By Elizabeth Lagresa, Close Reading Re-visited Project Team
Borges’ theory of translation, as illustrated in his famous works “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” and “The Translators of the One Thousand and One Nights,” opens up a world of limitless possibilities by elevating translation from an act of reproduction to one of re-creation. In the fictional short story Pierre Menard Borges highlights the importance of the context, the reader and the translator as co-creators of meaning, ushering a new theory of literary criticism and translation that trivializes the preoccupation with notions such as faithfulness, authorship and originality. While in his essay on the translators of the Arabian Nights, by making the translator’s infidelities into what is most important and valued, he demonstrates that literary translations can produce diverse representations of the foreign text and culture, which ultimately enriches both languages and texts through the act of remaking.(For further information on Borges’ translation theory see Theory Details in the appendix.)
This concept of translation provided the theoretical basis for linking translation to text analysis since both involve the re-creation of a text, and also presented an opportunity to develop a heightened understanding of what is the role of readers and writers as co-creators of literature.
Utilizing Borges’ theory of translation as the conceptual backbone, the “Close Reading Re-visited” project, centered on the tool of Translation, aims to blend traditional methods of literary interpretation with text-analysis visualization tools to provide greater understanding of how source editions, man-made translations, and software translations versions of a text compare amongst themselves and to one another.Ultimately, the project is not intended to determine which version is more accurate compared to the “original,” but rather to explore what is revealed about the translators and their context through their creative “infidelities,” and in this way validate and increase the appreciation of translations as unique creations.Secondary aims of the project are to determine how text-analysis tools complement traditional forms of literary interpretation in order to analyze texts and translations, as well as how software translations re-create/deform texts.
The text chosen for the analysis was Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), a supreme example of Golden Age drama published in 1635.(For further information on this text see Background Text in the appendix.)Due to time constraints in the development of the project, only one portion of the play was selected to be compared across all versions.The excerpt selected was the “Life is a dream” soliloquy by Sigismundo, the play’s main character, considered by many critics to be the Spanish equivalent to Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy by Hamlet.The main theme of the soliloquy is dreams, and how ultimately all that life is, is just a dream.Three different types of texts with multiple versions were utilized in the project: two source editions, three man-made translations, and ten software translations. (For further information on the various text versions see Text Details in the appendix.)
To re-create both source and translation texts the Babylon translation software tool was applied, first to convert them from Spanish into English, or English into Spanish, and then to translate those versions back into the original language, Spanish or English.A total of ten versions were produced.Babylon software applies a statistical approach to automatic language translation and natural language processing.Its statistical techniques derive from cryptography, and utilize learning algorithms that are trained by repetition to translate automatically from existing man made translations.In regards to claims of accuracy, Babylon presents a disclaimer stating that “Machine translation is not accurate as the meaning of words depends upon the context in which they are used. Because of this, accurate translation requires an understanding of the context, as well as an understanding of the structure and rules of the language” (http://www.babylon.com/).
In order to compare and contrast the source editions, man-made translations and software translation versions amongst themselves and with each other, various text-analysis tools, namely TagCrowd, TAPoR, ManyEyes and Crawdad were utilized to visualize word patterns, themes, and word frequencies along with their importance.The two tools that were found to be the most useful for the comparison of different versions, as well as for their application to Spanish texts, were ManyEyes and Crawdad.ManyEyes was employed in two ways: tag clouds and word trees.Tag clouds were used to visualize word frequencies with number of occurrences, and included word context shown in a tooltip, useful in comparing word usage patterns.Word trees were particularly helpful in visualizing individual words, phrases and punctuation concordances show within their respective context in order to reveal recurrent themes.Crawdad, on the other hand, was employed to visualize a network of the most influential words and their interconnections, along with their frequency of co-occurrence.The tool also provided influence scores, which served as indicators of high coherence and focus in the text.(For further information on the performance of each tool see Text-Analysis Tool Details in the appendix.)
