Andemos, amigo, andemos...

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Errors de Traduccion

Todos, shabbat shalom. Ayer y más temprano estaba comiendo un poco de challah con café y me acordé dbe que yo no escribí el blog mío. Eso no fue bueno porque la semana pasada, lo olvidé asimismo. Por accidente puedo aseguraros. También hoy es shabbos: no trabajar. Pero, yo me pregunté, ¿es esto en realidad trabajar? No sé, eso os digo con la lengua a la mejilla. Por consiguiente, pensé que ¿quizás puede hallar un/una shabbat goy para escribir para mí? Pues, no buena idea, porque RH conoce mi escritura. Ay, Dios mío. No obstante, ahora ese problema no me importa porque como yo comía challah con mantequilla me di cuenta que comía pollo también. Por lo tanto, puesto que ya estoy en error con el halakhah, debo escribir algo, o leer la torah. Pero, veo que es la noche ya. Bueno. Ahora puedo componer mi carga. Estoy feliz y me gustan las entradas que fueron escritas esta semana. Lo siento que no podía asistir la clase pasada. Yo quiero escribir acerca de errores de traducciones, pero no sé lo que escribir y tengo que leer de los Nevi'im para aprender lo que sucederá en el fin. Chao.

Words, Words, Words

I did it again. I searched for something on Wikipedia, and did a trail that somehow ended with me reading LOST episode summaries (the season 6 premiere is on Tuesday! Expect me to try to relate "Cuentos de la tierra" to LOST in some way in Wednesday's class).

I also spent a good portion of this week searching around youtube for the exact feeling that the passage I translated in class evoked... the street scene that is shadowy, maybe with lightning, it's raining... where everything just feels spooky. All I ended up finding were clips that freaked me out... so I had to stop watching.

My inability to find a video of what Moratín wrote speaks to what we talked about in class... while artists in the 21st century might use movies or visual imagery to convey a feeling, authors have a much harder task... to describe something with words. I wonder if we've really gone past the era of good, untouched writing. If a book is published, and it is popular, usually a movie comes out in 2-5 years. It makes me wonder if as a society we've moved past being satisfied with the words that authors write, and now need a stronger stimulus to create a feeling within ourselves.

Friday, January 29, 2010

La semana pasada y la que viene

Estoy leyendo los cuentos para el primero de febrero. Ya he leído Las medias rojas y So tierra. Voy a leer los otros cuentos mañana durante el tiempo libre este fin de semana.

No entendí mucho de Las medias rojas. La lengua era difícil y pasé más de media hora buscando palabras por el diccionario. Pero disfruté So tierra. Era un cuento de suspenso y misterio. Pobre Teresa! Es bien que nuestro autor la cuida.

La única cosa que no entendí muy bien es: ¿Quién lo mató Fajardo? Claro que fue asesinado…¿ pero de quién? ¿Teresa o nuestro autor?

También me gusta que los cuentos sean muy breves. Es más fácil leerlos y además, es interesante notar como el autor se crea un mundo en solo dos o tres páginas.
Para la semana que ya pasó…¡me encanta el día de traducción! Creo que todos han hecho un trabajo bien, pero lo más interesante es las palabras elegidas. Es fácil traducir las palabras, pero como nuestra profesora ya dijo, es bien difícil comunicar los sentimientos. Cada vez que necesito traducir algo, recordarme que mientras puedo leer y entender un cuento o lo que sea, a veces es casi imposible comunicarlo en otra lengua.

Jeff

Las medias rojas, Naturalism, and Natural Born Killers

Las medias rojas by Emilia Pardo Bazan, was a great introduction to Naturalism. In contrast to the supernatural, and subjective style of Espronceda's poem El estudiante de Salamanca, Bazan introduces us to the harsh reality of the human condition that is experienced in everyday life. Some of the main themes common to Naturalism we find in Las medias rojas are violence, poverty, and the inequalities in society.

