبوط‬--
thus changing
the bi-syllabic word into a tri-syllabic one—in order
to translate the above excerpt

as follows:

".‫"لا بأس بها من بلاد؛ لولا الأخ طتّوط‬

”‫"لولا ماذا؟‬
"‫ "ذو الأرجل الثمانية‬.‫" لفظ الكلمة واضعًا التشديد على الباء‬.‫"الأخ طبّوط‬
A‫" قلت ‏‬:‫"أوه؛ الأخطبوط‬
While the English reader's attention ‎‫ كا‬drawn to the middle syllable in "oc-toe-pus,” thus
leading him/her ‎‫ م‬think of a toe, the Arab reader's ‎‫ كا‬drawn ‎‫ م‬the first syllable in ‎‫ عدا‬word
‎‫الأخطبوط‬, which is likely to make him/her wonder who this ‎‫ الأخ طتّوط‬might ‎‫ط‬6. As you can 566
miscommunication in both the original and the translation is equally the same: the result of a
mispronunciation! But after all, doesn't the secret of literary translation lie in producing in the

recipient the same aesthetic effect by different means?

But, Is Everything Translatable?

Of course, not. It should be taken for granted that there are untranslatable things, no matter
what the translator's gift, wit, or craft might be. For instance, how ‎‫ صق‬anyone on the planet

translate the following Arabic statements into English?

.‫ بكسر الهاء‬allls .1‫‏‬
.ٌ‫ ثلثا الهَرَم هَم‬.2
In the above examples, the speaker capitalizes‫‏‬ ‫ ده‬an Arabic-specific aspect, which is‫‏‬
untranslatable into English as it has ‎‫ ده‬equivalent. ‎‫ دا‬the first example, the prepositional phrase

16
‫الهاء‬ ‫ بكسر‬draws attention to the genitive case marker of‫‏‬ ‫ عط‬preceding utterance‫‏‬ ‫ م‬underscore‫‏‬

the fact that it is a solemn oath. While it is true that European languages do have the genitive‫‏‬
case, it does not necessarily mark oath expressions, nor does it need a special diacritic to mark it‫‏‬
as does Arabic. The second example, however, can be correctly and literally translated as "Aging‫‏‬
is two thirds worry," but such a translation only conveys the semantic content of the adage, and‫‏‬
fails to convey the genius morphological composition of the original, where the two consonants‫‏‬

HaM (worry) /iterallymake up two thirds of HaRaM (aging). There are numerous other instances‫‏‬
that categorically prove the existence of inter-lingual gaps that cannot be bridged by the brush‫‏‬
of translation, but this is not the right place to elaborate on this unfortunate hiccup. After all, by‫‏‬
practically demonstrating the feasibility of translation, the goal of this book is to motivate‫‏‬
students to translate rather than frustrate them by stressing the untranslatable.‫‏‬

In conclusion, | must state that there are no hard and fast rules to be followed in literary
translation. Just as literary genres develop daily and styles vary, so do the approaches to literary
translation. One can even claim that there are as many approaches to translation as there are
translators, and these, too, develop with the passage of time. What | said in this Introduction does
not constitute an integrated approach to literary translation; rather, it is an assemblage of views

based on my own personal experience. These views would have been simply impossible to
articulate were it not for my practically being 7/0 the field. In none of the works | translated 50 far
have | ever proceeded from a prior theoretical frame. On the contrary, my driving concern has
always been ‎‫ م‬proceed with the translation, then let the text take me ‎‫ م‬whichever direction it
goes, but | keep correcting, proofreading, and revising until | am satisfied that the product in my

hands is a palpable, viable work ready ‎‫ مع م‬public.

17
 ResearchGate

Sec discussions, stas, and author rofiles for this publication a: ./ researehgate et pubication 307689563

Translating the “literary” in literary translation in practice

Article - December 2015
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David Katan
Universita del Salento
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Lingue e Linguaggi
Lingue Linguaggi 14 (2015), 7-29
ISSN 2239-0367, e-ISSN 2239-0359
DOI 10.1285/i22390359v14p7
http://siba-ese.unisalento.it, © 2015 Universita del Salento

TRANSLATING THE “LITERARY”

IN LITERARY TRANSLATION IN PRACTICE
DAVID KATAN
UNIVERSITY OF SALENTO

Abstract — The aim of this paper is ‎‫ ما‬explore ‎‫‘ عط‬literary’ in literary translation. It begins
with a discussion of what makes a text literary, focussing on some very famous literary
works which did not (and indeed do not) necessarily fit what is generally considered the
literary canon. The features that translators should identify when first reading a text, on the
look-out for potential literary value, are then outlined. These features are both textual
(covering non-casual language, rhetorical features and equivalences) and contextual
(connotations, implicatures, intratextual and culture-bound associations).
The paper then discusses changing translation theory and practice, in particular illustrating
points with comments made by translators and theorists in this book and elsewhere.
Importance is also given ‎‫ ما‬the profession itself, ‎‫ ما‬literary translator beliefs about their
1016, ‎‫ عط‬changing importance of the model reader and ‎‫ ما‬changing beliefs about accepted
style, making reference also to results of a global survey recently carried out ‎‫ نه‬the
subject.

Keywords: translation theory; translation practice; literary translation.

1. Literary and non-literary translation

technical. Indeed, there are over 13 million Google hits for “literary and
technical and translation”; and the differences ‎‫ ته‬the surface appear ‎‫ ما‬be so
profound that university courses clearly differentiate between one and the
other. On one side, apart from modules ‎‫‘ نه‬translation’, one course will
devote more space to literature; while the other will certainly have modules
on IT and CAT tools.