The following are the findings produced by the comparison of the various versions through the text-analysis tools.In order to see the visualizations that accompany the findings, please visit the English 236-winter 2008 UCSB course wiki page and search the Project Pages for the “Close Reading Re-visited” Project.
Source Editions
The first comparison generated was on the Spanish source editions by Cruickshank (#1) and Williamsen (#2).Utilizing the tool ManyEyes to create a tag cloud revealed very small differences between the two texts, in particularly the appearance of a question mark in the tag cloud for text #2, conspicuously missing from #1.Beyond this difference, the most important words were repeated in the same order and had an equal number of occurrences.Key words by order of appearance were: despertar (2), muerte (2), mundo (2), rey (2), sueña (7), sueño (3), sueños (2), vida (3).The number in parenthesis represents the occurrences of each word.Consistently, the main theme was dreams (10), followed by life (3), and waking, death, world and king all with the same number of occurrences (2).Similar results were obtained after utilizing the ManyEyes word tree tool to see the three words with the most occurrences [sueña (7), sueño (3), vida (3)] in context.They all share exactly the same branch breakdown and the first word of each branch with slight differences in punctuation.Only after creating the influence map with Crawdad did major differences become apparent between the texts.While #1 contained 8 words with strong influence, #2 contained 11 as well as the only visibly strong interconnection, which occurs between sueña [dream] and mundo [world] (a word that takes greater importance in #2).At closer inspection, additional variations in focus appeared with #1 giving prevalence to prisiones and estamo, while #2 inserted mandando, cargado, disponiendo and fiera giving a greater number of connections to sueña and sueño.The group influence scores also varied significantly with a value of 0.451 for #1 and 0.374 for #2, an indicator that text #1 had more coherence and focus.Overall, although these editions at a distant glance seemed almost identical, they revealed major differences when compared through a more “refined” tool that provided a closer inspection.Consequently, editions can vary significantly from each other, even without incurring into the challenges generated by the translation process.
Man-made Translations
Multiple findings were produced by the comparison between the three English man-made translations, Racz (#3), FitzGerald (#4) and MacCarthy (#5).With the ManyEyes tag clouds tool it was revealed that #3 and #5 shared greater similarities with each other than with #4.Additionally, in text #3 the top words were dreams (7), dream (5), life (6), earth (3), and means (3), in text #4 dream (6), sleep (5), half (4), life (3), and lives (3), and in text #5 dreams (9), dream (7), life (3) and tis (3).This revealed that all text consistently maintained the main theme found in the source editions, dreams, but then emphasized different minor themes.The importance of death was shared by text #3 and #5, but it was completely minimized by #4 which substituted the life/death dichotomy with that of awake/sleep.Placed in context with the word tree, the variations that were discovered in the tag clouds were further magnified.This revealed that the word usage pattern was utilized in vastly diverging ways by each author, reinforcing the inherent difficulty in “judging” translations’ accurateness to the “original”.Additionally, translations #4 and #5, which are from the same time period (1850’s), did not share as many similarities as might have been expected.Instead #5 shared greater similarities with translation #3 produced almost 150 years later.Observing briefly the translators’ aims (see Translation Aims in the appendix) revealed that these authors, Racz(#3) and MacCarthy (#4), also shared similar goals with their re-creations of Calderon’s work, namely to render the drama in analogous meter and rhyme without sacrificing any important ideas.Conversely, FitzGerald (#5) who freely translated Calderon’s work employs a judgmental tone admonishing the local quality, implausibility of the drama, and lack of skills of the author.Understanding the translator’s aims proves to be a very important factor in exploring the similarities and differences presented by each version.Further research on the historical and cultural circumstances would be required to distinguish more clearly what is shared or not by each translation and its author.
