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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER ONE: The Role of the Translator ............................................................... 5
1.1 The Role of the Translator along History................................................................ 5
1.1.1 The Romans .......................................................................................................... 6
1.1.2 Bible Translation .................................................................................................. 6
1.1.3 Arab Translators ................................................................................................... 7
1.1.4 Early Theorists ..................................................................................................... 7
1.1.5 The Renaissance ................................................................................................... 8
1.1.6 The Seventeenth Century ..................................................................................... 9
1.1.7 The Eighteenth Century...................................................................................... 10
1.1.8 Romanticism and Post-Romanticism ................................................................. 11
1.1.9 The Twentieth Century....................................................................................... 11
1.1.9.1 Eugene A. Nida ............................................................................................... 12
1.1.9.2 Ezra Pound....................................................................................................... 12
1.1.9.3 The Deconstructionists .................................................................................... 13
1.1.9.4 Lawrence Venuti ............................................................................................. 13
CHAPTER TWO: The Writer and the Translator....................................................... 15
2.1 The Writer-Translator Relation ............................................................................. 15
2.1.2 The Writer as a Translator .................................................................................. 15
2.1.3 The Translator as a Writer .................................................................................. 16
2.1.4 The WriterTranslator Equality ......................................................................... 17
2.1.5 Enriching Culture, Literature, and Language ..................................................... 17
2.1.6 Survival of the Text ............................................................................................ 18
2.2 The Translators Visibility .................................................................................... 18
2.2.1 The Theory of Venuti ......................................................................................... 19
2.2.2 Criticizing Venuti ............................................................................................... 19
2.2.3 Bassnett's Concept of Visibility ......................................................................... 20
2.3 Factors Influencing the Translators Work ........................................................... 20
2.3.1 Interpretation ...................................................................................................... 21
2.3.2 Intention .............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.3.3 Context ............................................................................................................... 22
2.3.3.1 Language ......................................................................................................... 22
2.3.3.2 Audience .......................................................................................................... 22
2.3.3.3 Time ................................................................................................................. 23
2.3.3.4 Culture ............................................................................................................. 24
CHAPTER THREE: The Translator at Work ............................................................. 25
3.1 The Nature of Poetry ............................................................................................. 25
1

3.2 The Translation of Poetry ...................................................................................... 26

3.2.1 An Example ........................................................................................................ 27
3.3 Case Study ............................................................................................................. 29
3.3.1 Journey of the Magi ............................................................................................ 30
3.3.1.1 (A) Context: Culture........................................................................................ 33
3.3.1.1 (B) Context: Language .................................................................................... 34
3.3.1.2 Interpretation ................................................................................................... 34
3.3.1.3 Intention ........................................................................................................... 35
3.3.2 The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter ................................................................ 35
3.3.2.1 (A) Context: Culture........................................................................................ 38
3.3.2.1 (B) Context: Language .................................................................................... 39
3.3.2.2 Interpretation ................................................................................................... 40
3.3.2.3 Intention ........................................................................................................... 41
3.4 Discussion of Case Study ...................................................................................... 44
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 46
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 48
Dictionaries Consulted ................................................................................................ 50

INTRODUCTION
The translator is an important player in the process of translation and,
eventually, in cross-cultural communication in general. This position of the translator
gives him the authority to reproduce the source text (ST) in a new language and a new
culture.
The present study investigates this authority of the translator, how it is
employed in translation and, henceforth, the possibility of the translator to be a writer
of the text that he produces, i.e. the target text (TT). Furthermore, the study deals with
the problems of determining the role that the translator plays in translation, the kind
of relation that relates the translator to the writer of the ST and how they affect each
other.
In the present study, it is hypothesized that:
1. The translator is a writer of the text that he produces, since he has the authority to
manipulate it, intervene in it, and recreate it in a manner that enriches the target
culture and the target language (TL).
2. The authority of the translator is confined to certain factors that affect his work,
his choices and decisions; these are: context, interpretation, and intention. The
translator works within the lines that these factors draw.
3. In the final product, the translator becomes either visible or invisible. This state of
the translator depends on the amount of creative intervention that the translator opts
for in a text and this, in turn, depends on the influence of the factors suggested.
The study aims at presenting a better understanding of the role that the
translator plays in the translation process, and the reasons that make him opt for one
choice rather than the other. It also aims at turning eyes away from the small and
trivial mistakes that a translator may make and to start considering the TT for its
literary significance as a whole.
Hopefully, this study will be of importance for future studies that will further
investigate the function of the translator, specially that it suggests a model of analysis,
based on the factors that affect the translators work, that attempts to explain the
measures taken by the translator and its effect on the whole of the TT as well as on
the status of the translator -whether visible or invisible-.

This study is concerned with the competent translator; whose work is not
affected by lack of linguistic or cultural information, whether in the target language
(TL) or the source language (SL), but mainly by the factors suggested in the study.
As for its practical side, the study is confined to literary texts; poems in
particular. The poems analyzed are two English poems translated by Badr Shakir AlSayyab. Thus, it is an analytic, unidirectional study.
The plan followed in this thesis is:
1. Reviewing the role of the translator through the ages. This helps to realize how the
translator was considered and how this consideration evolved.
2. Studying the translator and his work in relation to the writer, and the mutual effect
between them. For the present study, this implies suggesting a model of analysis
based on three factors that are of great effect on the translation process.
3. Analyzing the translations of the two texts in terms of the model suggested. This
helps in realizing the function of the translator as the writer of the TT.