. Also, of course, literary translators today rely on internet

resources such as Google, Google Books (Salusso, this volume), Google
images (Parini, this volume, fn.) and Google Ngram Viewer (Dixon, this

‫م‬
8 DAVID KATAN

volume). Dixon also mentions the fact that the reader too has internet at her
finger tips; all the more true today with e-books which come ready installed
with on-screen dictionaries, translations and Wikepedia available at the touch
of the word. Yet, the fact that IT began aiding (or encroaching) on non-
literary translation ‎‫ قا‬a clear indication ‎‫ له‬the fact that literary translation

Apart from the supposed artistic/scientific divide, there is certainly a

difference in visibility. Though, Venuti (1998) rails against the invisibility of
translators,
translator/interpreterwhose name will generally be known ‎‫ ما‬the end user.
Indeed, the translator’s name should legally appear on the cover of the
translated work, and the translator has (in theory) rights deriving from her
work
derivative
as a author (Blésius 2003).
In an unusual copyright twist, Ian Halliday (this issue) recounts how D.
H. Lawrence as translator earned the royalties rather than Giovanni Verga’s
immediate heirs; and as if ‎‫ ما‬mark the point, the front cover of the first
English edition (1925) of Novelle Rusticane/ Little Novels of Sicily actually
has D. H. Lawrence’s name in a decidedly larger font than that of Verga.
It also transpires that a number of translators do, in fact, appear as
‘author’. Else Vieira (1999) highlights the case of Haroldo ‎‫ عل‬Campos, whose
‘transcreation” of Goethe’s Faust into Brazilian-Portuguese resulted in
Goethe’s name being substituted on the front cover, with that of de Campos,
while the original author appeared on the inside cover. Though, in general,
‘prominence’ and ‘fame’ ‎‫ مل‬not in general collocate with ‘translator’, there
are countries, such as China and Japan (Tanabe 2010), where literary
translators not only have visibility but are revered. Closer ‎‫ ما‬home, Sela-
Sheffy (2008, p. 615) recounts that in Israel, a number of literary translators
have actually become media “stars”; and Edith Grosman, the American
Spanish translator, is well-known enough ‎‫ ما‬have an entry on the Internet
movie Data Base (IMDB) — though her actual translations are included in the
“trivia” section.
In the Anglo-Italian world, William Weaver earned himself a Guardian
obituary, which began by lauding him as “the greatest of all Italian
translators”.! However, ‎‫ عط‬was not ‎‫ عط ما‬seen on TV chat shows. In Italy, star
status appears ‎‫ عط ما‬even more limited, and ‎‫ كه‬D’Egidio (this issue) notes,
reader reviews tend not even to notice that what they have read is a
translation.
There 15 little translation into English, and though there is a steady
translation market into Italian, of 500-700 works/year (Fina, this issue) this is
not enough to keep most translators alive. Estimates suggest that the literary

! http://www. theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/18/william-weaver
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 9

translation market accounts for between 1% and a maximum of 7% of the

world market (Katan 2009, pp. 9-10), which consequently means that a

and will tend to have another, fuller time job in ‎‫ د‬related field (Katan 2011).
Professional translators, in general, according ‎‫ ما‬an ongoing i global
survey,” though traditionally perceived as underpaid, in reality, are likely ‎‫م‬
eam well over ‎‫ عط‬national average ‎‫ تحدم‬for their particular country, with a
peak of nearly 50% of the 600+ respondents claiming to earn up to twice the
national average, and just under 5% earning up to five times the national
average.’ Hardly surprisingly, the sub-group of ‘mainly literary’ translators
(63 replies) report lower earnings: only 3596 earmn up to twice the national
average, with 6% earming up ‎‫ ما‬5 times the national average.
If we accept that literary and non-literary translation are different, then
there will be some identifiable translation strategies, techniques and
procedures which appertain particularly to literary translation. And it is this
area which I would like to focus on. We will begin, first, with the theory.

2. Defining the literary genre

The literary genre is notoriously difficult to define. If we begin with the

traditional canons, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, we have: “Written

time. The American writer Mark Twain, for example, is now regarded a great
literary genius, and/Huckleberry
Finn “the genesis of all American literature”
(Ulin 2010).* It has been translated into some 65 languages and in almost a
thousand editions. Yet, as Seymour Chwast (1996), writing in the Books
section of the New York Times (to publicise a further new edition), explains:

a month after publication, the trustees of the Concord (Mass.) Public Library
|2 The survey was organized, and results analysed, following that of the first survey, available at
download2.hermes.asb.dk/archive/download/Hermes-42-7-katan_net.pdf (on-line ‘surveymonkey’
questionnaire), and update (Katan 2011). The results for the 274 survey, so far include 605 respondents
who earn an income translating.
3 This figure includes 1096 with less than 1 year’s experience and over 2096 with 20 years’ experience. The
larger group results of 418 (those who translate and interpret) show a very slight shift to higher eamings,
with 4596 at twice the national average and just under 1096 with up to 5 times ‎‫ عط‬national average.
4» http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/14/entertainment/la-ca-mark-twain-20101114/2
* https//www.nytimes.conv/books/98/04/05/specials/smiley-huck.html

[oinguaggi
10 DAVID KATAN

George Bernard Shaw was equally scathing about James Joyce’s Ulysses: “In
Ireland they try ‎‫ ما‬make a cat clean by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr.
Joyce has tried the same treatment on ‎‫ عط‬human subject” (Seder 2012( The
book is now regarded by the Modern Language Association,” at least, as the
single greatest novel of the 20th century.
10. 11. Lawrence’s,
was originally 561260 by the police for breaking the
newly passed Obscene Publications Act of 1959 as a book which would
“deprave and corrupt”. The book was also criticized as a “trashy novelette”,
for its ungrammaticality and poor characterization; and a number of fellow
writers declined to be called as witnesses for the defence, such as Evelyn
Waugh, who said “My memory of it was that it was dull, absurd in places &
pretentious. I am sure that some of its readers would ‎‫ عط‬attracted by its
eroticism. [...] Lawrence had very meagre literary gifts” (Yagoda 2010, p.
93).
The prosecution, of course, focused on the graphic descriptions of sex
and ‎‫ عط‬number of times the f-word was used. The only, and “crucial
loophole” was “the question of literary merit — through which works might
escape prohibition” (Sandbrook 2010).° The judges assessing the merit were
not fellow writers or men (or women) of letters but a motley crew including
the following professions: driver, cabinet fitter, dock labourer, teacher, dress
machinist, none, housewife, butcher, and timber salesman (Yagoda
2010). The case was argued, and it only took 3 hours for the jury to decide
that the book had artistic merit, and hence contributed ‎‫ عط ما‬public good.’

