Texts and Translations

Hilary Term 2011

This is by way of a brief introduction to the Texts and Translations seminar in Hilary term. The first class will be held on Tuesday, 18 January at 2.00 pm in Room 206 on Tuesday 2 to 4pm next term in a new building owned by Trinity: 7-9 South Leinster Street (right beside the National Gallery entrance). and thereafter on every subsequent Tuesday until 22 March (with the exception of Reading Week)

The seminar will be run as a series of led discussions on issues of literary translation, among which, in no particular order, will feature

Approaches to translating poetry
Translation reception
Translation evaluation
Fidelity, or faithful to what?
The challenges of Fiction
Translating the Classics
Translation in Ireland
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions (Decisions in Translation)
Style in Translation
The Creative Translator

The course will consider the practice of literary translation by looking at a range of specific texts drawn from poetry, prose fiction and non-fiction. The particular focus will be on translation as a literary rather than purely a linguistic event. Particular emphasis will be given to translating as writing, and therefore to elements of style and literary invention. The assumption is that translation is an act of imaginative boldness and that translators, like their authors, are writers and risk-takers. We'll look at what translators have themselves said of the art of translation and will refer to translators' prefaces, essays etc.

Participants will be assigned sample texts and asked to produce a translation and commentary, and will also be invited to present translations of short texts of their own choice to the group.

The class will also look at texts where English is the source language, and consider the challenges posed by contemporary Irish writers such as (for example) Joseph O'Connor, Roddy Doyle or Claire Keegan.

I'm enclosing a brief reading list of some of the books referred to in these sessions – not an exhaustive list but it will give you an idea of the kind of thing we're likely to be preoccupied with.

If you have any queries you can direct them to me at this email address, and you might like to let me know that this mail arrived safely.

Some books referred to in Texts and Translations:

Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet, ed, Theories of Translation, An
Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, University of Chicago,
1992
Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet, ed, The Craft of Translation, University of Chicago,
1989
Stanley Burshaw, ed, The Poem Itself, Penguin, 1960
Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Cultures,
Cork University Press, 1996
Michael Cronin and Cormac O Cuilleanáin, eds, The Languages of
Ireland, Four Courts Press, 2003
Edwin Honig, The Poet's Other Voice: Conversations on Literary
Translation, U of Mass. Press, 1985
George Steiner, ed, The Penguin Book of Modern Verse Translation, 1966
George Steiner, After Babel, Oxford, 1975
Daniel Weissbort, Translating Poetry: The Double Labyrinth
John Felstiner: Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew (Yale UP, 1995)
Peter Newmark, A Textbook of Translation, Longman, 2003
Mona Baker, In Other Words, A Coursebook on Translation, Routledge, 1992
Mona Baker, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies
Peter France, ed., The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation
Lawrence Venuti, The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, 2004
Robert Lowell, Imitations,
Ezra Pound, Poems and Translations, Library of America, 2003
Don Paterson, Orpheus, Faber, 2006
Stephen Mitchell, Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Vintage, 1989
Tom Paulin, The Road to Inver,Faber, 2005
Katharine Washburn and John S Majors, eds, World Poetry, An Anthology
of Verse from
Antiquity to our Time, Norton, 1998
Charles Tomlinson, The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation, Oxford, 1980
Charles Tomlinson, Metamorphoses: Poetry and Translation, Carcanet, 2003
Tim Parks, Translating Style, Cassell, 1998
Clifford E Landers, Literary Translation, A Practical Guide,
Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2001
Christopher Logue, War Music
Peter Whigham, The Poems of Catullus, Penguin, 1966
Peter Jones, Classics in Translation from Homer to Juvenal, Duckworth, 2004