The cool thing about this short story is that it tells some much about the world that Ildara and her uncle live in and is so very powerful in so few lines. You get a good sense of the contrasts that are a reality in their world. Ildara is weak, beautiful and young and her uncle is while kind of a lazy bum has all the power, is strong, ugly and old. He doesn't want his life to change, whereas Ildara yearns for the "suerte" of the new world and dreams of breaking from her life of poverty and hard work to a life a luxury and leisure.

Bazan does a great job of reproducing the grittiness and their world. This is not an invented world like the dream world Espronceda created in his poem, this world actually exists; and as one of the main goals of the writers of Naturalism, Bazan objectively reproduces this world as it existed during that time in the mountains of Galicia. She also gives us a raw description of the ugliness of the human condition of that world where women had little power or freedom and without the means to change their condition. The brutality in the scene in which Claudio beats Ildara is horrific. This horror is actually felt by the reader not by any tricks or ghosts but by drawing the reader into Ildara's world where she is weak, trapped, terrified and beaten. Her chances of changing her life were indeed just a dream and that is all it would ever be, just like so many people in the real world and great writers of the Naturalism like Bazan draw the reader into that world and help them experience it.

This short story reminded me of the sitcom scene of Natural Born Killers. This scene is a parody of the fake or idealized world created in the American sitcom by showing the harsh, violent and sexually abusive world in which Mallory grows up in only on a sitcom set with a laugh track. Oliver Stone, like Bazan, gives a gritty and raw description of a poor family that is stuck in cycle of abuse...its not pretty but its real and that evokes strong emotions in the viewer as it does in the reader of Las medias rojas. Here is a link to the scene....

Warning: Some may find this clip uncomfortable. Violence, language, and sexual themes.

Natural Born Killers

Las Palabras

Cuando leímos el poema en clase llega a más claro. Las palabras contiene tan mucho más significa que antes. Antes el poema fue la tarea, y estuve aburrido. Pero ahora, me gusto el poema y yo tengo más respecta para el autor, y su obra. Después la discución en clase yo entiendo los sentimientos que el autor creó. Me hace leer más obras como eso. Lo no es deprimente. ¡Ya está viva con sentimientos y alma!
Después he leído “El Estudiante de Salamanca” tenía una idea más clara del uso Romanticismo del autor. Cuando lo leyó la primera vez, era un poco difícil a comprender que el autor querría expresar con sus palabras y la manera que presentan. Sin embargo, cuando lo traducimos en clase y leímos juntos, fue más fácil a comprender el sentido del autor y la verdadera influencia del Romanticismo. Por ejemplo, algunas escenas descriptivas como la oscuridad con el ‘ay’ y la muerte de Elvira me mostraron que hay mucho más en las motivaciones del autor. Mis ojos se abrieron a la profundidad y posibilidades de la literatura romántica y la sinceridad de la expresión humana. Para mí era muy interesante a leer la primera parte con la clase y ver el genio de Espronceda, como su habilidad a atraer su audiencia:
El ruido
Ceso,
Un hombre
Paso
Embozado,
Y el sombrero
Recatado
A los ojos
Se calo
Se desliza
Y atraviesa
Junto al muro
De una iglesia
Y en la sombra
Se perdió.
Esta manera de escribir me intrigo desde el principio del libro. También, me mostro una nueva forma de entender la escritura romántica de Espronceda y lo que realmente hace de él un gran escritor.