Assessment of lasting artistic merit clearly requires a focus on the

‘how’ rather than on ‘the what’, and consequently on the fact the selection
and organisation of (e.g., common, dialect ‎‫عه‬ taboo) words result in
something that transcends trash, rough dialect, bad grammar and so on. In
fact, we will return ‎‫ ما‬evidence of Lawrence’s artistic merit later, but it is

Voegelin
(1960, p. 57), for example, distinguishes between “common usage” and “non-
casual”, which he defines as “more restricted and often enough, perhaps
characteristically [employed for] more elevated purposes”.

© http:/mentalfloss.com/article/30497/11-early-scathing-reviews-works-now-considered-masterpieces
7 http://edition.cnn.com/books/news/9807/2 1/top.100.reax/index.html
8 http://www.telegraph. co.uk/culture/books/8066784/Lady-Chatterley-trial-50-years-on.-The-filthy-book-
that-set-us-free-and-fettered-us-forever.html
? Since then, the same crucial loophole has been used for “works of no literary merit ... and works of
demerit” such as Inside Linda Lovelace (Robertson 2010).
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 11

For example, Seamus Heaney’s poem (below) would easily fall into
this definition of literature.

This ‎‫ قا‬clearly not a piece about potatoes and plums.

Potato crops are flowering,

Hard green plums appear
On damson trees at your back door
And every berried briar
Is glittering and dripping
‘Whenever showers pour down
On flooded hay and flooding drills.
There’s a ring around the moon.
The whole summer was waterlogged
Yet everyone is loath
To trust the rain’s soft-soaping ways
And sentiments of growth.

The following, however, really does appear to talk of plums being eaten - and
nothing else.

Thave eaten
The plums
That were in
The icebox

And which
You were probably
Saving
For breakfast

Forgive me
They were delicious
So sweet
And so cold.

This text, deliberately written to resemble a casually fridge note, ‎‫كذ‬

recognized as an important picce of literature, and as having been composed
by “one of the principal poets of the Imagist movement” (Academy of
American Poets, n.d.). It has over one million Google hits and its own
Wikipedia page. On the other hand, there is no restricted usage and little
indication of an elevated purpose. All that we have that might indicate
‎‫~ ل‬hich o
Longenbach (2009, p. xi) points out is actually a fundamental sign: “Poetry
is

[oinguaggi
 2 DAVID KATAN

‘What is important here 15 not so much that this text has the layout of a
poem, but that the fridge note has become elevated through the fact that the
author has left a sign of authorial choice. thus rendering it in some way
observably different to what would be expected had the text actually been
written mindlessly. Once we have this evidence (in this case, the organization
into lines) we can begin to look for further layers of meaning from the words
in the text. Snodgrass (2000, p. 51) gives us but one
example
‎‫اه‬

This 15 then the test of a literary text, the existence of a potentially

enhanced meaning, whereby more cognitive effect ‎‫ عط صق‬obtained in return
for more cognitive effort (c.f. Katan 1993). According
to Gotti (2005, pp.

literary and purely technical writing. Indeed, he cites the economist Maynard
Keynes, whose technical work became literary because Keyneswrote, not to
clearly explain, but “to stimulate the reader towards a cooperative effort of
interpretation of his text” (Gotti 2005, p. 148).
‘When the ‘non-casual’ elements are evident, which we now see as
encompassing both what 15 5210 and not said but inferable, we can say that the
text has ©

(Halliday 1971, p. 340). There are ‎‫ فتاه‬terts, such as “markedness”, coined

by Roman Jakobson (1960) to categorise grammatical forms which were
unexpected,
and hence marked. In either case, there is a (quantifiable)
deviation from standard or expected use.
Clearly, markedness and prominence by themselves do not
automatically signify anything ‘literary’. Halliday, in fact, reserves
“foregrounding” to those prominent linguistic elements that appear
“motivated” and which add, through the prominence,to “the total meaning of
the work”. Indeed, as Baker (1992, p. 130) points out, “The more marked a
choice the greater the need for it to be motivated”. Surprisingly, perhaps,
given his supposedly meagre literary gifts, Lawrence’s choice of language is
often cited as an example of good literary style. Nicholas Del Banco (1991, p.
31) quotes Ford Maddox Hueffer’s reaction to the beginning of a short story
Lawrence had submitted to The English Review:

ingue e

‫ سوه‬gi‫‏‬
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 13

At once you read, ‘The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking,
stumbling down from Selston’, and at once you know that this fellow with the
power of observation is going to write of whatever he writes about from the
inside. "Number 47 shows that. He ‎‫ عط للدت‬the sort of fellow who knows that
for the sort of people who work about engines, engines have a sort of
individuality. He had ‎‫ ما‬give ‎‫ عط‬engine the personality of a number... ‘With
seven full wagons’ ... The ‘seven’ ‎‫ قا‬good. The ordinary careless writer would
say ‘some small wagons’. This man knows what he wants. He sees the scene
of his story exactly. He has an authoritative mind.

As Leach and Short (2007, p. 37) continue, the choice 15 clearly motivated, ‎‫قد‬
it provides a “sense of listening to and ‘feeling’ the motion of the locomotive
[...] created by a combination of rhythm [...] the dragging effect of consonant
clusters [...] and the actual qualities of ‎‫ عط‬consonants themselves”.

