I was introduced to Yasano Akiko’s tanka through an anthology edited and translated by Ueda Makoto. As a translator, Ueda decision to alter the poetic structure and his word choice contributed my enjoyment of Yasano’s work. Tanka is traditionally a five-lined poem following a syllabic structure of 7-5-7-5-5. Ueda translations of Yasano’s work adhere to these rules loosely, there were always five lines but rarely thirty-one syllables. Ueda ensures that the poems compact, more often falling below the prescribed 31 syllables than exceeding them. While I believe it would have been an interesting challenge to adhere to the syllabic structure, I appreciated this decision since it still retained the brevity of the poems. While it is difficult for me to determine how faithful Ueda is to Yasano’s original works, the translations are beautiful to read: “grabbing one of / my numerous poetic curses / scrawled and thrown away / I hold down / a black butterfly.” Ueda provides phonetic transcription of the poem below, which I read as “Curses written, a pile of scraps of paper...” Beginning with a verb like grabbing is very powerful and conveys the emotion of poem. It seems Ueda also sacrifices some meaning for the sake of brevity. If I’m not mistaken, the poem plays with the word butterfly: “chou-chou.” Yasano uses the word “kochou,” which I’ve never heard before but I assume means baby butterfly, or perhaps a small moth. However, the word “kochou” also means exaggeration which perhaps also reveals the poet’s shame or amusement upon finding these old crumpled verses.
One of my favorite translated books is Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata. When I first read the book in Japanese, I did not like it so much. Kawabat is famous as a great admirer of the beauty of Japanese culture and sensibility. So in his works he keeps describing things like temples, shrines, old houses, geisha places, and so on. Though I respect for him as a writer, I honestly felt fed up with those descriptions of very Japanese settings which were quite different from my Japanese world. It was often exhausting and frustrating to read his books. But when I read it in translation, I was moved by the book and accepted it as a simply beautiful work. Since then, I read the book many times in English translation. There are several reasons why I can appreciate it when I read it in translation. The first reason is that I am able to distance myself form the book and look at the world form a different angle. The translation helps me see the Japanese world not from inside but from outside. It is almost like going abroad to look at your culture from outside. So when reading in translation I do not have to be part of his strangely “beautiful” Japanese world. The second reason is the way the translator translated the book. Reading the translation, I can still hear an echo of Japanese language in a very good way. He does not completely erase the traces of the original language and succeeds in retaining the foreignness of the work, which helps me place myself between the two languages. In that in-between space, I can feel freer and see something essential that I missed when reading it in Japanese.
Sachiko Clayton
ReplyDeleteENG 757
02/08/10
Short Paper #1
I was introduced to Yasano Akiko’s tanka through an anthology edited and translated by Ueda Makoto. As a translator, Ueda decision to alter the poetic structure and his word choice contributed my enjoyment of Yasano’s work.
Tanka is traditionally a five-lined poem following a syllabic structure of 7-5-7-5-5. Ueda translations of Yasano’s work adhere to these rules loosely, there were always five lines but rarely thirty-one syllables. Ueda ensures that the poems compact, more often falling below the prescribed 31 syllables than exceeding them. While I believe it would have been an interesting challenge to adhere to the syllabic structure, I appreciated this decision since it still retained the brevity of the poems.
While it is difficult for me to determine how faithful Ueda is to Yasano’s original works, the translations are beautiful to read: “grabbing one of / my numerous poetic curses / scrawled and thrown away / I hold down / a black butterfly.” Ueda provides phonetic transcription of the poem below, which I read as “Curses written, a pile of scraps of paper...” Beginning with a verb like grabbing is very powerful and conveys the emotion of poem. It seems Ueda also sacrifices some meaning for the sake of brevity. If I’m not mistaken, the poem plays with the word butterfly: “chou-chou.” Yasano uses the word “kochou,” which I’ve never heard before but I assume means baby butterfly, or perhaps a small moth. However, the word “kochou” also means exaggeration which perhaps also reveals the poet’s shame or amusement upon finding these old crumpled verses.
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ReplyDeleteYoshi Tomonaga
ReplyDeleteEng 757
2 / 8 / 09
Short Paper # 1
One of my favorite translated books is Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata. When I first read the book in Japanese, I did not like it so much. Kawabat is famous as a great admirer of the beauty of Japanese culture and sensibility. So in his works he keeps describing things like temples, shrines, old houses, geisha places, and so on. Though I respect for him as a writer, I honestly felt fed up with those descriptions of very Japanese settings which were quite different from my Japanese world. It was often exhausting and frustrating to read his books. But when I read it in translation, I was moved by the book and accepted it as a simply beautiful work. Since then, I read the book many times in English translation.
There are several reasons why I can appreciate it when I read it in translation. The first reason is that I am able to distance myself form the book and look at the world form a different angle. The translation helps me see the Japanese world not from inside but from outside. It is almost like going abroad to look at your culture from outside. So when reading in translation I do not have to be part of his strangely “beautiful” Japanese world.
The second reason is the way the translator translated the book. Reading the translation, I can still hear an echo of Japanese language in a very good way. He does not completely erase the traces of the original language and succeeds in retaining the foreignness of the work, which helps me place myself between the two languages. In that in-between space, I can feel freer and see something essential that I missed when reading it in Japanese.
Short Paper #1 (Andriana Rizos)
ReplyDeleteNazim Hikmet’s “On Death Again,” translated from Turkish into English by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk, is very touching and emotional to read. Knowing that Hikmet spent thirteen years in exile and thirteen years in prison for his political views, and that he wrote this poem during that time to his wife, makes the translation that much more meaningful. How can one take emotion written in Turkish including nicknames and endearing terms, and translate them into English, a language where so much can easily become a cliché? As he addresses his wife to explain his morbid thoughts, he describes her as “life of my life” – a way to say that he is simply because she subsists. This translation was heartfelt when he calls her “my Piraye.” Keeping the term from the Turkish brings in the necessity of a certain emotion that nothing else can capture otherwise. As Hikmet thinks about death and allows himself to feel it through the arteries of his heart he begins to wonder of his wife’s inevitable death as well, how each death could affect the other, and in what turn it would happen. He questions the possible sounds one would hear before the other’s dying while the other will be left all alone. This translation makes the passion and true emotion sincere with the American sayings: “I mean, that’s life.” This is the way an American would think and speak; the way one would say, “I mean, that’s my luck, ya know?” Translating this poem into a way an American reader would actually write it or think it, makes this poem a haunting and true one. The spacing of this poem represents the moments in the orginal Turkish where the emotion is highest. These enjambments and spacing then feel like someone reciting this poem in tears, and that each time a line is heavily indented, the speaker is holding back tears: Whoever dies first, / however / and wherever we die, / you and I / can say we loved / each other. It is the new spacing, the changed clichés (“life of my life” vs. “light of my life,”) and the Turkish word “Piraye” that keeps this poem so close to its original Turkish home that allows it to enter mine in American with understanding and respect.