CHAPTER ONE
The Role of the Translator:
A Historical Review

The translator translates, that is what he does for sure. He takes a text which is
already there and translates it into another language. But, translation is not that easy,
and the translator does more than just translating as one layman may say. The
translator has a very important role in translation. What is meant here by the
translators role is his function in the translation process as well as his position as a
key player in the cross-cultural communication represented in translation.
The role of the translator has been viewed differently by translation scholars
since translation theory was first established. The present chapter attempts to present
a historical preview of the role of the translator and the changes and developments
that it went through in the progress of time.
1.1 The Role of the Translator along History
If a historical outline of translation is to be drawn, it is more orderly to start at
the point of emergence of translation theory. But, some of the writings on translation
at the time prior to translation theory are too important to be ignored.
In her book Translation Studies, Susan Bassnett (1991: 43) takes the Romans
as a starting point of translation, depending on Eric Jacobsons claim that translation
is a Roman invention. Bassnett realizes, though, that such a claim may be considered
a piece of critical hyperbole (ibid).
Going much deeper back in time, one can see that the earliest forms of
translation were found in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C., where emperors
like Sargon and Hammurabi had armies of translators who rendered imperial edicts
and decrees from Sumerian to the tens of languages that the peoples within their vast
empires spoke (Nida, 1964: 11). Another ancient form of translation was found in
Egypt, where the Rosetta stone was discovered. The stone dates back to the second
century B.C. and it consists of a text written in hieroglyphic along with its
translations in Coptic and Greek (<www.ancientegypt.co.uk>). But in both cases,
Mesopotamia and Egypt, no further records about translation were found. So, taking
5

the Romans as a square one is, after all, not a bad idea; since it is really where the
first meta-translation writing started.
It is very important for this study to take a look at the history of translation and
to realize the role of the translator along the evolution of translation theory. But, it
seems very complicated to follow a certain line of history except through what
Bassnett (1991: 42) calls a loosely chronological structure, because there are no
clear-cut periods into which translation can be divided. However, the historical line
followed in this chapter is based on Bassnetts 1991 model which presents translation
from the Romans to the twentieth century, with the addition of a sub-section (see
2.2.3 below) that will discuss the Arab translators and the strategies they used in
translating.
1.1.1 The Romans
Starting with the Romans, Cicero, the Roman poet and writer, preferred to use
the sense-for-sense (or figure-for-figure as he puts it) method in his translation of the
speeches of the Attic orators. He believed that if he rendered word for word, the
result will "sound uncouth" (Cicero quoted in Bassnett, 1991: 43). He, as well as
Horace; another Roman poet well-Known for his book Ars Poetica (The Art of
Poetry), made an important distinction between word-for-word translation and sensefor-sense translation. According to Bassnett, this distinction can be seen emerging
again and again with different degrees of emphasis in accordance with differing
concepts of language and communication (ibid), and it is still evident till now.
The art of translation for Cicero and Horace, then, consisted in judicious
interpretations of the SL text so as to produce a TL version based on the principle
"non verbum de verbo, sed sensum exprimere de senseu [for expressing not word for
word, but sense for sense]," and the translators responsibility was to the TL reader
(ibid: 44).
1.1.2 Bible Translation
At the time when nations started to appear in Europe each with its vernacular,
the greatest worry of European translators was to translate the Bible - the word of
God - into the language of their people. St. Jerome was a pioneer in translating the
Bible (fourth century A.D.) and, following Cicero, he declared that he had translated
the Holy Book sense for sense from Greek to Latin. To illustrate the concept of the
TL taking over the sense of the ST, St. Jerome used the military image of the original
text being marched into the TL like a prisoner by its conqueror (Munday, 2004: 20).
The role of the translator at that period (the sixteenth century) was more
evident in the preface to the Wycliffite Bible - the first version of the Bible translated
6

into English - which states that what is aimed at is an intelligible, idiomatic version:
a text that could be utilized by the layman (Bassnett, 1991: 47). The translators
function was also political, especially with the growth of the concepts of national
culture. The same thing is largely true for Martin Luther who translated the New
Testament of the Bible (1522) and later the Old Testament (1534) from Latin to East
Middle German (ibid: 22).
The task of the translator of the Bible in the sixteenth century was not just
linguistic; it further became evangelistic in its own right. The translator was a radical
leader in the struggle to further mans spiritual progress (Bassnett, 1991: 50). In
few words, the translators role in the Bible translation in the pre-theoretical period of
translation was political as well as a reformist one.
1.1.3 Arab Translators
In the Abbasid period (750-1250 A.D.), Baghdad became a great center of
translation (Munday, 2001: 21-2). Many Greek books of science and philosophy were
translated into Arabic. The Arab translators first translated with Syriac as an
intermediary language, and then they learned Greek language and started translating
directly from the original texts (OLeary, 1949).
Two poles of translation were evident in this rich tradition of translation; the
first was word-for-word translation, associated with Yuhanna bin Al-Batriq and Ibn
Na'ima Al-Himsi, and the second was sense-for-sense translation, practiced by
Hunain bin Ishaq and Al-Jawahiri (Munday, 2001: 21-2). But, the word-for-word
method of translation proved to be unsuccessful (ibid), while the sense-for-sense
method helped in the evolvement of Arabian scholarship (O'Leary, 1949). In general,
however, translating the Greek corpus of knowledge into Arabic was of great effect
on the establishment of a new system of thought in the Arab culture (Munday, 2001:
21-2).
It could be determined here that the role of the Arab translator then was to
enrich the TL culture (the Arab culture) with the knowledge and ideology of the SL
culture (the Greek culture).
1.1.4 Early Theorists
The first translation theory was in fact a list of principles which were, more or
less, prescriptive. It was formulated by French humanist Etienn Dolet and was
published in 1540 as a response to the increasing number of undertaken translations
which followed the invention of printing in the fifteenth century (Bassnett, 1991: 534).
Dolets principles are:
7

1. The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning of the original author,
although he is at liberty to clarify obscurities.
2. The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL.
3. The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.
4. The translator should use forms of speech in common use.
5. The translator should choose and order words appropriately to produce the correct
tone. (ibid, 54)
The focus of Dolets principles of translation is that a translator should
translate sense for sense and avoid word-for-word translation. Munday (2001: 26)
sees that Dolet in his fourth principle meant to reinforce the structure and
independence of the new vernacular French language, just like what Martin Luther
did regarding the German vernacular.
Generally speaking, the translators role in the dawn of translation theory was
to recreate the spirit of the original text in another language, and to emphasize the
target language i.e. for the translation to become TL-oriented.
1.1.5 The Renaissance
After Dolet has presented his translation theory, the role of translation, and
eventually of the translator, went through significant changes. Translation was
recognized as an important factor of reformation. It was the time of the Renaissance,
and for translation it was a real renaissance.
Translators, realizing the influence that their translations brought forth in the
society, started to emphasize certain aspects in the process of translation, and some
great translators of that time such as Philemon Holland and Sir T. Wyatt - were
recognized more as revolutionists than as mere translators. One example, as
mentioned by Bassnett (1991: 56), is the Elizabethan translators in England, in the
translation of which emerged a trend to affirm the individual in his own time through
using the contemporary idioms and the popular style of writing at the time of
translation to create a contemporary sense in the original text, for instance Sir T.
Surrey who translated books by the medieval writer Petrarch, and H.H. North who
translated for Plutarch (ibid).
Furthermore, realizing that translation is a process in which one is dealing with
two languages and two cultures, some translators tried their best to emphasize their
culture -usually the culture of the TL- as against the source language culture; through
adopting the meaning and the sense of the original work, and adopting the structures
of words and sentences of the TL culture. Such a strategy makes the text translated
suitable to the TL culture and its readers (ibid: 56-7).
8