3. Analysing the text for translation

(in Grossi, this volume), while Halliday (this volume) adds “literary

Indeed, in discussing the translation of Alasdair

Gray’s poems Daniela Salusso (this volume) quotes the writer’s biographer:

needs trained ears to identify the voices. So, in general, more than reading,
this means the translator voicing both the original and the new text (e.g.
Dixon, this volume).
One of the few scholars to talk about how a translator in practice can
train herself ‎‫ م‬notice where and how language choiceshould influence
translation strategy is John Dodds (1994), taking “casual” and “non-casual
language” (Dodds 1994, p. 21) or “low probability use” (Dodds 1994, p. 148)
as his major starting point.
sorce et ssntl o he sl o o n (Do 1904 141)
Phonological features (rhythm, alliteration; sense in sound)
Syntactic features (verb tense, word constructions, pre/suffixes,
grammatical structures, ...)
Positional features (foregrounding, parallelisms, paragraph structure,
poem line breaks, ...)
Semantic features (partial synonyms, antonyms, leitmotifs, keywords, ...)
Figures'of speech (analogy, metaphor)

‫ممم‬ ingue
14 DAVID KATAN

These ‘features” may result in euphony and onomatopoeia; they may

highlight and link what otherwise would appear as isolated aspects within the
text, and may strengthen underlying sub-themes or the leitmotif itself running
through the text.
Central to this ‎‫ قا‬Samuel Levin’s (1962, p. 27) criteria of ‘equivalence’.
This use of ‘equivalence’ should not ‎‫ عط‬confused with ‎‫ عط‬equally important
reader-oriented theory of “equivalent effect” (see Scarpa and Salusso this
volume). Equivalence, here, regards evidence of a relationship between pairs
of words or strings of words in the text: “insofar as they overlap in cutting up
the general ‘thought mass’” (see Scarpa and Salusso, this volume); i.e., echo
each other or set up contrasts and thus point to parallels or contrasts in
meaning (c.f. Weatherill 1974, ‎‫م‬. .)36 What this means then, for the
translator, ‎‫ قا‬that a close relationship between subject content and linguistic
form can be identified, or as Jakobson put it (1960, p. 39), there is a
“projection of the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection to the
axis of combination”.
Daniela Salusso (this issue) gives us an excellent example of how a
translator first analyses a text to be translated using this very procedure:
“what 15 unique ‎‫ ما‬this particular collection of poems is the morphologic
rendering of Gray’s poetic of ‘absences and reverses’, namely the ‘un-factor’.
More or less intentionally, the author highlights this aspect by employing an
astonishingly high number of adjectives and verbs beginning with ‎‫عط‬
negative prefix ‘un’.
Dodd’s basic thesis is that a (literary) translator should first look for
non-casual language in the original, and then account for this in the
translation, if not actually recreate it: “the translation must be seen to be
‘adequate’ at all levels, ... [and] must attempt ‎‫ ما‬solve ‎‫ له‬least the majority of
the semantic and stylistic features that exist at all levels of language including
phonology” (1994, p. 151).
‘What ‎‫ قا‬important here is the ability ‎‫ ما‬note ‎‫ عط‬levels or numbers of
features that are at play. If it is not possible to provide a wholly adequate
solution for one of the features, then other features can (and should be)
focussed on. Piccinini (this issue) gives us a good example:

The verb “to sift” is particularly difficult ‎‫ ما‬render; I can’t simply use the
Italian verb sefacciare because it has ‎‫ مل‬intransitive meaning and I can’t
paraphrase it if I don’t want to spoil the rhythm. So here I decide to allow
myself a certain liberty on lexis and take more into consideration the music of
‎‫ عط‬sentence, where the sibilant s and the fricative f alliterate enhancing the
softness and the sense of delicacy of the literary image.

Today, Dodd’s suggestion that ‘adequacy’ ‎‫ عط صق‬fulfilled through (simply)

satisfying a checklist of rhetorical features visible in both ‎‫ عط‬source and the
target text might seem a little too prescriptive, but it is crucial that a translator
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 1

o
be highly sensitive ‎‫ ما‬any author’s ‘non-casual’ use of language. This is not
to say that an author’s “choice and favour” is consciously motivated (Fowler
1977, p. 21). Dodds also refers toWimsatt and Beardsley’s (1954, p. 3)
Intentional Fallacy theory, which suggests that ‎‫ عط‬author herself ‎‫ كا‬never a
useful starting point: “the design ‎‫ له‬intention of the author is neither available
nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art”.
This means that it ‎‫ كا‬the responsibility of the translator herself ‎‫ م‬look for (the
very possibly unconscious) language choices which create increased
cognitive effect. Clearly, this should not, and does not, stop translators from
entering their author’s world, through reading the author’s oeuvre, or where
possible meeting and discussing the translation with the author, and in many
cases (as noted in this volume) establishing “a bond”."
An interesting exception ‎‫ ما‬this rule was D. 11. Lawrence, now working
as a translator. According to Halliday (this volume) it appears that Lawrence
preferred to read and translate Giovanni Verga (which ‎‫ عط‬thoroughly
enjoyed) rather than meet him, even though Lawrence was at times living
only 40 kilometres from Verga.

Instead of a first thorough analysis, looking for motivated patterns in

Banville’s novel and then equally patterned solutions, she begins at the
beginning, and lets the development of the language guide her as she begins
to roll out her translation.

commissioner. For example,thetitle of Verga’s Una Peccatrice was revised

from “A Lady Sinner” ‎‫“ ما‬A Mortal Sin” as a result of discussions between
Halliday (this volume) and the editor of the publication. And like ‎‫للم‬
translators, his translations roll even more as he returned ten years on to
‘improve’ on his own translations of ‎‫ عط‬past.

1 William Weaver struck a close relationship both with Calvino and Umberto Eco (Spiegelman 2002;
Grossi, this volume); Richard Dixon with Eco (this volume); Daniela Salusso interviewed Alisdair Gray.

