El modesto misterio

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.