Ultimately, the influence maps by Crawdad further corroborated the previous conclusions, and revealed some new discrepancies between texts.The indicator for group influence varied significantly between translations, with a value of 0.249 for #3, 0.253 for #4, and 0.711 for #5, an indicator that text #5 has more coherence and focus than any of the other two texts, as well as the source editions.In text #3 the words dream and man share equal importance, but upon closer comparison, man actually has the strongest influence.This reveals a major shift from the theme in the source editions which always affords greater importance to dreams.In text #4 dream heads the map but it distinguishes itself from the other versions by its unique use of words related to the theater (play, actor, stage) also not present in the source editions.In text #5 dream holds the strongest influence followed by life, man and ti.New words and themes that make themselves present in these English translations, but are absent from the Spanish texts are riches, wealth and gold, while world and fiction, very significant words in the Spanish texts, are completely absent from the English versions.This substantiates that each translation is a unique text and much more than a mere copy of the “original” text.Translators are themselves new authors, demonstrated by how their diverse choices re-construct the text and its themes.
Software Translations
The last comparison created was on the Babylon translation software versions.Due to the limited scope of the project, only the English versions were analyzed in detail.This leaves open the opportunity to do further analysis on the remaining Spanish versions.By employing the ManyEyes tag clouds many similarities become apparent between the “original” man-made English translations and the English software versions, which were first converted to Spanish and then back to English.Slight differences appear with the increase or decrease of occurrence of top words, but overall they remain in the same order and level of importance. Comparing Racz’s version (#3) with Babylon’s (3b) reveals the addition of three new key words: land, vocation and wealth.With FitzGerald’s (#4) versus Babylon’s (4b), the original word dream’d gets combined with dream and live with life, increasing their number of occurrence, while longer and waking get replaced in importance by shadow and vigil.Also significant is that a new word is added, no…, with 6 occurrences.In the comparison of MacCarthy’s (#5) versus Babylon’s (5b), a number of new words rise in importance (evil, fate, joy, and light), while only one decreases significantly (wrong).Even with all the initial similarities between the man-made translations and those created by the software, it becomes apparent that alterations have been produced by the software.Utilizing ManyEyes word tree to see the words in context reveals the magnitude of these alterations.Although most of the top words are illustrated the same number of times as in the original version, the rearranging of the order of words by the software has produced a loss of coherence.Some of the original sense is still present, but it appears jumbled in most cases.Sentence ordering is also altered, creating even further distortions of the source translations.Lastly, the use of Crawdad’s indicator for group influence reveals significant variations between versions, with a reduced value of 0.186 vs. 0.249 for Racz (#3), dramatically increased 0.664 vs. 0.253 for FitzGerald (#4), and somewhat reduced 0.662 vs. 0.711 for MacCarthy (#5).This indicates that the translation software does affect with great variance the coherence and focus of the texts.The most affected is #4 that interestingly gains greater focus and coherence, possibly due to the grouping of similar words in the original (ex. Live/life, dream’d/dream).This version is also the most altered in terms of the top words, with dream being relegated to a more minor role of influence, and replaced by no….The other versions, with some additions and subtractions, tend to maintain a similar structure, although in all cases, the addition of new influence words and themes is the prevalent pattern.
Conclusions
The “Close Reading Re-visited” project demonstrates the impossibility of a word for word translation and even edition, unlike that which occurs in the miraculous case of Borges’ Pierre Menard.The findings of the project further support the acceptance of multiple versions as all simultaneously genuine and divergent, and the difficulty and futility of placing in a hierarchy which version is the most “faithful” compared to the “original”.Additionally, since all translations must be equally encompassed as “unfaithful,” they can also be judged as “faithful,” highlighting the fact that translation is an act of subjective interpretation and re-creation.Consequently, translation shares similarities not only with text-analysis, but also with deformance and the profound subjectivity from which critical insight emerges.Furthermore, the translator’s infidelities do reveal the soul of the translator, or rather their intentions, as can be induced by the comparison between each of their aims.This posits that translations not only have the power to share the work with a wider culture, but also to enrich both languages and texts through the act of remaking.Lastly, the project establish the possibility of equating translation to a creative process that results in unique text, eliminating the hierarchical divide that exists between author and translator, and original and translation, as envisioned by Borges’ theory of translation.