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18 DAVID KATAN

4. Analysing the context for translation

All texts need to be read within a context, and literary texts excel in
exploiting extra-textual references to enhance meaning. There are two main
areas to investigate: linguistic and socio-cultural. With regard ‎‫ ما‬the
linguistic, Federica Scarpa (this volume) shows how Shakespeare’s Italian
translators were able to identify the semantic equivalences set up as a result
of his choice of figurative language. For example, in Troilus and Cressida,
Ajax refers to manipulating the proud Achilles and making him docile, using
the analogy of preparing dough for baking: “I will knead him: I will make
him supple”. Lodovici’s (1960) translation shows how attentive ‎‫ عط‬was ‎‫ما‬
semantic equivalence as ‎‫ للع‬as ‎‫ ما‬Shakespeare’s imagery. His “Me lo
rimpasto 10, me 10 riduco dolce dolce ][ will knead him, I will reduce him into
something sweet] successfully retains ‎‫ عط‬use of culinary equivalences ‎‫م‬
imply how Achilles will ‎‫ عط‬cut-down; and the translation shifts only from the
resulting texture supple to the resulting taste sweet. To give an idea of how
carefully crafted this translation is, Scarpa (this volume) compares
Squarzina’s (1977) version: 10 ‎‫ عط‬faccio polpette, ‎‫ ما م‬svito™ ]17[ make him
into meatballs, I will unscrew him). This translation transforms Ajax’s subtle
art into something much more violent, and with ‘lo svito’, loses the
continuation of the culinary context, a key domain in the play.
The extra-textual detective work necessary to reveal the original
associations is a constant theme in the translators’ own accounts in this
volume; in particular when we come ‎‫ما‬ the second area, which is mainly
social and cultural. Here too we can divide the work into two main areas, the
first of which is the writer’s overt or covert use of other’s published writings.
Bacigalupo (this issue), in fact, divides his translation of The Cantos into
those (easier), which only require attention to “questions of rhythm and
diction, a translator’s true business”; and those (more difficult) which require
an investigation of the quoted sources. As often as not, the translator is more
painstaking than ‎‫ عط‬original author, finding misquotes, typos and more.
Bacigalupo, for example, was faced with Pounds’s erroneous translation into
English of ‎‫ د‬number of original Italian texts. At times Bacigalupo corrected
the errors (not to correct the author but simply to aid the reader) and at times
back-translated the actual mistranslation (with the original Italian on the
facing page) ‎‫ ما‬allow the Italian reader into Pound’s (mis)understanding of
Italian.
The second area here is social and cultural, where ECRS, extra-
linguistic culture-bound references (Pederson 2011), remain hidden to the
target reader. Again, ‎‫ عط‬translator as ahyper-reader (Ladmiral 1979) will
often be more attentive than the original author. For example, during his
research Dixon (this volume) discovered that Eco’s historical fictional
character Simone Simonini could not actually have drunk Grand Marnier nor
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 17

. Ilaria Parini (this volume) analysed Bridget Jones’

Diary, and found 69 ECRs to personalities, which include not only references
to British politicians, academics and writers, but also ‎‫ ما‬more covert
references ‎‫ ما‬fictitious characters (such as Darcy, Heathcliff, Miss
Moneypenny, Miss Havisham, Stepford Wife). Apart from personalities,
there are also 36 British culture-specific elements (often repeated), including
a large number of brand names only available in ‎‫ عط‬UK.

The associations may simply add more coherence and depth to

characters, from their postal code down to their most often used supermarket
shopping bag. These associations, however, often offer much richer ‎‫مسق‬
effects for the intended reader. For example, Bridget’s comment (Parini, this
volume) that Daniel would not be put off his stroke even if he saw “naked
pictures of Virginia Bottomley on the television”. Parini rightly notes that the
Italian reader would not know that Bottomley was a conservative minister,
and hence unlikely to be seen in anything but full dress; but more
importantly, she 15 a Baroness whose good looks, as reliably recorded by ‎‫عط‬
Daily Mail newspaper, “could inflame the erotic imagination”,'! which ‎‫مد‬
fully explains why Daniel might ‎‫ عط‬sidetracked from his own activities with
Bridget. And if we were to look further, we might note that Virginia
Bottomley is,in itself, a nomen omen.

5. Towards translating for the reader

occupy itself with the effect on the reader, because as Benjamin (1968, p. 75)
famously asserted: “In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form,
consideration of the receiver never proves fruitful [...]. No poem was
intended for a reader”. Shklovsky, on the other hand, a contemporary of

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18 DAVID KATAN

Benjamin’s had a slightly more reader oriented (but not reader-friendly)

perspective on Art:

The purpose of art is ‎‫ ما‬impart the sensation of things as they are perceived
and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects
‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, ‎‫ ما‬increase the difficulty and length of
perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and
must be prolonged [...]. A work ‎‫ قا‬created “artistically’ so that its perception is
impeded and the greatest possible effect is produced through the slowness of
the perception. (Shklovsky 1917/1965, p. 22)

The idea of creating difficulty has not been popular with translation scholars,
though Chinese translator and scholar Lu Xun (in Venuti 1998, p. 185) wrote:
“Instead of translating to give people ‘pleasure’ I often try to make them
uncomfortable, or even exasperated, furious and bitter”. Today, Lawrence
Venuti (Venuti 1988) strongly supports what he calls ‘foreignization’
(‘ostranenie’), the strategy ‎‫ عط‬traces back to Schleiermacher’s (1812)
simplistic divide regarding a translator’s task, clearly preferring the former:
“Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and
moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as
possible, and moves the author towards him” (in Lefevere 1977, p. 74). By
this, he means first and foremost to not adopt a fluent, idiomatic or reader-
friendly translation, but ‎‫ ما‬translate “introducing varations that alienate the
domestic language and, since they are domestic, reveal the translation to be in
fact a translation” (Venuti 1998, p. 11), what House (1997, pp. 111-116)
would call an ‘overt translation’, a translation which clearly reveals itself ‎‫ما‬
just that, rather than ‘hiding’, covertly, as an original text.
Venuti calls this approach “minoritizing”, whereby a variant rather than
the dominant cultural form (or what Shklovsky would call the language of
habitualization) is used. In theory, this alienation would also lead the reader to
appreciate the linguistic and cultural differences that the new text proposes.
For Venuti, this strategy is also part of “a political agenda that 5
broadly democratic: an opposition ‎‫ ما‬the global hegemony of English”.
Interestingly, as Maria Luisa de Rinaldis (this volume) notes the hegemony
during ‎‫ عط‬Renaissance times was the other around: “There were few
translations from English into Italian [and] Italy was, in terms of style and
poetics, the dominant model”. And the Italian translators were clearly making
political choices in their decision ‎‫ ما‬translate the religious texts (which
defended or promoted the protestant movement).
Apart from the political stance, there is today, a real literary issue at
play; that of the Mcdonaldisation of language, whereby, what Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak (1992, ‎‫م‬. )004 calls a “with-it translatese”, whereby ‎‫عط‬
literature by a woman in Pakistan begins to resemble, in the feel of its prose,
something by a man in Taiwan”. This ‎‫ عط قا‬downside of ‘domestication’;
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 19