Some translators followed this strategy, as they claimed, for patriotic reasons,
such as Holland who translated Pliny into common English vernacular and
considered this a triumph over the Romans in subduing their literature under the
dent of the English pen (Holland quoted in Bassnett, 1991: 58), believing this to be
a revenge upon the Romans who invaded Britain in earlier times.
The translator of that time had a bigger role to play than before, or even after,
that time. He was not just a person who transferred a text from one language into
another, but he was sort of a reformist, a man with a mission, a man who had a
challenge. Once again translations were target-oriented and the translator preferred
sense to form, because that was what the period required; a literary and linguistic
revolution in which the translator was an important player of an important role.
1.1.6 The Seventeenth Century
The most significant event in translation theory in the seventeenth century took
place in England with such translators as John Dryden and Abraham Cowley.
Realizing that much of the beauty of the original work will be lost if translated wordfor-word, Cowley suggested what he termed imitation to save what could be saved
of that beauty, though the loss was inevitable. He admitted that, in his translation of
the Pindaric Odes, he had taken, left out and added what he pleased in order to
reproduce the spirit of the original (Munday, 2001: 24).
Dryden, on the other hand, published his own categorization of the types of
translation in the preface to his translation of Ovids Epistles in which he talked
about three categories of translation:
1. Metaphrase: word by word and line by line translation, which corresponds to
literal translation.
 3DUDSKUDVH WUDQVODWLRQ ZLWK ODWLWXGH ZKHUH WKH DXWKRU LV NHSW LQ YLHZ E\ WKH
translator, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense, which corresponds
to faithful or sense-for-sense translation.
3. Imitation: Forsaking both words and sense, this corresponds to Cowleys very free
translation and is more or less adaptation. (ibid: 25)
In his writings about translation, Dryden is so prescriptive. He emphasizes
using paraphrase in translation as the middle ground of the process and as the more
balanced path, and he writes that metaphrase and imitation should be avoided. He
attacked Ben Jonson who used to translate word-for-word in a literal way, and at the
same time he attacked Cowley who adopted imitation in his translation (ibid).
Drydens categories had great effect on the following generations of
translators and translation theorists, as will be seen in 2.2.7 below.
9

1.1.7 The Eighteenth Century 

Throughout the eighteenth century, the writings and ideas of Dryden were still
dominant in translation theory and practice. Many translations in the eighteenth
century followed the line that Dryden has put forward. On the other hand, there was a
strong reaction against Drydens influence that was led by Tytler (Bassnett, 1991: 63).
Tytler believed that paraphrase would lead translators into exaggeratedly loose
translations (ibid). Tytlers theory states that:
1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work.
2. The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the
original.
3. The translation should have all the case of the original composition. (ibid)
But as Tytler disagreed with Dryden concerning paraphrase, he agreed with
him in that part of the duty of the translator is to clarify obscurities in the original,
even where this entails omission or addition. In fact, this was a predominant
phenomenon in translation in the eighteenth century, where the translator was
working to clarify and make plain the spirit of the text which led to a large-scale
rewriting of earlier texts to fit them to contemporary standards of language and taste.
Works, like Shakespeare's, were re-structured to suit the English contemporary
language and taste (Bassnett, 1991: 61).
This is all part of Dryden's influence that, in one way or another, is still living
on. The reworking of texts to fit a certain taste has taken a new dimension, this time it
is not just diachronic but also synchronic. The most eminent example nowadays is J.
K. Rowling's' Harry Potter childrens books published in Britain since 1996 and republished in dozens of languages and countries all around the world. These books are
widely translated into many languages, including a translation into AmericanEnglish. Actually, it is a semantic reworking of the original British-English version,
and it was made especially for the American fans of the Harry Potter books. This
reworking included changing many British-English semantic items related to the
British culture into their equivalents in American-English so that it suits the
American taste. Hence, pitch is changed into field, dustbin is changed into
trashcan, post into mail, lorry into truck and even mum is changed into
mom (Gleick, 2000 and Christenson, 2003).
The seventeenth and eighteenth century were marked by emphasizing the role
of the translator in recreating an essential spirit, soul, or nature of the ST and also in
stressing the translators duty towards his reader that has the right to be addressed in
his own terms, and on his own ground.
10

1.1.8 Romanticism and Post-Romanticism

Romanticism is a movement in literature that had a profound impact on
translation. It is, actually, a European movement that emerged in the last decade of
the eighteenth century, following the French revolution of 1789. It affirmed
individualism and emphasized the notion of the freedom of the creative force, making
the poet into a quasi-mystical creator whose function was to produce the poetry that
would create anew the universe (Bassnett, 1991: 64).
The movement resulted in a revaluation of the role of poetry and creativity
which was indicative of a change in attitude to translation. Theories of literature at
that time, such as that of Coleridge, raised the question of how to define translation as
a creative or as a mechanical enterprise. Two conflicting tendencies can be
determined in the early 19th century. The first one views translation as a category of
thought with the translator seen as a creative genius in his own right, who is enriching
the literature and language into which he is translating. The other views translation as
a mechanical process only performed for making known a text or author (ibid: 65-6).
The period that followed Romanticism is often called post-Romanticism, and it
is most distinguished by the hypothesis of the German theorist Friedrich
Schleiermacher who went beyond the sense-for-sense versus word-for-word
discussion and suggested that a translator is to follow one of two strategies of
translation; alienating or naturalizing. The translator either leaves the writer alone as
much as possible and moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader
alone as much as possible and moves the writer toward the reader (Schleiermacher
quoted in Munday, 2001: 28).
This hypothesis of Schleiermacher had an enormous influence on translation
theory in general and on German theorists in particular. The special thing about this
hypothesis is that it is descriptive and not prescriptive. It is true that Schleiermacher
preferred alienating, moving the reader towards the writer, to naturalizing, moving
the writer towards the reader, but he did not advise translators to go in one path and
not the other or to follow one method rather than the other (Munday, 2001: 27-8).
For Schleiermacher, a true translator should use one of the two strategies;
either alienating or naturalizing, and simply enough that was the main role of the
translator as far as Schleiermacher is concerned.
1.1.9 The Twentieth Century
In the twentieth century, many theories of translation came out, some of which
were so influential that they changed the way translation was being considered and
the way the role of the translator was being appreciated. The following is a preview
of some of the most prominent theorists in the twentieth century.
11