To different degrees, each of the text-analysis tools employed recognized the main theme of dreams and showed how it was re-created by each version.Tag clouds were the least sensitive to variations in the text, demonstrating the need to apply multiple tools for interpretation, such as the word trees which place words in their context, and influence maps which reveal hidden interconnections between words.Overall, the use of various tools does reveal different aspects of a text, and such an approach is particularly helpful when utilized for the comparison of multiple texts against each other.Employing text-analysis tools to compare the software translation versions was further corroboration of the importance of an analysis in context, but also revealed some deficiencies in Crawdad’s group influence indicator since it awarded a version with little to no apparent rationality a high score on coherence and focus.Ultimately, though, it was demonstrated that digital visualization tools for “distant” reading and traditional methods of close reading do inform and complement each other to expand our understanding of all texts, including those in translation. However, do to their dependence on each other they do require flexibility in order to switch back and forth between both modes of interpretation.
The Babylon translation software, although an improvement versus other softwares that were experimented on, still needs a lot of development.Not only were some of the words not translated by the program and left in the original language (Ex. “Sueño” is translated but not “Sueña”), but also strange numerical characters appeared in some of the texts.A comparison between software translations of texts from other project team members revealed that while student texts showed almost no discrepancies (substitution of “a” for “one”), and theoretical text showed minor, although more pronounced divergence, the greatest distortion was visible in literary texts.The ballads from A Young Man's Opinion, as well as the soliloquy selected from Calderon’s La vida es sueño demonstrated a significant loss of coherence, possibly due to Babylon software’s need to understand the context, structure and rules of the language in order to produce an accurate translation.These are needs that are not easily fulfilled by literary texts, which usually expand the use of language in creative ways and can have very fluctuating contexts.
Bibliography
Babylon: Translation at a single click.1997-2007.Babylon Ltd.13 Feb. 2008.<http://www.babylon.com/>.
Borges, Jorge Luis. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” Ficciones. English Trans.Buenos Aires: Editorial Sur, 1944.88-95.
- - - . “The Translators of the One Thousand and One Nights.” Trans. Esther Allen. TheTranslation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. 94-108.
Appendix
I. Theory Details
Within the short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” published in Ficciones in 1944, Jorge Luis Borges succinctly presents a discussion on the problematic subject of translation, and utilizes it as a vehicle to situate readers and translators face to face with their function as co-creators of literature. The story begins with a brief introduction by the narrator enumerating all of Menard's “visible” work, and then moves to a discussion and defense of his invisible or “subterranean” works, namely his unfinished production of chapters VIIII, XXXVIII and fragments of XXII of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (Borges, Pierre Menard 88-90). In it Menard asserts that his intent was not to copy but to re-construct “…a number of pages which coincided – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes” (Borges, Pierre Menard 91). The methodology chosen to bring about this unattainable task is to re-create Cervantes’ work as though it was Menard who had conceived it, effectively supporting the authorial claim established by the title of the story (Borges, Pierre Menard 92). As a result, the hierarchical divide between author and translator, original and translation is not only blurred, but somewhat inverted. According to Menard, his task as a translator is of greater difficulty than that of Cervantes, and consequently, his creation is more worthy of praise. While Cervantes “…did not spurn the collaboration of chance…and was often swept along by the inertia of the language and the imagination,” the translator’s job is described as premeditated and deliberate, language is scrutinized and imagination is subjugated to the rigor of reason (Borges, Pierre Menard 92). Menard’s reconstruction of what for Cervantes was spontaneous creation occurred by working through various artificial constraints, which required the translator’s ultimate sacrifice and subordination to the original text’s intentions, transforming his sacrifice into a virtue of “…almost divine modesty” (Borges, Pierre Menard 93). Additionally, despite the fact that Menard did not commit any infidelities, for “The Cervantes text and the Menard text are verbally identical…,” the narrator quickly points out that a major disparity has emerged between the two: “…the second is almost infinitely richer” (Borges, Pierre Menard 94). By placing in the body of the story two mirror images of an excerpt of Cervantes’ “original” and Menard’s Quixote (both in English), Borges makes unequivocally apparent that although the words might be the same, it is the reader, and consequently the meaning the reader endows to those words that has changed. The three hundred years that have elapsed between the original and Menard's text, and the weight of the events that transpired have filled these words with new meanings and allusions for the readers, ultimately enriching the text. Through this short story Borges highlights the importance of the reader as well as the translator as creator of meaning, ushering a new theory of literary criticism and translation that trivializes the preoccupation with concepts such as authorship and originality.
