| Translating poetry | Apr 20, 2024 |
Hi Dalibor. From your profile, I assume you're an experienced professional, so how can you think that translating poetry is easy-peasy? Unless the poem goes something like this – Roses are red/Violets are blue/I'm a translator/But what about you? – and I wouldn't bet on it being easy-peasy to translate either.
In fact, it's the most difficult kind of translation, in that you can't simply transpose a poem's words from one language to another, you have to recreate the poem,... See more Hi Dalibor. From your profile, I assume you're an experienced professional, so how can you think that translating poetry is easy-peasy? Unless the poem goes something like this – Roses are red/Violets are blue/I'm a translator/But what about you? – and I wouldn't bet on it being easy-peasy to translate either.
In fact, it's the most difficult kind of translation, in that you can't simply transpose a poem's words from one language to another, you have to recreate the poem, in some sense.
Usually, poetry is translated by poets. You could contact a British or American literary translators' association but, even then, they wouldn't be able to give you straight answers about rates, timing for delivery, and so on, if you don't tell them what kind of poetry it is you wish to translate, who the author is, for what purpose you need a translation.
You could also contact the Czech Language and Literature departments at UK and US universities; usually, poets and writers are also teachers.
In case you, or other colleagues are interested in the nitty-gritty of this most noble craft, please read what a great writer and translator like Vladimir Nabokov had to say in this regard: https://newrepublic.com/article/62610/the-art-translation
Here's a small excerpt:
(...) the requirements that a translator must possess in order to be able to give an ideal version of a foreign masterpiece. First of all he must have as much talent, or at least the same kind of talent, as the author he chooses. In this, though only in this, respect Baudelaire and Poe or Joukovsky and Schiller made ideal playmates. Second, he must know thoroughly the two nations and the two languages involved and be perfectly acquainted with all details relating to his author’s manner and methods; also, with the social background of words, their fashions, history and period associations. This leads to the third point: while having genius and knowledge he must possess the gift of mimicry and be able to act, as it were, the real author’s part by impersonating his tricks of demeanor and speech, his ways and his mind, with the utmost degree of verisimilitude.
Quite a tall order! ▲ Collapse
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