1.1.9.1 Eugene A. Nida

Nida is one of the most important translation theorists of his century. His
books Message and Mission (1960) and Toward a Science of Translating (1964) had
great effect on translation theory for a long time after their publication. The main
reason why Nida wrote about translation was that he wanted to give the translators a
clue of what to do when translating, and he was especially concerned with
translating the Bible (Munday, 2001: 37-8).
The theory of Nida is built on the premise that the message of the original text
can be translated so that its reception will be the same as that perceived by the
original receptor, and this is what Nida calls the principle of equivalent effect. He
distinguishes between two kinds of equivalence: formal equivalence and dynamic
equivalence.
Formal equivalence is based on reproducing the structure of the ST so that the
TL reader would gain access to the language of the ST, while dynamic equivalence
is based on the aforementioned principle of equivalent effect (Nida, 1964: 159).
For Nida, the success of translation depends above all on achieving equivalent
response. So, the role of the translator is to reach this equivalent response even if
this means making some necessary changes (Munday, 2001: 45).
1.1.9.2 Ezra Pound
Another theory of translation that should be considered here is Ezra Pounds.
Pound has long active years since 1913 - through which his focus has altered
many times, but his theory of translation has always been based on the concept of
energy in language. This theory of Pound is much influenced by his study of
Chinese ideograms which represent not meanings or structures but things with
energy (Gentzler, 1993: 21-22). According to this concept, the words on the page
were seen, by Pound, not simply as black and white typed marks on a page
representing something else, but as sculptured images with energy that seem to give
them life of their own; a power to adapt, mutate and survive(ibid: 23).
Pound believes that there are certain properties that charge the language with
energy; those are "melopoeia", the musical property, ''phanopoeia'', the visual
property, and ''logopoeia'', the direct meaning plus the play of the word in its context
(ibid). If the translator is to understand and translate these properties, he must
understand the time, place, and ideological restrictions of the text being translated,
as Pound suggests. He should also allow himself to be subjected by the mood,
atmosphere, and thought processes of the text in time. Simultaneously, the mood
and sensibility in time and place are to be transported to the present culture for the
12

translation to become a contemporary text. According to Pounds theory of

translation, this is the role that a translator should play (ibid: 24-5).
Pound goes on to suggest that the only way for this to happen is to create new
connections in the present, to draw attention to the translator as a living and creating
subject (ibid: 25).
1.1.9.3 The Deconstructionists
In the 1960s, a new philosophical theory of translation was presented by
French intellectuals like Jacque Derrida and Michel Foucault. The theory, which
was named deconstruction started by raising many questions challenging
fundamental notions prevalent in all other theories of translation, for example: Does
the translation depend on the original, or is it vice versa? What determines the texts
meaning, the original or the translation? Such questions were groundbreaking and
they brought into existence new views to translation, authorship and the role that a
translator plays in the whole process of translating (Gentzler, 1993: 144-5).
Deconstruction was a rebellion against age-old concepts which considered
any translation of the original into a second language a violation of the texts sacred
origin, thus giving the author a holy status and eventually it is impossible to ever
create pure equivalents. The deconstructionists suggest that the translator does not
just create the translation, but also the original. Thus, the notion of authorship is
undermined, and with it the authority on which to base comparisons of subsequent
translated versions of a text (ibid: 149).
As Derrida argues, translation is an expansion of the original text, and through
translation the original continues to live and survive. According to Derrida, here
comes the role of the translator as the one who ensures the survival of language and,
by extension, the survival of life (ibid: 164).
1.1.9.4 Lawrence Venuti
In his theory of the invisibility of the translator, Venuti suggests two strategies
of translation: foreignization and domestication. They correspond, more or less, to
Schleiermachers alienating and naturalizing respectively. Venuti realizes that the
situation and activity of the translator in contemporary AngloAmerican culture is
invisible because he the translator - follows a domesticating strategy. A
translator translates fluently to produce an idiomatic and readable TT. This leads him
to create an illusion of transparency. And he does that so that his translation appeals
to everybody; the publishers and the readers (Venuti, 1995: 1).
Venuti believes that domestication degrades translation to a secondary and
derivative quality and importance. So, he calls for translators to adopt a visible
13

situation and to stop concealing the act of translating by following the foreignization
strategy that is designed to make visible the presence of the translator, by
highlighting the foreign identity of the SL and protecting it from the ideological
dominance of the target culture (ibid: 19-20).

14

CHAPTER TWO
The Writer and the Translator:
Relation and Interrelation

Chapter two has already dealt with the translator and his role at different times
and in different schools of translation theory. The present chapter deals with both the
writer and the translator and the relation between them. Many questions will be raised
here to help to grasp as much as possible the threads that attach the writer and the
translator to each other, such as: who is the writer? What makes him a writer? What
does a translator do? What relates him to the writer? Can the translator be a writer?
Can the writer be a translator? Or, in other words, can they trade places?
The original text and its translation are both but two halves of an equation, and
the present chapter attempts to figure out, as much as possible, this equation.
2.1 The Writer-Translator Relation
It is commonly taken for granted that the writer of a text is the texts author, no
doubt about that! Just like Anthony Trollope, one of Englands greatest nineteenth
century novelists, who rose at 5 a.m. every morning, wrote for several hours almost
every day of his life, and so completed more than 50 books (Smith, 1997). This is
authorship; the words, characters and plots all came from him.
The word author itself implies much more than the actual act of writing.
Author is the root of the word authority. Thus, the author is supposed to maintain
a degree of control over the text that he writes and to be the person responsible for it
(<http:// www.student.Furman.edu>).
2.1.2 The Writer as a Translator
The writer is the one who writes the text, controls it, and becomes responsible
for it. But, the main purpose of a writer is to express and communicate ideas, as the
seventeenth century poet John Donne once said No man is an Island for himself,
rather, he lives, and abides in a world of mutual meaning whereby he enriches others
and is himself enriched (Grace and Grace, 1952: 4).
The writers text becomes a further step in the ongoing process of
communication, characterized by encoding and decoding messages. A. W. Schlegel
15

