El modesto misterio

The essay by Eliot Weinberger is very cultivating. It made me want to learn about culture and language’s more. It is true we may all not know a whole bunch of languages but we may know enough to understand.  Translation can be very tricky and hard because it is like a role we have to fulfill. In order to try and get the same meaning and passage of the poem or book given. This passage talks about how each culture had their own way of growing and how they came around to being translated. For example, how the Chinese poets at first couldn’t even be translated because of the lack of not being able to study a foreign language. Something written in its original language may be hard to be translated. What caught my attention the most was the last part of the essay it says “ Translation is change and motion; literature dies when it stays the same, when it ahs no place to go” which is very true because it keeps people wanting to learn a new language and to learn about literature itself and where it comes from. 

Erika Loja

Reaction to the “Anonymous Sources” by Eliot Weinberger

According to Weinberger in his essay “Anonymous Sources” he assures that translation is a necessity. Although not everyone may think that it is a necessity because you don’t have to know other languages than your own, in my opinion knowing other languages is always an advantage in all aspects. Knowing and speaking a certain language is different from translating someone´s foreign work into a new language. I myself, am a Spanish speaker person but that doesn’t mean I am able to translate Spanish to English perfectly, I know some words but not all. There are more advantages of getting hired by companies because you are bilingual and are a translator rather than someone who lacks all of this. “Translation liberates the translation language” pg 18; this quote caught my attention because translation will never be the same as the original. It goes beyond that. You can change and use different words that have a similar or exact meaning to what the original text said. Weinberger affirms that no translation will be identical to the original text. He also gets aggravated when people say translation is problematic. In my opinion I think the reason why some people considered translation to be problematic is because it changes a lot of things from the original text but then again wouldn’t a literal translation be just boring? Translation is not about translating words one by one, it’s about translating the idea of the text into another way of writing.

The first thing that caught my attention in Eliot Weinberger essay “Anonymous Sources” is the phrase that he said at the very beginning “no single one of us can know all the languages of the world” and I believe he is right; there are so many words even in our own languages that we don’t know and we have to look up the meaning; now a second language even if we studied for decades there are still phrases that we won’t understand. Translation workshops started decades ago and as one of the examples that Weinberger use is the translation of Chinese poems into English, It is and admirable work to take a phrase and express the same feeling, in different worlds, in a different language. Translations open the doors to many good writers so the rest of the world can read their work, which reminds me of another quote from Weinberger’s essay “translation liberates the translation language”, which means that even though a translation is having the same text in two different languages, the translation is read as something new.

A translation is a necessity in this world but is not a problematic. Why consider something a problematic when it is actually an opportunity to expand horizons? And that is just to talk about the work, what about the translators? All the work they have to do and they still remain invisible, anonymous, presented as the translator for someone else work. If we can read a translation and read it a something new, we should also recognize the person who made that world. Writes have a lot of work because they have to come up with new ideas, but a translator work is more difficult because even though the idea is already there they have to put themselves in someone else shoes and explain what this other person felt in their own words. Translation means change. It is not something original but it is to create something new.

The translator is a key piece in the literature world. It help lectors to get new books to read and help the writers to get more audience, so then, why is it that when we read something from a foreign writer, we remember the name or the author the name of the translator?

Teresa Cabrera

Lo primero que puedo notar en esta auto análisis de Jose Manuel Prieto es que el muy crítico de su propio trabajo.  En esta análisis lo primero que le hace notar al lector es que traducir este poema es algo que el tomo muy en serio.  Jose Manuel Prieto menciona que el poema “Epigrama contra Stalin” le había costado la vida a Mandelstam. Después de muchos años Prieto decide volver a leer la y analizarla, y al hacerlo se dio cuenta de algunos errores que cometio la primera vez que lo traducido.

Es interesante leer como Jose Manuel Prieto piensa que es importante mencionar lo que estaba pasando en aquella época, la historia en Rusia. Es sorprendente como en su propia analisis el se pone en los zapatos del escritor.

Prieto critica la versión del poema en francés. Por eso el siente que tiene una gran responsabilidad al traducir el poema al español. El piensa que la esencia del poema en ruso se puede perder o se perdió al ser traducida.

I decided to read the essay of Jose Manuel Prieto: “La ultima cena del capitalism.”  It is interesting because it is rare to see how a translator could review his own work.  In this essay he talks about the translation of the poem “Epigrama contra Stalin.” I noticed that all his work was a challenge but at the same time he felt proud and honor. To be able to make a coherent and concrete translation I realized that he used a detail description in order to make a coherent work.

It is interesting how a translator feels when translation the work of other author because this is not only a challenge but also an honor. He knew that the poem was also translated to French but he also knew that this version was not good enough compare with the original version. Prieto’s responsibility was to not loose the sense of the poem and try to make it as coherent as the original.