Personal parallels with "El panuelo"

I began reading the short stories by Emilia Bazan today, and one in particular, although sad, stood out to me because it made me think of my grandparents. The story is “El pañuelo”, a sad story about Cipriana, an orphan who is forced to make a living at a port at the young age of 12. When I first read the title, it made me think of my grandfather at first because he would always have his own pañuelo. But after reading the story, I couldn’t help but think of grandfather. At the age of 16, she was kicked out of the house for getting pregnant with my grandfather because my great-grandfather was very, very traditional. As I read the story, I would make parallels between the loneliness Cipriana must have felt without her parents and the loneliness my grandmother must have felt. The story brought about a sense of empathy within me because of the connections. At the same time, Cipriana tried to go on with her life and take care of herself by selling seashells for example. My grandmother, while she had the help of some extended family, also had to grow up fast and start working for herself. I thought it was very interesting that this simple short story could bring about these personal connections and feelings within me, and I just wanted to share with everyone the tangential thoughts that came to me while reading it.

Lost in translation

I too have read several books that seem to have lost their original flavor when translated. I have read hundreds of books in English and over the years I have tried to read English books I enjoy, in a different language. Over winter break I sat down with my mom to read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Russian. My grammar is not great, but even I noticed some phrases and sentences that sounded funny and that didn't really make sense in Russian. Sometimes the translations are too literal, that it is hard to understand it in a different language. Of course it makes sense to us in English, but a native Russian, would not understand the sequence of words or the expressions that are conveyed so easily in English that do not sound the same in Russian. I also read part of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in Hebrew, and even though my vocabulary is not that strong, I thought that I was a great translation although the sound of the text felt different than reading it in the original English. Also, a few years back, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I thought it was a great translation. Hopefully in the future I will be able to read it in Spanish and will be able to give it a more thorough comparison of the two languages and the quality of the English translation.

Lost in translation

This past Wednesday we devoted a lot of time to translation. It was easy to read and get the general idea, but when we were asked to translate it was the hardest task I've ever done in Spanish. I feel like I get the general ideas and points in conversation and in readings, but translation from word to word… that's another story. This task got me thinking of all the people I criticize when I watch movies in Urdu or Hindi… it bother's me that the translator does a terrible job at times and the meaning isn't as deep as it is in its vernacular language. That the translations sometimes sound silly, especially for certain words that have numerous connotations. Anyways, when doing a similar task myself I had a much greater appreciation for the translators. I feel that you can never understand that true meaning of what the writer wants to understand or feel until you have a strong grasp for that language. So therefore, I'm going to continue reading in Spanish in hopes of someday being able to say, " I do understand what that Spanish writer meant."

Translations

My father uses the term Wax and Gold (sem ena werq- which is a poetic form in his native language) when he describes how a effective translation can be made from one language to another. His language is entirely too complicated for my liking aka it doesnt tickle my fancy therefore I will try to explain to you the best I can. In class on Wednesday, Prof Haidt was talking about that in class and it reminded me of what my father said. For instance, in his language there is the phrase "Afer-bela" which in English word for word means "Eat Dirt" but the underlying meaning is "Go Die" (an insult to someone- i know its harsh but his culture is blunt and harsh unlike the American polite culture). You would only know this if you were a native speaker so fear have not! I feel spanish is the same idea. This is another reason why I think Spanish cannot be thoroughly translated and I think we all understood that there are certain things you cannot translate word for word.

Romanticism of Today

I know that when I hear the word romantic, I think of things like candlelit dinners and the movie The Notebook. I thought it would be interesting to compare the plot of The Notebook to the plot of El Estudiante de Salamanca because it is from the Romanticism era. Both stories are similar because they both have theatrical aspects (the play parts of El Estudiante and The Notebook is just the physical manifestation of a story) and both are stories of love. However, even though both are considered romantic, one has a happy ending while the other has what could be considered a sad ending. Also, The Notebook is about two people who love each other so much, they cannot stand to not be together, no matter what happens, and El Estudiante is about a horrible unrequited love, where the man has no deep feelings for the woman and she dies of a broken heart. The fact that one word, romantic, can completely change meanings in a hundred years, shows the power of language and also gives us good reason to study literary eras.
-Emily Brown

הם גיבורים שלי! --Yehuda & Ibsen

Hi! I have been reading many your posts about how the original text loses some of its essence when it is being translated, and I agree with you all. In fact, I want to share with you one of my favorite scenes in A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen (my favorite play). The original play was written in German but I have read the Spanish and English versions of it, and it is just so interesting to look back and relate what I thought to most of your posts about the translation of certain things:

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, English Version Act III

Nora. No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has

never really been so.