whereby lingua-cultural differences in a text, which could inform or affect the

reader are effaced, homogenised, to conform to a domestic standard. This is
particularly problematic with the translation of dialect, local sayings, popular
metaphors, colloquial and taboo language. Popular solutions include
relocation of accents and/or standardization of ‎‫ عط‬language, in ‎‫ لله‬cases
resulting in a 1655 of ‎‫ عت‬original. Daniela Salusso (this issue) in accounting
for all other levels in Gray’s Old Negatives gets stuck on the Scottish term
‘gloaming’: “What gets lost ‎‫ صا‬translation is the Scottishness of ‎‫ عط‬poem, the
fact that this twilight which is impossible to look upon is not an indeterminate
twilight, but precisely a Scottish twilight, namely, a gloaming”. Salusso,
though, 15 being a little hard ‎‫ نه‬herself. Translation necessarily means letting
go of the original language, but it also allows for conscious intervention and
the foregrounding of other features to compensate — which is exactly what
Salusso does.
An example of the 15906 highlighted by Spivak, as Dodds (this issue)
notes, 15 the long-standing norm which has historically affected much
translation into Italian: il bello scrivere italiano. He cites the translation of
John Fowles” “The Collector” as a case in point. Fowles crucially selected
‘bad’ grammar ‎‫ ما‬identify not only ‎‫ عط‬working class origins of ‘the collector’
himself, but also to contrast these origins at every turn with the upper-middle
class, university educated, language of his prisoner. Indeed, Fowles himself
says (1970, p. 10) that the evil of the kidnapper “was largely, perhaps wholly,
the result of a bad education, a mean environment, being orphaned”. The very
first point is effaced in translation, making the two characters talk in Italian as
equals.
An equally serious 1055 is noticed by Parini (this issue), where “Bridget
Jones” in Italian suffers from what have been called the “universal features of
translation”: explicitation, simplification, and normalization. Much of what is
inferable (and hence the essential essence of literature) is either made
explicit, generalised, or substituted with a more domestic term. In
non-
However,
here, in return for domestic fluency we not only have a loss of Britishness,
but also a loss of character. In reducing her use of ECRs Bridget has become
less observant, less well-read, and finally less funny.
A consistent strategy of reducing difference is unlikely to produce a
text of lasting artistic merit which fosters literary appreciation. However, the
polar strategy, an a priori translation policy to protect the foreignness is
equally problematic. This is the educational aim that D. H. Lawrence (now as
a translator of Giovanni Verga) pursued. Halliday (this volume) points out
that Lawrence genuinely did appreciate the Italian idioms, maintaining the
foreign imagery not only in his translations, but also in his own writings. For
example, in talking about Verga’s work Lawrence writes in one of his letters
“It is so good. - But I am on thorns, can’t settle” (in Halliday, this volume).
20 DAVID KATAN

The reference to ‘thorns’, as we ‎‫ صق‬also find in his translations ,was a literal

translation of the vivid Italian essere sulle spine.
However, used mindlessly, foreignisation understandably leads to what
critics call “a tremendous failing” (Cecchetti in Halliday, this volume) and
“ridicule”
or “quizzical looks” (Dodds, this volume). For example,
Lawrence’s translation of “fare il passo ‎‫ تتام‬lungo della gamba” becomes the
decidedly ostranenie, 10 take your stride according to your legs (Dodds, this
volume). This literal translation from the Italian results in an almost
incomprehensible combination of words, which does not increase any useful
cognitive effect, and hence does nothing to help the reader appreciate the
foreign. We should also remember what Halliday (this volume) calls
Lawrence’s low “reserves of patience and dogged concentration” (Halliday,
this volume), coupled with the high costs of proof reading and revision,which
could very well render at least some of these translations as examples of
mindless rather than foreignised translation.

Benjamin’s famous comment negating the role of the reader, mentioned

earlier, was made nearly a century ago. Since then there has been a Khunian
shift, marked in particular by the Intentional Fallacy and then by Barthes’
post-structuralist “Death of the Author” (1977). Quite
suddenly,
the reader

Umberto Eco introduced the concept of Model Reader' in 1995. This

implied, rather than ‘empirical’, reader “is able ‎‫ ما‬recognize and observe ‎‫عط‬
rules of ‎‫ عط‬game laid out by the text, and who is eager and able ‎‫ ما‬play such
a game” (Radford 2002). This means clearly establishing what sort of reader
15 to be expected; imagining why she will ‎‫ عط‬reading, and ‎‫ ما‬what extent there
15 an inherent interest, or at least openness ‎‫ ما‬the linguistic and cultural
differencesencountered in the source text. This imagined reader should fit
with the skopos, at which point the translator is in athird (mediating)
positionand nowable to mediate between the two texts. Translation
alternativescan be more easily assessed nowby literally checking the
imagined reader’s ability ‎‫ ما‬recognise the rules of ‎‫ عط‬game and guagingher
continuing eagerness ‎‫ ما‬continue reading.
‘What we notice with each of the translators included in this volume is
the absolute focus on the model reader. Yet, we should also note that this
focus on the reader is not actually new. Political and religious tracts, now
considered literature (such as the King James Bible) have always focussed on
the reader (Katan 2008). Interestingly, as de Rinaldis (this volume) points

