Reflections on translating poetry:
I have posted two poems that I translated-- one by the well-known early 20th century poet Rainer Maria Rilke and another by a contemporary poet and novelist Erwin Uhrmann. This reflection will discuss my process of translating the poem by Rilke. I chose to reflect on this poem because in the process of editing it I changed the way I thought about the poem as a whole and continually redefined my interpretation of it. I chose words more carefully as I more deeply understood the meaning of poem. Translating this poem helped me to improve me skills of interpreting a literary text in German. One example that demonstrates my improvement is line 6: "sie wissen alles, was wird und war;". My original translation of this line was: "they know everything what is and what was;". I knowingly changed the tense of "wird" to the present tense "is" because I thought that it sounded better and, at first, I believed that it didn't make a different to the meaning of the poem. However, as I thought more about what the poem is saying and my word choices I realized that this change affected the meaning of the poem quite a bit. I realized later that it is really important that "they" actually don't know what "is." "They" might know what "will be and was" (my final translation), but they cannot know what "is." This is essential to the meaning of the poem.
Another choice I made in this translation is that I tried to keep with the meter and rhyme scheme. This choice posed many challenges. One solution to the challenge of retaining the rhyme was that I replaced the words "Hund" and "Haus" (dog and house) with "sun" and "swing." These words suggested themselves to me as alternatives because they have a similar feeling of domestication as Rilke's original words. I also justified this change because the words throughout the poem start off simple, words you might find in a children's book, and get more complex toward the end. I think that the sing-songy rhythm of the poem (especially this line) lent itself to those basic words from a children's book as well.
Translating the poems was very fun but also very challenging. It seems that the decisions are more difficult because no matter what you do you often lose some aspect of the original-- sound, rhyme, meter, or meaning. In both translations posted below I tried my best to retain as much of the original meaning and sound as possible, but also made some necessary changes to afford other fidelities.
I have posted two poems that I translated-- one by the well-known early 20th century poet Rainer Maria Rilke and another by a contemporary poet and novelist Erwin Uhrmann. This reflection will discuss my process of translating the poem by Rilke. I chose to reflect on this poem because in the process of editing it I changed the way I thought about the poem as a whole and continually redefined my interpretation of it. I chose words more carefully as I more deeply understood the meaning of poem. Translating this poem helped me to improve me skills of interpreting a literary text in German. One example that demonstrates my improvement is line 6: "sie wissen alles, was wird und war;". My original translation of this line was: "they know everything what is and what was;". I knowingly changed the tense of "wird" to the present tense "is" because I thought that it sounded better and, at first, I believed that it didn't make a different to the meaning of the poem. However, as I thought more about what the poem is saying and my word choices I realized that this change affected the meaning of the poem quite a bit. I realized later that it is really important that "they" actually don't know what "is." "They" might know what "will be and was" (my final translation), but they cannot know what "is." This is essential to the meaning of the poem.
Another choice I made in this translation is that I tried to keep with the meter and rhyme scheme. This choice posed many challenges. One solution to the challenge of retaining the rhyme was that I replaced the words "Hund" and "Haus" (dog and house) with "sun" and "swing." These words suggested themselves to me as alternatives because they have a similar feeling of domestication as Rilke's original words. I also justified this change because the words throughout the poem start off simple, words you might find in a children's book, and get more complex toward the end. I think that the sing-songy rhythm of the poem (especially this line) lent itself to those basic words from a children's book as well.
Translating the poems was very fun but also very challenging. It seems that the decisions are more difficult because no matter what you do you often lose some aspect of the original-- sound, rhyme, meter, or meaning. In both translations posted below I tried my best to retain as much of the original meaning and sound as possible, but also made some necessary changes to afford other fidelities.
The Original- Rainer Maria Rilke |
My Translation- Rainer Maria RilkeI fear the words of all men so.
I fear the words of all men so. They express so clearly everything: And this is called sun and that is called swing and here is stop and there is go. I dread too their meanings that poke and prod, they know everything, what will be and was; for them no mountain is marvelous; their garden and grounds are neighbors of God. I want to forewarn and fight back: Keep away. I could listen to the singing things all day. You touch them: they’re immobile and mute. After you their death is absolute. |
The Original- Erwin Uhrmann's "Atacama"
My Translation- "Atacama"
Atacama
I’m going to Atacama pointed gazes want to slow my passage but I no longer allow that. The gaze unobstructed solar storms at the border behind glass. In the shadow box I lay-- now I no longer want to be free only in the night out, away with the steering wheel. I’m going to Atacama where I can gaze all around no notes, no grimace in sight. No yesterday’s desert but a landscape flat. All announcements, conclusions expulsions, guiding movements are no longer There-- at the driest point where the night in the salt-violet glistens like the day under all the surrounding stars. |