Helmer. Not--not happy!

Nora. No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me.

But our home has been nothing but a playroom.

Spanish Version Act II Same Scene

Nora. No. Creía serlo, pero no lo he sido jamás.

Helmer. Que no.., que no has sido feliz!

Nora. No, estaba alegre y nada más. Eres amable conmigo…pero nuestra casa solo era un salón de recreo. He sido una muñeca grande en tu casa, como fui muñeca en casa de papa. Y nuestros hijos, a su vez, han sido mis muñecas. A mí me hacia gracias verte jugar conmigo, como a los niños les divertía verme jugar con ellos. Esto es lo que ha sido nuestra unión, Torvaldo.

-In this scene, Nora tells her husband that she wants to leave him forever because she is not happy and does not love him anymore. Ibsen, through this play, criticizes the women’s social role and lack of liberty in his society and Nora is the representation of women. It is in this very scene when she finally expresses all of her feelings inside.

What still to this day keeps getting my attention is how she explains the fact of being alegre pero no feliz/merry but not happy. However, the English version that I read years ago, did not use the word merry it used the word gay instead. What do you think of that?!!! I think that was one of the motivations to read the play in both languages.


Also, here is more information on Eliezer Ben Yehuda

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/PEOPLE/BIOS/beliezer.html


Thanks to him we can speak Hebrew nowadays!!!


Don Felix: Sociopath

We touched on the idea of Don Felix of El Estudiante de Salamanca having a personality disorder in class this week. Having personal experience with this type of person I thought it would be interesting to elaborate a little more about this type of person in context with Don Felix's character. Don Felix, in my opinion, exhibits many personality traits that would lead readers to believe he has sociopathic tendencies. A sociopath, by definition, have superficial charm, and feel that certain things are their right or entitled to them. They are manipulative and use other people only to get what they want. They have no sense of remorse no matter what they might do. They have an ability to mock human emotions such as remorse in order to appear more human but in reality they feel nothing. They don't have the capacity to love, only to adapt in order to appear to feel the emotion of love. They have no empathy for others. They need constant stimulation; they do outrageous things to get a rush, such as acting out verbally and physically against others. They exhibit promiscuous sexual behavior and they lack a plan for life. they go throughout life, acting human enough to be accepted and constantly fooling those that love them, but without any emotion and are simply fulfilling their own needs at the expense of others.
I think that Don Felix falls easily into this description. He kills without remorse, uses women without a second thought, and seems to believe that he is entitled to whatever he wants. He shows no emotions good or bad, yet is accepted by his peers because he's able to make himself appear human enough despite his behavior. It's an interesting concept to consider, and for me it brings the work into a whole new light.

Lost in Translation

The translations we did in class this Wednesday really got me thinking about the loss of meaning that happens when things are translated. I always thought things "just sounded better" in Spanish. I thought maybe it was because of the accent, or just because the people saying those beautiful things in Spanish were so attractive:) But things really do sound better in Spanish as opposed to trying to figure out what it means in English. And that's because with the translation, you lose a lot of things. There is no way, for the most part, to directly translate something into another language and have it make perfect sense. You have to change the wording around to make everything seem logical. With this, you can change the original feeling the message had intended to create in its recipient.
El Estudiante de Salamanca was a really difficult play for me, but when I started relating the play back to the themes of Romanticism, it began coming together for me. It all has so much to do with passionate, undying feeling. Every action and feeling in this Romantic play seems to be completely over the top and I think Romanticism is kind of meant to be that way. As soon as I got that concept into my head, it made total sense as to how Elvira died from a broken heart. I also made sense of all the abrupt sounds, like the clashing of swords and the screams around don Felix as he spirals within his "vision" down to hell. Without these effects, there would be no other way of getting the dark feeling Espronceda wants to portray.
Like many others have been saying, I think this play would make a great movie too. There is so much technology in the special effects world that I think someone could make this play into a great movie. It would be fun to see a modern version of such an old play.