2 Very similar is the term “Implied reader”, coined by Booth ([1961] 1983).
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 21

out, the rare examples of translation into Italian during the Renaissance
period reveal that reader understanding was a priority — and bel scritto was
not the issue. Giacomo Castelvetro’s prefaces ‎‫ ما‬his translations are crystal
clear: “Translated from English into Italian by someone who hopes that the
Italians may know how much the rumours, artfully disseminated throughout
Italy, of ‎‫ عط‬aforementioned act are false and mendacious”, and “Translated
from English for those who love truth. In Venice” (De Rinaldis, this volume).
It is with the rise of English as a Literature that the bel scritto began to
take hold, beginning with “the Classics”, from Shakespeare onwards. As
Federica Scarpa (this volume) notes, translations
of Shakespeare into Italian

. It could also ‎‫ عط‬argued that this form of extreme’

might also be destabilising for an audience aware that pizza
had yet ‎‫ ما‬be invented in Italy (let alone popular in Elizabethan England),
making the strategy a minoritising one, and hence ‎‫ تنا‬fact ostranenie. On the
whole, though, the translations allow ‎‫ عط‬audience into Shakespeare’s world
through a familiarity which is not so culturally grounded, allowing for what

instruction [as the original author] certainly intended”. To do this, Bacigalupo

himself retranslated Ezra Pound’s Cantos into a more prosaic and ‘down to
earth’ Italian (following Pound’s own use of language).
Simona Sangiorgi (this volume), in retranslating Jane Austen, also
underlines how she moved away from the “embellished [...] high-register”
Italian translations of the recent past. Her analysis of previous translations
shows that the emphasis on text created “unnecessary elevation” up to the
turn of the century. Not unlike Bacigalupo, she sought “a new mediation”
between the language of a literary classic written in the English of two
centuries ago, and that of “a contemporary Italian reader who lives in a fast-
paced world, where communication modes and codes are influenced by the
Internet and other digital environments”. In practice this meant at times
“stiffening” ‎‫ عط‬text (using the outmoded voi instead of the contemporary fu)
to help orient the reader to eighteenth-century rules of etiquette while at the
same time retaining the naturalness and colloquiality of the original by
actually simplifying the language of the orginal, ‎‫ ما‬a present day colloquial
naturalness in Italian, thus allowing Austin’s fresh style ‎‫ ما‬be appreciated by
the model Italian reader envisaged by Sangiorgi.
Richard Dixon (this volume), translating forhis model Anglo reader,
notes that she would not have the access ‎‫ ما‬the Latin in I/ Cimitero di Praga
 ‎‫ل‬
DAVID KATAN

N
that Umberto Eco’s original readers would have; so “a little help could ‎‫عط‬
given”. He used a number of strategies including translation couplets
(retaining the original followed by the translation), as well as highlighting
parts of the translation ‎‫ ما‬indicate how the translation was ‎‫ ما‬be interpreted.

Reader orientation in translation is also at times signalled through a

protagonist’s shift instance, whereby the character — in translation - becomes
a mediator and interpreter for the non-Italian reader. For example, Guglielmo
da Baskerville, ‎‫ عله‬of the protagonists in I/ Nome della Rosa, changed in
translation to become (for the New York Times, emphasis added, in Katan
1993: 158 ): “Our learned and ironic monk-detective”; and the English
reader’s personal guide to the Italian world. William Weaver, consciously or
not, allowed the Anglo reader to feel a close bond with the character, and
through a process of deletion and foregrounding made “Brother William of
Baskerville, a most agreeable and engaging hero [...] and is allowed an
English sense of humour - vital to the progression of the story” (Tooney
1983, p. 3).
Parini notes a similar approach in the translation of Bridget Jones
Diary, where the diary note “Am going to cook shepherd’s pie for them all”
becomes: “Preparero per tutti loro una bella torta salata del pastore: una tipica
ricetta inglese a base di carne trita e pure di patate”. Bridget, now not just
writing in Italian, but has become Italian through the (natural?) addition of
the gloss for herself and for her fellow Italian reader. The gloss explains just
what “shepherd’s pie” is, and back-translated, reads: “a typical English recipe
with mincemeat and mashed potatoes”. What the actual, empirical, Italian
reader would make of Bridget’s didactic note should definitely be an area of

mindful
of the effect: “The word “redivivus” exists in English — it appears in
the Shorter OED — but my spell-check doesn’t like it and it is certainly far
less common in English than redivivo in Italian. And yet “reborn” or “back to
life” seemed just a little ‎‫ وما‬weak. There seemed ‎‫ ما‬be no real alternative to
“redivivus”. So that was the word I chose, knowing that the English reader
would have to work just a little harder”.
These examples show just how much bothAnglo and Italian translators
today have moved away from a source text only approach, or an enforcement

oinguaggi
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 23

of a bel scritto on the target text, and very much see themselves as mediating
point by point the effort and the effect reading the text will have.

7. Mediation

explain ‎‫ عه‬reduce difference (domesticate) is, of course, artificial. Even

Venuti himself (1998, ‎‫م‬. )21 realised that foreignisation tout court was
impractical: “The heterogeneous discourse of minoritizing translation [...]
needn’t be so alienating as to frustrate a popular approach completely; if the
remainder is released at significant points in a translation that is generally
readable, the reader’s participation will ‎‫ عط‬disrupted only momentarily”. This
is a useful let-out clause, and allows for what makes much more sense:
cultural mediation, “a form of translatorial intervention which takes account
of ‎‫ عط‬impact of cultural distance” (Katan 2013, p. 84, emphasis added),
rather than prescriptively demanding that foreigness be maintained at all cost.
This idea of mediation, considering equally the source text and the model
reader’s reading of the target text, appears now ‎‫ ما‬be what literary translators
today take as being core qualities of their profession. The previously
mentioned global survey appears to confirm this. The chart below shows the
responses from the 91 of the 600 respondents who “mainly” translate literary
texts. They were offered five options regarding ‘professionality’, which
spanned the various levels of intervention. ‎‫ عط صق قط‬seen in Figure 1, there is
general agreement that a professional translation “absolutely” requires
fidelity to the original text while at the same time should equally “absolutely”
require that the text be fully readable. Less often regarded as professional is
further intervention to reduce cultural (rather than linguistic) issues, or that
the text be totally domesticated. And finally, Venuti’s call for an ethics of
difference, remains an extremely minority option:
24 DAVID KATAN

