Literary_Translation_and_Interpretation

Literary translation and interpretation of Ted Hughes’ Bride and groom lie hidden for three days I. Introduction Translating a literary text is always difficult and the process itself contains many questions like Is there any good solutions', What is the best way to put a text into another language' Is translation rewriting' Are we writing a completely new literary work through translation' etc. Furthermore, literary translations, as well as other translations are done on two levels: Denotative level: translating the words and sentences, find their equivalent in the target language. Connotative level: looking for the best appropriate meaning of the expressions, words, clauses etc. in the particular context. To be able to do this, a literary translator has to be aware with the full meaning of the work. That’s the reason why I first interpret the poem I translated and then write about the translation itself. II. A short interpretation of the poem We can divide the poem’s macro-metaphor of the poem into two parts. These two versions are very similar to each other in their basis yet they give entirely different interpretations to the work. II. 1. The process of creation a., The first version should be considered to be the metaphorical process of creation. According to this process we can find many microelements during reading the mūthos of the poem which connects the topic to the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Primarily, the process of creation, the miracle that brought the human beings into existence was executed only by God. But instead of God, in this poem the humans are doing this “job”. Thus, this act heightens the very human being to the plane of immortality, the level of being God. The other issue that occurs in the very beginning of the poem is that the couple is creating each other simultaneously. This concept means that even the creator is being created during the same moment or time – its existence is immaterial which leads us back to the concept of God, who is often considered to have no body. But, as we can read in the last stanza “Like two gods of mud” (“Mint két sáristenség”) they will have a body which means that in the end of the poem they are returned to their human existence. So if we want to delineate the metaphorical process on the macro-level strictly following the text, it has an upward movement in the very beginning and it remains on this level until the end where in the line “Like two gods of mud” the couple returns to the human level. b., From the point of view of the poem’s two “protagonists” this creation-process is more human than it seems. But of course the words are helping us: when bride and groom are creating, or better to say discover themselves, this is obviously a discovery in body and soul. The sexual reference of the metaphorical process comes into the picture – the process, when two people metaphorically-physically become one. But from this point of view this act is in contradiction with the institute of marriage: a man and a woman are considered to be bride and groom until their wedding-night. So this fusion is an obscene act. But if we look at this two-become-one concept, the topic roots in ancient Greek culture. Greeks thought that at the dawn of time all human beings had four legs, four hands and two heads. But with a sudden event every human were split into two pieces. And from that time human beings are spending their lives to find their other self to become one existence again, a “superhuman”. This union-addiction is imitated within sexuality. c., If we follow this concept of sexuality, the following quotation from the poem is regarded as the result of the creation: “They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily / To test each new thing at each new step.” (“Elkísérik egymást a napra, minden lépéssel / Egy új dolgot érezhetnek”). These two lines are the vehicle of the metaphor of birth. This is where the first phase of creation has ended. Only the first, because if we read further, we see that in the second phase the inner humans are being discovered by connecting the throat, the breasts, the pit of the stomach, the teeth, the little circles on the fingertips, etc. And in the last line “They bring each other into perfection.” (“Tökéletességbe kísérik egymást.”). II. 2. The process of recreation The second way we can look at the poem on the macro-level comes from the marriage-topic. Earlier I mentioned that the man and the woman are considered to be bride and groom until the wedding-night. But there are cultures where this is a bit different. There bride and groom are bride and groom until the next morning of the wedding night. We can only stand at the point of the metaphorical process of creation if it happens for the first time. But in the 20th century (the poem was published in 1978 in the volume of Cave Birds) the strict rules of marriage have been dissolved. Now, if we accept these information, this poem in not about creation any more, rather it is about the over- and overdone re-creation of the process. Then it is considered to be a kind of transformation, evolution of humans. To become perfect to each other. So we have no more paradox between the simultaneous creation and the immaterial creator. III. Interpreting the translation processes After the first reading the main difficulty of this poem becomes clear. The poem is written in 3rd person singular with two figures in it: a man and a woman. Ted Hughes uses the personal pronouns (he and she) to distinguish between them. However, translating this poem into Hungarian leads to a big difficulty, since Hungarian doesn’t distinguish gender in 3rd person singular. Thus, we have to look for alternatives in order to compile the languages’ deficiency. One of the solutions could be to write out the person’s gender, but this would ruin the poem’s sounding and reading (that we add férfi and nő or to be appropriate vőlegény and menyasszony in the place of he and she). I tried to look for a solution which doesn’t give any disadvantages to the poem, but gives the reader the help to distinguish between the two persons. Thus, I added attributes to some nouns like “Határozott szemeit neki adja, melyet murva” or “Gömbölyű csípőt formált neki”. Although this method is not satisfactory. If I keep adding attributes to every noun, the poem ends up with 20-30 extra words and the poem wouldn’t be the similar to the original one not in close. So I tried to distinguish the genders on the text level, but without adding or taking away from the poem. Finally I came to the solution to differentiate masculine and feminine by differentiating the font. So I put all the expressions, actions and word belonging to the feminine part into italic and all the masculine parts are left in non-italic. E.g. if we compare the lines “Acélkemény bíborselyemmel szövi át testének vonalait” and “She stitches his body here and there with steely purple silk” we see that “his body” is written “testének” in the Hungarian version and left non-italic since it’s the male’s body. All the other words in the action belong to the female so they are italicized. The easy part of the translation is that this postmodern literary work doesn’t have a very strict structure and rhymes as well. However, this means that the other parts of the poem (metaphors, figures, language etc.) became more significant, and the translator has to pay more attention to them than in other works. As many postmodern poetic works this one doesn’t have any punctuation as well. This particularity renders the reading more difficult, because we don’t know where to stop or where has the poem enjambments etc. Another difficult task is to be able to recreate the various poetic figures of the poem such as the metaphors for example. In many cases the translator has to choose whether he uses the same expression as the author of the original work, or looks for a similar expression in the target language. E.g. in the line “She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body” we have to look for a word similar to centrepin in Hungarian, which has a very similar meaning or function. In my translation this word has become zárókő; thus, the Hungarian version of the line is the following: “Fogait, testének zárókövéhez rögzítve, nyújtja át”. We know that in the English version centrepin can be identified with the heart as the centre of the body. So I sought for a word which could have a similar function as the heart has in a human body. That’s why I ended up with zárókő. Another example for the metaphor: “He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her”. In this and the previous line we can read that the male gives a skin to the female by pulling it out of the air thus referring to the smoothness and softness of a woman’s skin. This attribute is defined with the action’s description that it is pulled out from the air. Now, the task is given to represent the same in the target language. The result is the following: “Melyet légből szabott s testére fektette”. In this sentence we can have a little confusion due to the ambiguity of the word szabott. Originally we think it means that the woman’s skin is torn out of the air, but this doesn’t reflect the softness and smoothness as the original one. But if we read szabott with its second meaning that the woman’s skin is made from air, we feel the similarity between the two versions. To sum up, translating this poem was a very difficult task due to the gender description differences. On the other hand next to this only the connotative level is emphasized (metaphors), thus this gives a relative relief to the translator.