Similarly, through his essay titled “The Translators of the One Thousand and One Nights,” Borges demonstrates that literary translations can produce diverse representations of the foreign text and culture. He provides a detailed discussion of different translations of the One Thousand and One Nights, while critiquing their investment in various literary traditions, political interests and cultural values, ranging from puritanical to orientalist, English to German, and middle class to academic. The first translator mentioned is Captain Burton, whose “…secret aims of his work was the annihilation of another gentleman…Edward Lane, the Orientalist…that had supplanted a version by Galland,” illustrating the use of translation as a tool for criticism and competition, and the foreign text as a possible territory for colonization (Borges, The Translators 94). Borges proceeds to provide a sort of history of translation, commencing with Jean Antoine Galland, the first European translator, and therefore the most read and influential of all, and concluding with Enno Littmann who is harshly criticized for his literal, word for word rendition described as “…always lucid, readable, mediocre” (Borges, The Translators 106).Throughout the essay, the concept of “faithfulness” is turned on its head, making the translator’s infidelities into what is most important and valued, for as Borges states, it is the translator’s “…infidelity, his happy and creative infidelity, that must matter to us,” and not literal "faithful" translations which produce nothing (The Translators 105). Ultimately, translations have the power to surpass the fame of the original, share the work with a wider culture, and enrich both languages and texts through the act of remaking.
II. Background Text
Author - Pedro Calderón de la Barca:
He was considered one of the leading dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Madrid on January 17, 1600, Calderon studied canon law in preparation for his presumed career in the church, but in the 1620’s he started to write verse, and his success in competitions attracted attention.Eventually, the prolific Calderon would write approximately 120 full-length dramatic works, some 80 one-act autos sacramentales (religious mystery plays), and many other short pieces of poetry and works for the theater.He continued to write both secular and religious plays until his death on May 25, 1681.
Text - La vida es sueño: (1635)
Considered by many to be the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age drama, La vida es sueño was written as a comedy, yet it has tragic overtones and its leading characters meditate on such serious questions as moral behavior, the opposition between free-will and predestination, reality and illusion, various types of hybridity, and the nature and purpose of human life in general.These central themes overshadow other themes present, like the education of princes, the model ruler, power, honor and justice.
In it, the notion that the world is a stage and life an apparition, a dream, is not simply a poetic image or metaphor; it is presented as a philosophy, a design for living.The implication is that in spite of the purposelessness of life, or perhaps because of it, life should be lived with dignity, courage, and morals.The lessons taught about human conduct carry a twofold message: life is a dream, yet it must not be lived irresponsibly.Each of us must discover our own idea of virtue and honor and practice it, as it were, gratuitously.The subplot is that of a routine comedy, full of disguises and surprise recognitions; yet it is carried by characters whose main purpose seems to be to meditate on human destiny and to contemplate death, while their speech, at once formal and exuberant, full of rich imagery, expresses their vitality and earthly attachment.
