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What can be translated, what not? A discussion
'What can be translated, what not'
Philosophically speaking al Gahiz would say that there is in every language the word 'love' but he insisted the deeper meaning this word cannot be translated into any other language.This is because in each cultural context use of language means as well experiencing a certain tension field, the tension between the sexes most difficult to control while often more than exciting the reason to overstep limits or to trespass certain borders.
Tension fields are linked to the teleonomie of the word being a concept as well. Responses to that are as said forms of control so that the deeper meanings are transformed by subversive actions. It is like the men in Arab countries going consciously into super markets to see the girls searching for clothes as the actions reveal their hand wrists or ankles. They can spot immediately if the girl is still unmarried and in search of a true love.
Hegel would call all that the 'list of reason'. Any devious nature is reinforced by a kind of official morality which suppresses the real sense of freedom. The latter becomes due to its denial treacherous. That is the case when a boy follows his desire. Yet the truth of the matter is that it has as much consequences, if not more, as if he does not go after the girl but stays within the borders and limitations drawn by society and its morality. Usually the latter is reinforced by religion but enters literature when writers let their characters end up dying if they would breach the morality of their society.
Thus in either way nothing can be gained like a true life in open structures if society itself does not open up to seeking an understanding of life in all its nuances. But many of these nuances mean nothing for the outsider. He will overlook that they have meaning for the one living in that particular society and that it can jeopardize life if not observed. The naivity by which the Western World, in particular its media, penetrates into often sacred spaces of these other cultures means provocation and still more provocation by ignoring these nuances. Often the Western world confuses enticement with provocation and thus links up with that special game with love called seduction. Again the naive ones fall for it and become victims of their own ideologies. That then can unite the ones left stranded in a Conservative society with the ones driven by the illusion to be living in a freed society as is the case of the West.
Most interesting is a remark which fell during discussions with Gabriel Rosenstock, Dileep Jhaveri and Yiorgos Chouliaras, namely that 'writers and poets create national languages, translators create world literature.'
Hatto Fischer
6.9.2012
Nuances in language makes all the difference which cannot be translated
On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 5:41 PM, Dileep Jhaveri wrote:
"Jibananand Das was the first modern poet in Bengali and he changed the countenance of the language that was smoothly polished and smeared with romantic unguents sourced from Sanskrit by Tagore. However, the early poems of Das remained romantic as you can see in Banalata Sen series. You will find a lot of Baudelaire and even Rimbaud in his poems. Only later, Sanskrit shifted to make room for Bengali in his poems and local landscapes emerged where only floral arbors of Tagore existed earlier. Inspired by him the younger generation (50 years back ) confidently rebelled against Gurudeva and embraced Marx. Being vocal they occupied center stage nationally, but quietly Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati poetry developed a modernity that was universal and yet the nuances of the original languages were retained. These nuances can never be translated into European languages and that is why the best of what we wrote remains unknown to the world at large. Das was an inspiring poet in our early youth as was Tagore for two generations before us."
Dileep Jhaveri
A good poem can be recognised by losing the least in translation.
"This is how the good poetry has survived. But many good poems do not survive. When you think of translation beyond words on paper or digitalisation, it is a continuous process in the mind. Even within the same language a reader experiences a poem differently from another and also differently from one reading to another. Thinkers have written volumes about this and you are familiar with such philosophical works. But the fact that so much has been written with differing views certainly points to the very essence of poetry, which is simply an ongoing and ever dynamic marvel. It defies anything like a last word. It is eternally fragile and yet enduring.
Nuances are blockades in need to be overcome with good translations
"This could be said about many languages. But we shouldn't give up. It offers a great challenge to the poet-translator. There is a force in poetry which communicates itself in spite of everything and knocks down the barricades of nuances. Within all of us is the capacity to taste fruit we have never eaten, hear music and see colours unknown to our senses. Great literature needs to be translated not once but every 50 to 100 years.
Currently in Lithuania. The hotel says that 'bear' is available. Is it a bear, or beer?
Is there a translator available?"
- Gabriel Rosenstock (5.10.2012)
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