The essay Anonymous Sources by Eliot Weinberger explains how translations can be modified and provided in different ways. He describes the effects on translations from different cultures and languages and the meaning for it. I enjoyed when he explained how people who speak different languages have many things to say but without translation the message won’t get across to the people, as they want it to. I took that as that the writer is being limited to show his talents to the world and that isn’t fair, just because it’s in their own language many people won’t get to understand it.  Everyone should see the message the writer tries to portray. “Every reading of every poem is a translation into one’s own experience and knowledge- whether it is a confirmation, a contradiction, or an expansion.”  Something else that really caught my attention was when Weinberger explained how some poetry was written in other countries. For example Japanese poetry was written in Chinese and Latin poetry was in imitation of the Greek. With the Japanese, the reason they wrote in Chinese first was because they were greatly influenced by them and their style so then they integrated it into Japanese so they can write it in their language. It’s astonishing how a simple means of translations can go so far. Weinberger talks about how translation is the most anonymous of professions and that the authors don’t talk about their translators other then giving them compliments. How Weinberger was describing the translator, I took it as that they are not as important as the author. I do understand that without the author there would be no story but without the translator there would be no expansion of the authors message. Overall Weinberger explained how truly important translation can be, as he says, “Translation is change and motion; literature dies when it stays the same when it has no place to go.”

Magda Morales.

This essay by Eliot Weinberger gives us, in great detail, an explanation of how complex is the necessity of translation. It shows us the complexity of translations from different language around the world and in different times. It also shows us the importance of translation for many countries such as Germany and China. The necessity of understand other cultures to better communicate with people from different part of the world makes translation so important according to Weinberger. It also mentions how translation is one of the most anonymous of professions and the relationship between authors and translators. This part of his essay makes me remember the conference that Professor Allen invites us during this semester where I had the opportunity to meet authors with their translators. I think the strongest the relationship between author-translator, the outcome would be better based on the experience that authors and translators shared that day.  However, according to Weinberger, the relationship author-translator has no story most of the time. This is a great essay to understand the importance of translation.

When reading the essay, Review The Last Supper of Capitalism by Jose Manuel Prieto where he talks about the translation of the poem “Epigrama contra Stalin.” by Osip Mandelstam. I learned that Prieto felt honor and at the same time challenge. Prieto says that in 1996  when the historian Jean Meyer was about to publish a book title Russia and its Imperious. He was asked to translate this famous poem from Russian to Spanish.

I observed that Prieto used a detail description of the situation in order to chose and translate a word. This method helps him create a link between the history of the situation in which the poem was written and the choice of word he uses.

The poem was a politic satire that cost the life of the author Osip Mandelstam. Prieto knew the poem well and had more than once recite it out loud. He also knew that the poem has been translated into French. According to Prieto, the French version was not good enough compare to the beauty of the original Russian.  So Prieto as the translator  had a big responsibility to capture the magic of the poem and at the same time keep the severity of its verses.

I found interesting to know how a translator feels when reviewing his work. In his essay Prieto says that, even though he translated the poem with caution and patience, he was never complete satisfied with the final results. He says that the poem had an artistic integrity value that when translating loses its aura. He thought for years that his translation never really mingle into Spanish but at the same time he would never change the words he used when he did the translation.

While I was reading Forrest Gander’s essay: “The Great Leap: Cesar and the Caesura,” I found interesting that Gander would teach English and American Literature with some works that were not “literary traditional–British and North American,”  instead he would use translated works. He says that it does not matter since many writers do not care where their influences come from, what matters to them are the “images, rhythms, forms, [etc].” But, if translation works are used, wouldn’t these “images, rhythms,” etc be the culture of the original language, and if so, how much is English and American Literature intertwined or influenced by other cultures?

I found it funny how I’ve never questioned why I always wrote: “me duele la” instead of “me duele mi,” until I read Gander’s essay. Although, I do say and I’ve heard: “me duele mi pierna,” I’ve never seen it written in this format, but I understand why Gander translated “la” to “my.” His readers would question whose leg he is talking about if he went with “the,” the same way, a spanish reader would question what I’m talking about if I translate:”I’m hungry” to” Yo soy hambre,” instead of “Tengo hambre.” Although words might be lost, a translator has to be careful of what he omits in his translation to not confuse his readers nor lose the meaning behind the original work.

When Gander wrote about his “development of caesura”, I had to look it up in the dictionary to understand what caesura means. Although some readers might disagree with me, I like the way how he translated Merry-Go-Round, leaving some Spanish for the readers to enjoy. It gives a mystery and engages the reader as he will have to  go and find out what it means. I know that poetry sometimes is hard to understand but that’s what makes it special; each word has a different meaning for the reader to interpret and leaving it in Spanish as Gander did, it has made it more attractive for both, English and Spanish readers.