Uy!

There is nothing quite like waking up on Friday morning to the realization that "¡Uy! Se me olvidó escribir en el blog!" Needless to say, this past week was full of presentations (in 3 different languages), lots of reading (to be expected), and a nice paper to be written in spanish. Since I havn't started the next reading assignments and just wrote a paper about the 2 works we have read in class, I would like to reflect on my experience writing in Spanish. Para ser honesta, yo disfruto de escribir en español. Pienso en la clase de 403, la que era la primera clase de escritura "intensiva", y me doy cuenta de lo que he logrado desde que tomé aquella clase hace un año. No me resulta tan difícil (hooray!) pensar y escribir en español hoy en día. De hecho, a veces prefiero escribir en español porque me da la oportunidad (y libertad) de escribir frases largas que no son recomendables incluir en los trabajos escritos en inglés. Pero lo que me gusta más que escribir en español es mezclar el español y el inglés. Claro que no puedo hacer esto en un trabajo oficial y sério, pero igual, es interestante (para mí) ver cómo puedo utilizar los dos idiomas para comunicar mis ideas. También me parece linda la interacción entre los lenguajes, no sólo de forma escrita, pero también en lo hablado. No sé cuánto más espacio haya dentro de mi mente para tener un vocabulario español cómo lo de Espronceda, pero ando pensando cómo puedo utilizar estos dos idiomas para crear algo lindo. Awesome!

El estudiante de Salamanca

As a work of literature, El estudiante de Salamanca is very clearly a Romantic text. This is especially seen in the character of Don Felix. In my last blog post, I referenced some British Romantic poetry including Byron’s Don Juan. As we talked about in class, the Don Juan character is a prominent figured in Romantic literature. Byron’s epic poem about this ladies’ man is perhaps his most famous work. Don Felix certainly shares many characteristics of Byron’s Don Juan. Don Juan and Don Felix are both handsome, strong, macho men with little to no concern for the consequences of his actions. Both figures are also passionate men with a great interest in seducing as many women as possible. However, there is a substantial difference between the two characters. Don Juan is heartless, with no significant affection for any one person other than himself. However, Don Felix has a clear connection to Elvira. Although he does seem to have been just as cold to her as the Don Juan character would have been, at the very least it appears as if he subconsciously has remorse for his actions towards her as her ghost appears in his life throughout the poem. Clearly, while the two characters are very similar, it is possible that Don Felix is slightly less of an inhumane heartbreaker.

Traducción vs. versión original

Empecé a estudiar el español hace un ano y unas meses. Recuerdo que leí “Cien anos de soledad” en francés y “El otoño del patriarca” en rumano hace veinte anos, en la universidad de Bucarest. Mi primer libro en español fue el pequeño “Aura” de Carlos Fuentes, que debí leer en la clase de Español 250 y el primer libro que compre fue “La casa en Mango street,” que no es difícil. Hace tres días, inspirada por la lectura de Espronceda, leí de nuevo unos poemas de Eminescu, que es el mejor poeta rumano y es romántico también. Si, perdemos tanto cuando intentamos leer una traducción, los versos de Eminescu suenan mejor en rumano, estoy segura de esto, porque en una traducción perdemos todos los pequeños matices que el autor elegí entre tantos otros para ponerlos en su creación. Es imposible recrear la misma atmósfera del poema de Espronceda en ingles o en alemán. Sin embargo, creo que traducirlo en una lengua de origen latina, como el francés, por ejemplo, seria menos difícil, porque hay tantas palabras que son similares y tienen el mismo sentido. Cuando leí los versos de Espronceda entendí casi todo sin utilizar el diccionario porque el español es tan similar al francés y al rumano. Creo que es más difícil traducir algo en una lengua que no tiene muchas cosas en común con la lengua original. El más difícil es traducir una obra que es la producción literaria de alguien que vive o vivió en una cultura demasiado diferente de la de la persona que va a leer la traducción. El traductor tiene no sólo el problema de los matices de la lengua sino también el problema del aspecto cultural, y el lector no sabe como interpretar algunos aspectos. Pienso en la traducción de Faiz Ahmed Faiz en ingles. Hay tantas diferencias entre las dos culturas que no creo que hay muchas palabras en un poema que “se corresponden”. Si, el mejor es aprender muchas lenguas para disfrutar de los tesoros de otras culturas.

