Final Project Proposal
After reading Molière’s “Tartuffe”, I was amazed by how the translation was very true to the original text. I have therefore decided to choose the first option, which is the translation one. To do so, I would like to explore the theme of postwar and postcolonial literature, and especially focus on either Albert Camus or Léopold Sédar Senghor.
I would like to start by reading the texts. Then, I would try to fully understand the meaning of the text, identify the different stylistic tools the author might have used to write his text, and then try to find an equivalent translation to the original text. Consequently, my claim would focus on the way that a translator can keep the original essence of a text, and not get lost in translation.
One thing I am afraid of encountering is French words that cannot be translated in English. If that happens, I would have to try and find a word or expression as close as possible to the original word, so as to keep the meaning intended by the author.
3 responses so far
Hey Youssef,
Wow I think that’s great you’re able to do the translation!! It’ll be really interesting to see the way you translate the words/your word choice vs. an already established translation.
I also wonder — which might be an interesting route to pursue after your translation — what gives one translation more credibility than another. Is it as simple as mimicking the author’s original emotions? Is it, as you said, maintaining the original essence of the text? Or is there something more complex than that?
And as for your concern about translating certain French words that don’t have an exact English equivalent, I totally understand that! I speak Hebrew so I constantly struggle with translating certain words into English and vice versa!
Start doing research into what translators say about their work. If you can find commentary by a translator of the author you end up choosing, that would be great! Use that commentary in your supplementary essay in which you explore your choices and what they mean to you. Often, translated works have a translators preface, so you could start with those. Use one of the texts in our Norton, if you can. And play with those words that have no direct English translation. This dilemma could end up being the focus of your project! I just heard a lecture on translations of the Bible from the original Hebrew, and how one recent translator chose to create hyphenated words (basically make up new words that don’t exist in English) in response to this problem of “no exact equivalent”. That translator also wrote a preface to his translation, if your Interested, and expressed a desire to focus on capturing sounds from the original. Very interesting.
It would be really great to see how your translation might differ from already existing translations. I think that, depending on your choice of words, you might be able to have a lot of influence on the way readers might perceive the work you are translating (for example, if you choose more modern words than the author originally used). That being said, however, you do have to be careful to stay true to the original text and not to stray too far from the tone that the author originally created. I think that translations do have some flexibility, and there are several decisions that you are allowed to make, as long as you are careful about not having too much influence over the original tone.