in his 1809 book asserts that all communicative acts of speaking and writing are acts
of translation (Bassnett, 1991: 65) and such is writing a text of literature. Hence, the
writer also plays as a translator, though he himself may not feel that.
Furthermore, the writer plays a very important role in translation as a whole,
since he is the one who writes the original text that the translator will then come and
translate into another language. As mentioned above, translation is an equation. This
equation is half-written by the writer of the original work, while the other half is
written by the translator, who will also find the solution for the equation.
2.1.3 The Translator as a Writer
As lvarez and Vidal (1996: 2) suggest, a translator can be the authority who
manipulates the culture, politics, literature and their acceptance (or lack thereof) in
the target culture. A translator does have an authority over his work the TL text as long as he determines the implicit meanings of the final version, since then he will
be having a kind of authority over the work he is involved in (ibid: 4).
Nowadays, the belief of translation as a cultural process that takes place
between cultural systems rather than between linguistic paradigms is widely
acceptable. Umberto Eco (in Gentzler, 1993: 186) even views translation as identical
to culture. So long that translation is a cultural event, the translator can become a
true author, since he has final authority in determining the subjects meaning in the
final version the TL text and eventually the TL culture, as well as the original
version the SL text and eventually the SL culture. In that case, it is he the
translator who becomes the real writer (or author) of the subject, as lvarez and
Vidal suggest (1996: 4).
The translator, like the writer, has such power and authority that he could
manipulate the original text. The writer has control over his text the ST-; he can
write it and manipulate it any way he would to fit what he has in mind and what he
has to say. The translator, in turn, also has an authority over his work the TT -; he
has the power to write the TL text in the way that best fits the culture and language in
which he writes.
In order for the translator to practice control over his TL text, he must first
control the SL text. The translators control over the SL comes to him so naturally as
he rewrites the original text, since in rewriting the original text, he will inevitably
manipulate it. According to Lefevere (1992: 10) all rewriting implies manipulation,
whether conscious or unconscious, of the original. It could be said that a writer
controls his work, but a translator controls his work as well as the writers.

16

2.1.4 The WriterTranslator Equality

Realizing the role a translator performs in translating and the efforts that he
makes to produce the TL version, Sir John Denham argues for a concept of
translation that sees the translator and the original writer as equals but operating in
clearly differentiated social and temporal contexts (Bassnett, 1991: 59).
The call for such a concept started almost with the dawn of Western
acknowledged translation; that is the Roman translation of the Greek Classics, such
as Homers The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Translation was so significant in Roman literature that the Romans have been
accused of being unable to create imaginative literature in their own right, but the
Romans perceived themselves as a continuation of their Greek models. Both Cicero
and Horace discussed translation within the wider context of the two main functions
of the poetwriter: the universal human duty of acquiring and disseminating wisdom,
and the special art of making and shaping a poem (Bassnett, 1991: 43). They believed
that the translators function is the same as that of a writer.
Jonas Zdanys (1988) says it even more clearly when he proposes that the
poem the translator is writing . . . is the translators poem, and in it the translator is
obliged to make his creative will felt, just like the writer of an ST is.
2.1.5 Enriching Culture, Literature, and Language
Zdanys (1988) believes that a translation must be read and treated as a world of
its own and not as some twilight zone between original and translation. This
suggestion of Zdanys involves an understanding of what the translation does on its
own and not in comparison to what the original does. He believes that:
That is the only way in which translation will be recognized and accepted as an
integral and genuine art form whose aesthetic responsibility and success lie in its ability
to enrich the literary tradition creatively and in assimilative ways.

Here, Zdanys considers the enriching of the TL culture and literary tradition as
another reason why the translator is a genuine artist, as much as the writer of the
original work is. The same thing is true concerning Roman translation, the most
integral part of which was the enrichment of the Roman literary system as well as the
Latin language (Bassnett, 1991: 44).
When the translator presents a work that is new to the TL culture, he becomes
the closest to being an original writer, since then he will be doing pretty much the
same thing the writer does in the SL culture. Both the writer and the translator are
enriching the cultures in which the texts are presented and the literary traditions of
these cultures.
17

2.1.6 Survival of the Text

Translation is an act that ensures the life and survival of the text, it injects new
life blood into a text (lvarez and Vidal, 1996: 6) and brings it to the attention of a
new world of readers; those of the target language. In fact, the original survives by its
mutation and transformation which is actually a renewal of the original by which it is
modified and enlarged, as Jacque Derrida puts it (Gentzler, 1993: 165).
The translation enhances the existence of the source text. Bassnett and
Lefevere (1990: 10) even suggest that if a work is not rewritten, it is not likely to
survive its publication date. Translation is one of the many forms in which works of
literature are rewritten, along with histories, critical articles, commentaries,
anthologies, and anything else that contributes to constructing the image of a work
of literature. This includes rewriting it in the mass media, as with cinema, arguably
the most powerful medium today (ibid). It is very likely, for example, that one would
not remember Michael Ondaatjis The English Patient novel but with image of
director Anthony Minghellas 1996 feature film of the same name in mind. The novel
lives on, even more powerful, through the motion picture.
The text goes through a process of transformation and evolution as it moves
along from being an ST to a TT and beyond. An ST can be translated over and over
again. Usually, several translations of the same ST may be produced in the same TL.
This does not mean that an ST may have a final form, while a translation may not, as
Gregory Rabassa (1984: 23-4) suggests. In fact, every time a new translation of an
original text is presented, it is a final form in its own right. It enhances the ST and it
is itself enhanced by the ST in a kind of interrelation that exists between the ST and
the TT, and, eventually, between the writer and the translator.
2.2 The Translators Visibility
There has always been a conflict between faithful translation and free
translation since the very beginning of the activity of translating. In the west, there is
an Italian clich that goes traduttore, traditore the translator is a traitor and it
really does describe the way the translator was viewed in Europe in the late
Renaissance. The original text was something inherently superior to any version of it,
and this meant that any variation to the source text by the translator could be
classified as a betrayal (Bassnett, 1996: 16).
The image of the translator as a slave who toils in another mans plantation (i.e.
the ST) continued for centuries, but there was another contradictory view that fought
its way through. No later than the seventeenth century, a version of The Iliad,
translated by De La Motte, was published. Many parts of the original Iliad were
18

