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Poetic Translation Examples taken from Paul Valéry and Yunus Emre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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Literary translation, especially poetic translation, is one of the rare domains where aesthetic, literary, and technical fields meet. This characteristic makes it the sort of work where a number of theoretical and practical problems converge. It is necessary to approach the issue on three essential planes. The first is theoretical: translation is an operation defined by rules; the second, functional: translation is a practical procedure, which is to say an a posteriori task; the third, specific: poetic translation is itself a poetic activity.
Let us begin with the last. From the point of view of literary creation, there is actually no specific difference between the original text and that of the translation. For poet and translator alike take part in a creative act, each laboring according to his means and tastes. For each of them linguistic competence and poetic competence are essential. Indeed, the act of translating is based on a “task of purification of words and ideas” which requires the application of mental effort on the one hand to the problems and the constraints of the poetic art as such, and on the other hand, to the descriptive and analytic nature of language, which is also music. Which is to say that one should not see translation as a simple operation of a lexical order. Nor should one forget that each language requires a specific lexical classification.
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- Copyright © 1993 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
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Notes
1. Presented at the Rencontre interuniversitaire (Interuniversity Meeting) orga nized by the Office of Linguistics, French Cultural Center of Ankara, on the theme of “Translation,” May 6 and 7, 1991.
2. Paul Valéry, Cahiers, II, Paris: Gallimard, 1974 and 1988, p. 788.
3. Edward Sapir, Le Langage (French translation), Paris: Payot, 1953, p. 203.
4. Valery, Regards sur le monde actuel, in Oeuvres, vol. II, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 1112.
5. Id., ibid.
6. John Lyons, Linguistic générale, Paris: Larousse, 1970, p. 46.
7. Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, Paris: Gallimard, 1942, p. 20; reprinted in Oeuvres, vol II, op. cit., p. 792.
8. Pierre Guiraud, La Sémiologie, Paris: P.U.F., 1971, p. 35.
9. Ibid, p. 10.
10. Roman Jakobson defines poetic function as the relationship between the mes sage and itself.
11. John Lyons, 1970, calls this multiciplicy of references “the metaphoric exten sion,” which is often the case in poetry, which knows of different types of exten sion or transferral of meaning.
12. Valéry, Tel Quel, I, Paris: Gallimard, Idées, 1941, p. 44.
13. Roland Barthes,“ Eléments de Sémiologie,” 1964, cited by Claude Arastado in Messages des Médias, Paris: CEDIC, 1980, p. 122.
14. The task of the translator here must consist of grasping or identifying a senti ment or an emotion more on an intuitive plane.
15. Valéry, Calepin d'un poète, 1930, reprinted in Oeuvres, vol. I, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Plèiade, 1957, p. 1458.
16. Valéry, Calepin d'un poète, 1930, reprinted in Oeuvres, vol. I, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1957, p. 1458.
17. Valéry, Tel Quel, I, op.cit., p. 177; ibid, p. 548.
18. Quoted by Jacques Charpier in Paul Valéry, Paris: Seghers, in the “Poètes d'aujourd'hui” collection.
19. Valery, Tel Quel, I, op. cit., p. 177; ibid, p. 548.
20. It is, of course, a question of judging the line not in an isolated fashion but in its context. One must always keep sight of the following principle, which has become classic in the art of translation: one translates one text or another, not one language or another.
21. Georges Mounin finds at the basis of all translating activty “a series of analy ses and operations related specifically to linguistics.” Les Problèmes théoriques de la traduction, Paris: Gallimard, 1963, p. 16.
22. Mounin, op. cit., 1963m p. 42.
23. Sabahattin Eyuboglu, Siirle Fransizca, Istanbul: Can Yayinlari, 1964, p. 106-107.
24. “Bana seni gerek seni.”
25. This example is in no way intended as criticism of a great master of translation. My main objective is to demonstrate the great difficulty of translation in general.
26. See Metis Ceviri Dergisi, Istanbul, No. 7, Spring 1989, p. 118.
27. Leonard Bloomfield, Language, London: Henderson and Spalding, 1955, p. 145.
28. Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, Paris: Payot, 1960, p. 97.
29. Guiraud, Les champs morpho-sémantiques, BSL, 1956, p. 287.
30. Gottlob Frege, in his analysis of signification, speaks of the role of the rela tional factor in the transformation of the meaning of signs. He notes two principal elements in each reality: meaning, which is the ensemble of given information about one reallity, and reference, which refers back to this same reality. This relational factor necessarily brings a twofold value into play: the value of the signifier, which depends on phonological entities, and the value of the signifier, which attaches to this same signifier (quoted by Abastado, in Messages, op. cit.).
31. Term used in Mounin, op. cit.
32. “I tasted the grape of that plum tree / When the surly gardener / Asked me to account for the nut / I was cracking … ” Yves Régnier, in Bedrettin Tuncel, Fransizcada Yunus Emre, Ankara, Basnur Basimevi 1971, p. 35.
33. “Then on the plum-tree's branch / I plucked the grape, I did / The orchard-master came running / To scold me for my theft.” Nimet Arzik, in ibid, p. 44.
34. “Perched there on the plum-tree's branch / I ate some grapes / And a field ablaze with rage said to me / But why are you eating my nuts?” Guzin Dino, Yunus Emre, Publications Langues'O, Associations Langues et Civilisations, 1973.
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