Compare and Contrast

In El estudiante de Salamanca, the contrasts that the author creates between Elvira and Don Felix are very strong. If Elvira is represented by light, Don Felix is darkness. She’s innocent while he’s very experienced at wooing women. She dies because of an excess of emotions whereas he doesn’t really feel anything. The only things he cares about are his appearance and reputation. He doesn’t feel anything even when he kills people. On the other hand, Elvira is affected by everything that she feels. For example, just because her first love left, she completely breaks down. It’s actually interesting how similar Elvira is to Doña Francisca. They are both young and innocent. At one point in the work, Francisca also thinks that her first love left her. However, she’s not as dramatic as Elvira and doesn’t kill her self immediately. I guess the difference in the behavior between the two girls (rational vs. irrational) shows how Moratín was a neoclassic writer whereas Espronceda was a romantic writer.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Sound effects

First off, I still have to say, after reading the play I still do not like plays. Although I do have to admit that the descriptive words of the sound effects was rather cool. I also agree with Kristy that the exercise of translating the passages into English really did help because as I was reading I looked up the words but it was frustrating to try and break it down to figure out what it was actually saying. I had the passage about the Montemar hearing the sounds of the people he killed coming back to haunt him. The sounds in the play are very descriptive and I think it helps make the play what it is. As we talked about in class I also believe this would be a really cool movie (and I would probably have more appreciation for it). With the technology that's around it would be rather easy to reproduce the sounds that are portrayed in the book and make it very interesting to watch and I think it has the ability to be successful.

El Estudiante de Salamanca

I was amazed by Espronceda's work, especially after doing the exercise on Wednesday. It really helped to translate it into English and discuss the passages, because I felt like I finally started getting a grasp on the language and began to understand how Espronceda expresses himself and his emotions through his writing. I have always been intrigued by the sound, and flow, and passion in different languages, which is one reason why I started studying Spanish. I love the different ways people express themselves. Interestingly, just today I was talking with my boss at work, who is from overseas, and she learned Russian, German, and French while growing up, and taught herself English. We were talking about how she feels like she will never be able to express herself in English in the same way Americans do, as she just can't get the right tone or the right phrases. We saw this when translating Espronceda's passages on Wednesday, as sometimes translation just doesn't have the equivalent words, or the equivalent expression of emotion. Also, this is what made it more difficult to read this poem. I had a lot of trouble, as I had to look up every second word (or at least it felt like it!), because there were a lot of adjectives that I had never heard of. Between looking up all the words and going back and forth, I didn't feel like I got the real essence of the play when I read it the first time, so going back through it this week really helped. I have also started to recognize and respect Espronceda's immense talent and the work he put into writing this play- as rhyming all these words just can't possibly come naturally :) He writes in a way that truly paints a picture for the reader, which is not an easy task.