changed in the De La Motte version. But, it was only one of many translations at that
time in which the translators tried to break free from the bonds of the original text.
In the nineteenth century, Schleiermacher presented a dichotomy that took a
new approach to translation. The two poles of the dichotomy were naturalizing and
alienating (see 2.2.8 above). Naturalizing means to move the writer toward the reader,
or, in other words, to manipulate the ST in a way that would make it acceptable by
the TL readers, while alienating means moving the reader toward the writer, in other
words, bringing the ST with all its exoticness to the reader of the TL, though he
might not accept it.
2.2.1 The Theory of Venuti
Lawrence Venuti adopts the two strategies of Schleiermacher and suggests the
dichotomy of domestication and foreignization in the light of the translation
method dominating in the 1990s in the Anglo-American culture. Domestication
involves an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural
values (Venuti, 1995: 20). Following this strategy the translator minimizes the
foreignness of the ST through a transparent, fluent, and invisible style. On the other
hand, following the strategy of foreignization, the translator registers the linguistic
and cultural differences of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad (ibid).
Venuti, who calls for the ST to be protected from the ideological dominance of
the target culture, prefers foreignization, because it restrains the violently
domesticating cultural values of the English language world. He believes that the
translator who translates following the domestication strategy becomes invisible
because the act of translating will be concealed, while using a foreignization strategy
makes the readers feel that they are reading a translation of a work from a foreign
culture and this makes the translator visible (Munday, 2001: 146-7).
2.2.2 Criticizing Venuti
Noticing that Venuti is only concerned with the English language as a TL, Pym
states that the trend towards a translation policy of fluency i.e. domestication
occurs in translation into other languages as well, for example in Brazil, Spain and
France (Munday, 2001: 155). Pym, hence, suggests that translation is typically
domesticating at the current time regardless of the relative power of source and target
cultures (ibid).
Munday (2001: 153) states an interesting example of domesticating an SL text,
that of Suzanne Jill Levine who translates Latin American fiction into English. In her
translation of Tres tristes tigres by the Cuban author Cabrera Infante, Levine
produced the meaning of the original text in a new form by changing whole passages
19

to fill out the expectations of the TT readers, or even, sometimes, making up new
passages in order to create punning in the TL (ibid). According to Venutis
dichotomy this would be a very domesticating approach, but a further look at the
linguistic result in English would imply that the domesticating translation has brought
a foreignizing reading that would draw or move the reader to the context of the
original text. As in the case where Levine replaces a list of funny titles of fictitious
books and names of fictitious authors in the Spanish ST with another list of her own
invention, just to keep the sense of humour of the ST in the TT (ibid). Contrary to
what would Venuti suggest, the creative way the ST is translated into English makes
Levine visible rather than invisible.
2.2.3 Bassnett's Concept of Visibility
Bassnett views the notion visibility differently. She believes that the role of
the translator can be reassessed in terms of analyzing the intervention of the
translator in the process of linguistic transfer (1996: 22). According to Bassnett,
translation can now be seen as a process in which the translators intervention is
crucial. This intervention is what gives the translator visibility (ibid). Eventually, not
to intervene in the process of translation makes the translator invisible. Visibility has
relative degrees as will be shown in 4.4 below in which the creative will of the
translator can be felt. The role translators play in reshaping texts shows the power
that they have; since in changing texts, they change the world (ibid).
2.3 Factors Influencing the Translators Work
In the production of any text be it an original text or a translation - , many
things do intervene in the work of the text producer. The ST is not the result of
spontaneous inspiration, but is tied to the institutional systems of time and place, as
Foucault suggests, and these systems are beyond the control, or even awareness, of
the writer (Gentzler, 1993: 150). The writer does create the work, but it is not that
simple as one might imagine. So many elements interfere in the process of writing
since its early beginning, that the writer, in the eye of the deconstructionist, is no
more an individual, and his name is put on the cover of the book just to simplify the
act of creating through which the literary work comes to life (ibid).
But, the deconstructionists ignore the fact that all these influencing and
creating elements would not have been part of the writer designation if there was
not an individual that would represent them on paper. All these elements are
embodied in that individual, and all of them are, in one way or another, revolving
around that individual.
20

On the other hand, the production of a translation is influenced and controlled

by certain factors. All these factors affect the work of the translator, though,
sometimes, some of them are not as effective as other factors and elements are. The
effects of these factors may also intertwine, and then it becomes difficult to draw a
clear-cut line between them. These factors are as follows.
2.3.1 Interpretation
Before being a translator, one is a reader of the source text. He reads the
original text just like any other reader; to enjoy himself and to enrich his literary
information. Still, the translator as a reader puts in mind that afterwards he is to
translate the text in hand to the TL. So, the translator plays a double role; the one of
the reader of the ST and the one of the writer of the TT.
As far as the process of reading is concerned, there happens an interaction
between the reader and the text he is reading. This interaction results in an
interpretation which is of much effect on the translators work.
Ingarden (in Ray, 1984: 41) talks about an actualization of the works
schematized intentionality, or, in other words, a concretization. He describes this
actualization as the only thing one produces about the ST one reads and not the ST
itself. For Ingarden, reading is a specific version of the work, formed in the process
of its perception within the context of the aesthetic attitude (Glowinski, 1979: 328).
Actualization provides a means for the interpretation of the ST in terms of its
structure and interrelation with the readers (ibid: 349).
Reading draws the readers personal experience since it requires both skill and
imagination. For this reason, no two actualizations are identical because no two
readings are identical (Freund, 1987: 140). Hence, different readers will reach
different interpretations of the same SL text and this will result in different
translations of the text, as every translator will build his translation depending on his
own interpretation of the original text.
2.3.2 Intention
This is another factor that affects the work of the translator. Actually, it is the
most important factor, as Hans J. Vermeer believes (Munday, 2001: 78-9). That is
why he presented the skopos theory in the 1970s. Skopos in Greek stands for aim
or purpose and it is used by Vermeer to refer to the purpose of translation and of
the action of translating (ibid).
According to Vermeer, the purpose of translation determines the translation
methods and strategies that are to be employed in order to produce a functionally
21

