Saturday, January 30, 2010
Errors de Traduccion
Words, Words, Words
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
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
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
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
Lost in translation
Translations
Romanticism of Today
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.
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
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
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!
El estudiante de Salamanca
Traducción vs. versión original
Compare and Contrast
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sound effects
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
El estudiante de Salamanca
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