Plot - Summary:
In the play, the king of Poland, Basil, has had his son Segismund imprisoned all of his life because it has been prophesied that the son will bring calamity to the country.The king tells his subjects that his son died after childbirth, but after his son has grown to be a man, he reveals to his court that he lives, and allows the court to vote in favor of allowing the son to become heir.However, the son turns out to be violent, killing a man and attempting rape.For this he is drugged and returned to his prison, and told upon waking that the previous day's events were merely a dream.Still, his jailer, Clotaldo, scolds him for his un-princely behavior, which prompts remorse in Segismund.Rebels against the king, who have found out about the treatment of Segismund, break him out of prison. The rebels defeat the king's army; however, Segismund doubts again if he is in reality or a dream, finally deciding that even in a dream we have to behave well, and ultimately forgives the king.
Translations - History:
Over twenty English-language translations of Calderon’s La vida es sueño are in existence.The majority of these have been published in book form, though some remain in manuscript, and many are now out of print.These texts vary considerably in aesthetic conceptualization and poetic strategy, and range from literal prose versions to free-verse renderings, and abridged adaptations for the stage.The earliest translation of the play into English, by Malcolm Cowan, dates from 1830.
III. Text Details
Source Editions:
Since no manuscripts survive, two source editions were selected to represent the “original” text.The first edition is that of D.W. Cruickshank and J.E. Varey from 1973, published in London by Gregg Internacional Publisher Limited, base on La vida es sueño, Pedro Calderón de la Barca Comedias Vol. II Primera parte from 1636.The second edition was that of Vern G. Williamsen from 1982, based on Everett W. Hesse, La vida es sueño (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1961) based in turn, on the princeps of the work in the Primera Parte de las Comedias de Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca (Madrid, 1636).
Man-made Translations:
For the man-made translations three full-length English-language versions were utilized.
The first was Gegory J. Racz (2006), an Associate Professor for Long IslandUniversity, Brooklyn that claims to be the first attempt to render the drama in analogue meter and rhyme since the 1850’s.The source text he employed was Juan Eugenio de Hartzenbusch, 1851 text from the "Biblioteca de Autores Españoles."The other two versions were obtained through Project Gutenberg.One is from Edward FitzGerald (1853/1858), an English poet, who in 1853 issued Six Dramas of Calderon, freely translated, and in 1865 two more plays from Calderon.The base text used by FitzGerald is unknown.The last version is by Denis Florence MacCarthy (1850/1873), an Irish poet, translator and biographer that claims to have created the first translation in the meter of the original.His work titled Calderon's Dramas, was published in London by Henry S. King in 1873, containing Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueño).The base text is the same as that used by Gregory J. Racz, the Hartzenbusch edition of Calderon's Comedias, Madrid, 1856 from the "Biblioteca de Autores Españoles."
Software Translations:
To re-create both source and translation texts the Babylon translation software was applied, first to convert them from Spanish into English, or English into Spanish, and then to translate those versions back into the original language, Spanish or English.A total of ten versions were produced:
Version 1a - Spanish #1 Cruickshank and Varey translated with Babylon into English
Version 1b - English Babylon version 1a, translated back into Spanish with Babylon
Version 2a - Spanish #2 Williamsen translated with Babylon into English
Version 2b - English Babylon version 2a, translated back into Spanish with Babylon
Version 3a - English #3 Racz translation, translated with Babylon into Spanish
Version 3b - Spanish Babylon version 3a, translated back into English with Babylon
Version 4a - English #4 FitzGerald translation, translated with Babylon into Spanish
Version 4b Spanish Babylon version 4a, translated back into English with Babylon
Version 5a - English #5 MacCarthy translation, translated with Babylon into Spanish
Version 5b - Spanish Babylon version 5a, translated back into English with Babylon
IV. Text-Analysis Tool Details
These tools were applied to texts in Spanish and for the comparison of various versions.