adequate result, i.e. the TT. For Vermeer, it is crucial for the translator to know why
an ST is to be translated and what the function of the TT will be, since this allows the
possibility of the same ST being translated in different ways according to the purpose
for which the TT is produced (ibid, 179).
2.3.3 Context
There is always a context in which the translation takes place, always a history
from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed (Bassnett and Lefevere,
1990: 11). Every text has a context of its own, a context in which it is acceptable and
effective. The context of a text is the culture in which it is received, the time in which
it is published, the audience who receive it, and the language in which it is written.
As the translator translates the SL text into the TL, he must be aware that the context
into which he is translating is not the same of the ST. It is another and different
context, and the degree of difference is relative.
2.3.3.1 Language
The ST language is different from the TT language, or else there wouldnt have
been any need for translation. The translator must know well how to deal with the
languages of both the ST and the TT in accordance with the other factors that affect
his work.
2.3.3.2 Audience
The audience to which the ST is meant could differ from that of the TT. The
way translations are supposed to function depends on the audience they are intended
for.
Bassnett and Lefevere (1990: 8) give an example of the translations of
Jonathan Swifts novel Gullivers Travels. In the novel the hero actually urinates on
the imperial palace of Lilliput to put out the flames that threaten to consume it. But,
very few translations of Gullivers Travels for children render this incident as it is in
the original. Instead, the hero, usually, runs into the sea, fills his hat with water and
empties it over the palace. If the translations were meant for adult readers, then it
would not have been necessary to make such a change.
Savory (1968: 58) distinguishes four groups of audience (or readers) to whom
translations are intended, and they seem to differ in their personal preferences and
also in the reasons for which they are reading a translation.
The first is the reader who knows nothing at all of the original language, who
reads either from curiosity or from a genuine interest in a literature of which he will
22

never be able to read one sentence in its original form. This one will be happy with
the free translation since it satisfies his curiosity and he reads it easily without the
pains of thinking.
The second is the student who is learning the language of the original, and does
so in part by reading its literature with the help of a translation. This one is best
helped by the most literal translation that can be made, so that he could grab the
implications of the language he is studying and point out the correct usage of the
more unfamiliar words.
The third is the reader who knew the language of the original in the past, but
who, because of other duties and occupations, has now forgotten almost the whole of
his early knowledge. This one prefers the translation that sounds like a translation,
because it gives him a subconscious impression that he is almost reading the original
language.
The fourth is the scholar who knows the language of the original text. This one
knows the content as well as the form of the original, so he may find pleasure in
occasional touches of scholarship or may enjoy making critical and caustic
comments (ibid: 58-9).
The translator must know what kind of audience is going to read his translation
and accordingly he must decide how to translate the ST, since the same translation,
as Savory says, cannot be equally suited to all readers (ibid).
2.3.3.3 Time
The historical period in which the writer lives and the text is written has a deep
impact on the way a text is translated. Translation includes the bridging of time as
well as the bridging of space (savory, 1968: 56). This, in fact, happens even within
the one language, as the case with the new versions of Chaucers The Canterbury
Tales which are rewritten in a contemporary English so as to be understood and
accepted by contemporary readers (ibid).
Interlingually speaking, each period of time has certain appropriateness
conditions and intersubjectively mediated rules and norms that a translated text
satisfies, as Anne Mette Hjort (in Lefevere and Bassnett, 1990: 5) states, and these
differ from one language to another. For instance, one of the appropriateness
conditions in the translation of poetry in the nineteenth century was that the
translation had to rhyme, even if the original did not, as in the case of the Greek and
Roman Classics (ibid).
Mette Hjort further states that the norms, rules and appropriateness conditions
are liable to change. Therefore, translations made at different times tend to turn out
23

differently, not because they are good or bad, but because the conditions, norms and
rules are different (ibid).
2.3.3.4 Culture
Translation is no more considered by translation scholars as mere transfer of a
text from one language to another, but as a cross-cultural transfer or a cross-cultural
event, described as such by Snell-Hornby (1990: 82). Thus, the translator should be
a bicultural, not just a bilingual.
The translator should notice that he is not just dealing with language, but also
with the hard, falsifiable cultural data, and the way they affect peoples lives. The
age-old questions of whether the translation is good or bad, faithful or
unfaithful are starting to disappear, especially after the cultural turn that has taken
place in translation theory. Instead of debating the accuracy of a translation based on
linguistic criteria, translators and translation scholars are tending to consider how a
text works in its culture, whether SL culture or TL culture.
As in the words of Bassnett and Lefevere (1990: 11), the translator should
perceive translation as a perfect marriage between two different (con)texts, bringing
together two entities for better or worse in mutual harmony".
The following chapter is to take these factors as a model on which to base the
analyses of translations. This will show how the translator comes to produce the TT
and how these factors impose certain conditions on the translator, and affect his work
as a writer of the TT.