El estudiante de Salamanca

Para mí se me hace algo irónico como a Don Félix las mujeres le trajeron tanta felicidad pero también lo llevaron a su desgracia. La gente siempre cosecha lo que planta y Don Félix planto una tempestad por jugar con los sentimientos de una mujer enamorada e inocente. El la hizo sufrir por amor, y como Elvira era totalmente una romántica y se entrego cuerpo y alma, y así sufrió. Se podría decir que ella en su larga agonía y por ser tan dramática lloro un rio de lagrimas por su amado. Pero también yo creo que el castigo que le pasó a Don Félix de ir al infierno no solo fue por Elvira. El siempre tenía una mujer nueva y a todas las dejaba por otras, yo creo que tal vez todas eran como Elvira inocentes cuales creían en todas las palabras de ese hombre sínico y se entregaron como Elvira a su amado. Pero todas las mujeres fueron vengadas por la mujer cubierta en blanco que llevo a ese desgraciado a pagar por el sufrimiento que le causo a cada dama, por cada lágrima que les hizo llorar él lo pagara por toda la eternidad porque en el infierno el estará.

El Estudiante de Salamanca

Yo he estado pensando mucho sobre el parte final de “El Estudiante de Salamanca.” Es muy abierto y hay mucha discusión sobre lo que sucede actualmente. Personalmente, no pienso que don Félix está muerto. En mi interpretación, este parte es completamente un sueño. Pienso que estos pensamientos están ocurriendo en su subconsciencia y él siete culpabilidad por la primera vez. En los partes anteriores, él suprime sus emociones y sentimientos. Peo en este sueño, él siente algunas emociones, como él tiene miedo por un instante breve. Pienso que en este parte, finalmente no puede suprimir su culpabilidad nada más. Pienso que él tiene culpabilidad por sus acciones contra Elvira, como es evidente en el parte que todos los personajes le dicen que él tiene casarse con Elvira. También, tiene culpabilidad para el muerto de don Diego. Pienso esto porque él ve su mismo funeral. Pienso que en algo parte de su mente, don Félix sabe que el funeral debe ser su mismo. Esto es simplemente mi interpretación. Me gustaría oír los pensamientos de otros en este parte del poema.

El estudiante de Salamanca

El estudiante de Salamanca was a very difficult story to read yet it also opened up my eyes to a new style of writing. I found it interesting that the author had poetry in longer lines, then choppy, and then he started into a play layout. I find it difficult to read poetry in English, so this poem was even more difficult partly due to the different setup. Jose used a lot of description in his writing that I would seem to get lost in and would have no idea what is going on. When we did the excercise in class, it helped being able to break down one part and analyze what he is trying to get across and describe. By understanding the description, I was able to imagine the scene and understand more about what Felix de Montemar was going through or what Elvira was feeling. He is a very powerful writer, and he truely writes in the time of Romanticism. He truely tapped into the emotions of the readers, and he did that well by describing and using different work choice when describing Felix and Elvira. You were able to relate to Elvira and feel her pain while I wanted Felix to have some punishment for his actions. I also liked how this story was a different twist on a Don Juan story. It really offered fresh ideas and way of writing to a new story. Lastly, I think it is amazing the power love can have on people's emotions. How Elvira killed herself because Felix no longer wanted to be with her. While it hurts when one's first true love leaves you, you should never result to killing yourself. Jose really captured Elvira's true pain, and I wish that people did not have to feel those emotions. El estudiante de Salamance was truely an interesting story.

Lost in Translation


Strangely enough, the song "Jesse's Girl" by Rick Springfield was stuck in my head last night and for whatever reason I caught myself trying to sing it in Spanish... "La chica de Jesseeee"..... yeah, it doesn't work. This got me thinking about our discussion yesterday on translation of literary works. El estudiante de Salamanca has so much rhythm and flows so beautifully (and horrifically!) that we could barely do it justice with our English translations. I think the same goes for songs. There is so much more than trying to create a rhyming pattern like in the original song. Like we talked about, English and Spanish sound differently to a reader and when translating one to another, you really lose a lot. One of my favorite Spanish songs is "Dejame Vivir" por Jarabe de Palo (check it out, it's good). Whenever I listen and translate the words back to English in my head, it just sounds choppy and weird. Like Profesora emphatically expressed, we SHOULD keep works in their own languages. However, I can't help but think about all the great stories we would be missing if we could only read in our own language(s). I guess that would be an incentive of learning all the languages in the world!