Use: Create word clouds, word lists, and concordances to identify main themes.
Limitations:
- Difficulty of working in organized manner due to vast variety of tools - Need to create account to simplify use of tools, group findings, and texts.
- Word Cloud/ List Words/Concordance tools convert special characters and accents into question marks - Need to remove or convert them to other characters.
- No Spanish or other language common word stop list is provided – Need to create your own stop list.
- Word Cloud tool does not give the option of grouping similar words and only provides the “glasgow” stop word list.
- Concordance tool groups some, but not all similar words in Spanish when this option is selected.Also, the word distribution graph does not function with special characters - obstacle to comparison between English and Spanish texts.
Use: Visualize text with tag clouds (word frequencies with number of occurrences and context shown in a tooltip) and word trees (individual word, phrase and punctuation concordance shown within context to reveal recurrent themes and phrases).
Limitations:
- Tag clouds, not as appealing visually as those of other tools, for example TagCrowd clouds.
- Tag cloud tool automatically ignores common words in English and other languages like Spanish.
Use: Visualize network of the most influential words (nodes with values above 0.015) and their interconnections with frequency of co-occurrence in a map.Compare group influence scores (range from 0-1) which serve as indicators of high coherence and focus in the text, as well as a tabular summary of high influence words and word pairs.
Limitations:
- Automatically stops common English words.
- Does not have the option to include a stop list for any language.
- Does not show all influential words or their interconnections in the visual map.
V. Translation Aims
Three solutions for the same problem: how to maintain “faithfulness” to the original while attempting to influence positively the lack of acceptance of this Spanish play by English-speaking societies.
1. Racz
“The present translation of Calderon’s masterpiece represents
the first attempt to render the drama entirely in analogous meter and rhyme
since 1853, when both Denis Florence MacCarthy and Edward FitzGerald,
with varying degrees of success, contemporaneously produced
full-length English-language versions of the play…
The language of this translation has attempted to retain a hint of archaism
without striving to sound pseudo-Shakespearean.
One aim of this approach has been to allow contemporary English-language
audiences to eavesdrop, as it were, on the aesthetics of dramatic production
in a Spain whose nearly four-hundred-year remove in time is
surpassed by a cultural distance vaster still.” (A Note on the Translation)
2. FitzGerald
“The dominant motives in Calderon's dramas are characteristically
national: fervid loyalty to Church and King, and a sense of honor
heightened almost to the point of the fantastic. Though his plays
are laid in a great variety of scenes and ages, the sentiment and the
characters remain essentially Spanish; and this intensely local quality
has probably lessened the vogue of Calderon in other countries. In the
construction and conduct of his plots he showed great skill, yet the
ingenuity expended in the management of the story did not restrain the
fiery emotion and opulent imagination which mark his finest speeches
and give them a lyric quality which some critics regard as his greatest
distinction…
The bad watch kept by the sentinels who guarded their state-prisoner, together
with much else (not all!) that defies sober sense in this wild drama, I
must leave Calderon to answer for; whose audience were not critical of
detail and probability, so long as a good story, with strong, rapid, and
picturesque action and situation, was set before them.” (Intro)
3. Mac-Carthy
“Now first translated fully from the Spanish in the metre
Of the original. By Denis Florence Mac-Carthy.
Two of the dramas contained in this volume are the most celebrated of
all Calderon's writings.The first, "La Vida es Sueno", has been
translated into many languages and performed with success on almost
every stage in Europe but that of England…
The present version of the entire play has been made with the advantages
which the author's long experience in the study and interpretation of
Calderon has enabled him to apply to this master-piece of the great
Spanish poet.All the forms of verse have been preserved; while the
closeness of the translation may be inferred from the fact, that not
only the whole play but every speech and fragment of a speech are
represented in English in the exact number of lines of the original,
without the sacrifice, it is to be hoped, of one important idea.” (Intro)
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.