‫ ها‬actively intervening, to maintain‫‏‬

as much 'difference’ and‫‏‬
Wthat there is no addition or 40% foreigness as possible in the target‫‏‬
explicitation in the target text ~ 550, text‫‏‬
absolutely rarely

m that the target text reads like an

= actively intervening, mediating, original text
toallow the readerto fully
comprehend the text ‎‫ ها‬actively intervening, mediating, to
manage any cultural
misunderstanding

usually sometimes

Figure 1.
“Mainly” literary translators and “What does professionality mean?”.

. This cannot bedecided a priori; though

once ‎‫ عط‬Model reader has been formalized, certain translating decisions will
become much more logical. And the more detailed the profile of the Model
reader, the easier it 15 ‎‫ ما‬decide just how much that reader will ‎‫ عط‬prepared
work — at that particularmoment - ‎‫ ما‬obtain the higher cognitive rewards.The
task, as Dixon (this volume) says, is “to place the English reader in the same
position as the Italian reader”, which does not automatically mean that reader
15 left in peace as his redivivo/redivivus example illustrates.

8. Towards Transcreation

Although this mediating meta-position frees the translator from a priori

decisions about how to translate, the strategy is not in itself going to lead to
enhancing ‎‫ عط‬levels of appreciation. Something more ‎‫ كا‬often necessary. We
mentioned earlier how Bridget Jones (and many other characters) tend to lose
something in translation, and indeed “lost in translation” has nearly ninety
four million Google hits. However, loss is by no means a necessary
consequence, but often to compensate for a formal loss, creativity ‎‫ىذ‬
necessary, hence the idea of transcreation.
An example into Italian is Licia Corbolante’s retranslation of Sue
Townsend’s popular “The Growing Pains of Adrian 11016 (see Katan 2004,
‫ب‬
‫نا‬
(=3
9
‫ط‬
=3
~
3
3

both
domestic
and foreign. The overall sound is classically English. ‘Teo’

[oinguaggi
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 25

sounds English, yet is Italian and sounds close ‎‫ ما‬the Italian for ‘tea’, which
the British are known ‎‫ ما‬drink gallons of. The surname, ‘Lipton’, refers ‎‫ما‬
Ttaly’s best-selling “Lipton” brand of tea (thus mirroring the Maxwell House
brand of coffee). To compound the humour, at the time of the translation,
Lipton tea was advertised by a well-known American basketball coach, Dan
Peterson, who even more famously spoke a “Stanley e Ollio’ Italian ‎‫م‬
advertise the product, which more than compensated for the 1055 of the
comical associations cued by the name “Maxwell House”.
This is neither foreignisation nor domestication but transcreation (sce
Katan 2015), whereby the translator intervenes to create something clearly
based on the original, but not directly inferable from the original tex.
Crucially, transcreation is capable of counteracting the universal features of
translation, which flatten and standardise the reading, and hence reduce the
possibility of (re)producing lasting artistic merit.

9. Conclusion

Clearly, translating the literary, which means first and foremost, sensitivity to
the various levels or features in the text, the intended effects on the original
reader, and the potential cognitive effects on the target reader make for what
Halliday (this volume) calls the need “to live in a constant state of
neurasthenic, of hypersensitive awareness”, which is perhaps the hallmark of
any professional translator. In all cases, a translator is dealing with

a string of words that helps us read the text in its original language. It is a
glossary rather than a translation, which is always a literary activity. Without
exception, even when the translator’s sole intention is to convey meaning, as
in the case of scientific texts, translation implies a transformation of the
original. That transformation is not — nor can it be- anything but literary (Paz
1992,p. 154).
‘Literary’ translation though ‎‫ ا‬clearly a special case of transformation, as
text meaning 15 not only negotiated but the fruit of that negotiation with the
reader ‎‫ قا‬a heightened cognitive effect, creating some form of lasting
artistic merit cued by the choice and selection of the new words. Hence,
the literary translator will be listening and looking for evidence of non-
casual language, of equivalences,and other extra-contextual associations
which can point to a heightened meaning, which the original intended
reader might reasonably be expected to infer. Then the translator as a
mediator, having envisioned her ideal model reader is now in a position to
transcreate for that reader.
26 DAVID KATAN

Bionote: David Katan is full professor of English and Translation at the

University of Salento (Lecce). He has over 70 publications including
Translating Cultures: An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and
Mediators (Routledge) now ‎‫ ص‬its 2nd edition; the headword entry “Culture”
for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation (2008); “Translation as
Intercultural Communication” for the Routledge Companion ‎‫ ما‬Translation
Studies (2009); entries for Benjamin’s Handbook ‎‫ زه‬Translation Studies
(2012, 2013), and “Cultural Approaches to Translation” in the Wiley-
Blackwell Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (2013). He translates
regularly, mainly in literature and tourism, and has written about his
translation of Italian dialect poetry (2001). Other publications regarding
literary translation include those on James Joyce’s The Dead (1992), Troilus
and Cressida (1993) and Il Nome della Rosa (1999). He 15 also keenly
interested in “The Status of the Translator”. The results of the first global
survey with over 1000 replies were published in Benjamins (2012, 2013). He
is currently working on the second global survey of the profession, which
focusses also on translation practice and transcreation. He has been senior
editor of the International Journal Cultus: the Journal for Intercultural
Mediation and Communication since its inception in 2008.
Translating the “literary”in literary translation in practice 27

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