One a side note, I read Popol Vuh for Spanish 555. It was translated to English from the Quiche language and I thought it was very well done.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Week 4 Blog

In class today, someone mentioned the fact that a work is always better in its original language. This seemed to be true after we completed the exercise in class. Although our translations were correct and sent the same message, the translation does not produce the same effect on the reader that the original version can. I did some research on the OSU databases and I found an interesting book review about "The Student of Salamanca", an English translation of the work.

Certainly, one always can quibble with anyone's attempt at verse translation of a poem, and Davies's is not without its defects. His rendering of the dialogue, for example, occasionally strikes me as more wooden and less dynamic than Espron- ceda's original. At other times the specific image Espronceda evokes is sacrificed to salvage a semblance of the original's metre. For example, in the opening lines Espronceda's gothic evocation of the living dead ('los vivos muertos parecen I las tumbas los muertos dejan' is rendered by an attenuated 'Dead men appeared to be living, The living corpselike in slumber' (p. 43). On other occasions Davies's translation moves from Espronceda's colloquial register to a more ethereal tone: 'Ha dado en no responder' becomes 'Her wordless whimsy persists' (p. I5), and at times the demands of the rhyme create some unhappy results ('admiro vuestro candor' becomes 'your faith fills me with amaze' (p. 9I) ). Each lover of the Spanish original will undoubtedly have his or her own list of unfortunate renderings, yet to dwell on them would be to miss the fun of Davies's work taken as a whole. Stanzas such as the following are the norm and may compensate for an occasional lapse: A face of an angel he saw in illusion It came as illusion comes charming the mind, Yet clouding the brow in tense wrinkled confusion, For never may reason its true meaning find. (P.99) Davies's translation generally catches the rhythm and energy of the original, his images are vivid, and his solutions to some difficult passages are often ingenious. The translation, thirty-eight years in preparation, stands on its own as a readable, riveting story, accessible to anyone interested in a good tale. Cardwell's introduction and notes are predictably precise and useful. The introduction is largely a synthesis of material he has published elsewhere, but it is organized in an intelligent and disciplined fashion that makes it an appropriate, though not overwhelming, introduction to the work of Espronceda. At the same time, the commentary and notes provide the specialist with helpful bibliography and useful reminders of the centrality of the poem in Spanish Romanticism. The notes are used judiciously both in number and length, avoiding the excesses of some recent editors who seem intent on supplanting the original work with their own often irrelevant erudition. In short, the Davies-Cardwell team has produced that rare combination in books: a text that is instructive, important, and entertaining.

This is where I found the review:

The Student of Salamanca ('El estudiante de Salamanca'). By JosE DE ESPRONCEDA. Trans. by C. K. DAVIES, with an introduction and notes by RICHARD A. CARDWELL. (Hispanic Classics) Warminster: Aris & Phillips. I991. viii + 152 pp. ?30 (paperbound ?9.95). http://www.jstor.org/stable/3734994?seq=2


In contrast to our discussion, this review thinks that this translation is a good one that is able to evoke similar feelings that the poem did. I put in red some lines that really demonstrate the strong liking that this reviewer took to the translation. When the person doing the review refers to the "lovers of the Spanish original" being able to have a list of things wrong with a translation, I think that he is missing the point, at least how I see it. I think the reason that the reason that people like a work in the original language is because a translation will never capture the word for word, exact meaning and effect of the original. This is what is so unique about literature in different languagues because each language has a different technique and power in works. Translations are made to allow other cultures and people who speak different languages to enjoy, with the best effort to give the full effect, a work that is so powerful in its original language.