24

CHAPTER THREE
The Translator at Work:
Analyses of Translated Texts


The present chapter deals with poetry, its nature and its translation in a
discussion that will introduce the case study afterwards. Two poems and their
translations are analyzed in this chapter in terms of the factors that control the
translators work and their effects on the translators authority upon the TT.
3.1 The Nature of Poetry
Before involving oneself in translating poetry, one should know what poetry
is. According to The Dictionary of Literary Terms (Shaw, 1972: 292), poetry cannot
really be defined because of the many different aspects that it involves; namely: the
subject matter, the form and the effect. Still, there have been so many attempts to
explain poetry; what it is and what it is not.
Many poets describe poetry using beautifullyimaginative, wellputtogether
definitions, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge who defines poetry as "the blossom and
the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions,
language." (Webster's 1913 Dictionary, 2005). Shelley also defines poetry as the
record of the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds (Shaw,
1972: 292).
These quotations are more analogous and symbolic than practical, obviously
because they belong to poets. On the other hand, other more practical definitions
were suggested. Harry Shaw defines poetry as a literary work in metrical form or
patterned language (ibid).Another definition of poetry is an arrangement of words,
sometimes rhymed, in a style more imaginative than ordinary speech (Steckmann:
2004).
When poetry is the subject matter of discussion, as in the definitions above, the
words language and words are frequently mentioned, because language and
words are the media of poetry, and it is through language that a poet presents his
poem. Hence, for a poet to be a poet, he must be in control of the language in which
he is writing. He must be a master of it. Still, T.S. Eliot believes that though the poet
is of great mastery of his language, he should be the servant of his language, rather
25

than the master of it (Raffel, 1988: 179). This means that a poet should have a sense
of responsibility towards the language in which he is writing.
For the present study, however, it is suggested in order to have a better
understanding of its nature that poetry be considered from an agreed upon point of
view; of poetry as an art. Poetry as an art form means that it must therefore do what
all art does: represent something of the world, express or evoke emotion, please the
audience by its form, and stand on its own as something autonomous and self
defining (<http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk>).
Eventually, this makes the poet an artist, more like a painter. And while the
tools of the painter are his brush and the colours, the tools of the poet are rhyme,
meter, stress and form. These, tools as they are, can be played with and bent to form a
definite shape and effect for the poem. Considering poetry from this viewpoint gives
a better insight to what it is and does, since the qualities of poetry are not the same as
those of other literary genres. This is largely true especially when it comes to
translating poetry.
3.2 The Translation of Poetry
In her article "Translating Poetry'', Erna Bennet (2002) quotes Caudwell as
saying while the qualities of great novels can survive translation, those of poetry
cannot. For some scholars such as Bennet this is largely true, and it is not due to
the difficulty of translating metrical pattern, but to the nature of poetry itself.
Translating poetry becomes even more difficult than it is, when some
translation scholars lay down laws and regulations so that the translators would
follow, as with Willis Barnstone who advises literary translators to translate verse
into verse only and rhyme into rhyme only (Barnstone, 1984: 51). He believes that a
translator who renders poems in rhyme into unrhymed verse should not translate
poems that rhyme, because his translation disrespects the original poet. According
to Barnstone, such a translator should turn his translating talents to other poems
that do not rhyme.
In the same prescriptive way, Raffel (1988: 157) defines the translation of
poetry as the art of balancing different claims, those are: the linguistic claim, the
cultural claim, the time claim, and the aesthetic claim. The last one, he believes, is the
most important. Thus, he states that a translator that does not do justice to the
aesthetic claim, will produce a translation that almost does not worth very much.
Such a translation, Raffel believes, is simply numb, almost catatonic travesty of
poetry, as he once described Richard Hamers translation of the old Anglo-Saxon
poem The Seafarer (ibid: 167).
26

This is easier said than done. A translator cannot always be that faithful to an
ST, or an ST aesthetics at least. Translating is not pouring wine from one bottle into
another, using the analogy of Rosmarie Waldrop, it is more like wrenching soul
from its body and luring it into a different one (Waldrop, 1984: 423).
Lefevere (1992: 6) describes translators as the artisans of compromise, and
they are indeed. The translator is under the pressure of several factors (see 3.3 above),
and they are these factors that he is trying to compromise. These factors may lead the
translator to produce a translation that could be the closest and most literal or the
farthest and most liberal, or it could be somewhere in between. This position gives
the translator the power to construct the image of one literature for consumption by
the readers of another literature. This power of the translator is also shared by literary
historians, anthologizers and critics, i.e. rewriters (Lefevere, 1992: 7).
As discussed in 3.4 above, this power of the translator that he uses in rewriting
the text in the SL is, in fact, due to his intervention in the process of translation and to
his creative abilities that he lends to that process. When the translators intervention
and creativity are felt in the TT then the translator is visible, and the more it is felt,
the more visible he becomes. In the same way, the less intervention and creativity
shows in the TT, the less visible - more invisible - he becomes.
The visibility of the translator may have degrees, that is, one translator may be
more visible than another. The best way to show this is by comparing several
translations of the same ST, as in the example below.
3.2.1 An Example
In this example, three translators present three English versions of a Latin
poem by Catullus (poem 13). The translators are Jonson, Marris and Copley. Each
one of these translators has his own way of dealing with the original text, and in the
process of translation, they intervene, but each one to a certain limit. In reading the
TTs, one can feel how one translator can be more visible than another. (See Bassnett,
1991: 84-7 for the whole texts).
Starting with Ben Jonson, he introduces an absolute new poem that has almost
nothing of the original but the main theme. The whole atmosphere of the original
poem feels different in the Jonson version; many things are added, omitted and
changed (see Bassnett, 1991: 89-90). Jonsons intervention in his TT is so profound
and he pops out so visible in his version.
Sir William Marris, on the other hand, does not intervene a lot in his TT. His
version reads so close to the original poem that one can rely on it as, almost, a literal
translation of it. His intervention is limited only to his creation of a new rhyme in the
27

TT to stand for the original poems rhyme that is lost in translation (see Bassnett,
1991: 87-8). Marriss creative effort in his TT is not so visible, and so is he. He is
almost invisible, especially when compared to Jonson.
As for Frank O. Copley, he creates a rather interesting version of the Catullus
poem. His interventions are so strongly sensed; his use of slang instead of Catullus's
aristocratic language, his insertion of a line from a pop song, etc. (See Bassnett, 1991:
88-9). His creative activity in his version is very visible indeed.
To illustrate the preceding conclusions, the diagram below shows two lines of
the Catullus poem and their translations by the aforementioned translators.
ST

The lines contain

TTs

Catullus
- nam unguentum dabo,
quod meae puellae
- donarunt veneres
cupidinesque
An allusion
A joke

Marris
- An essence to my

Copley
- I got perfume see

lady given
- it was a gift to her
- By all the Loves - straight from Venus
and Venuses
and Cupid Ltd.

Jonson
- But that, which most doth
take my Muse, and mee,
- Is a pure cup of rich
canary-wine,
- Which is the Mermaids,
now, but shall be mine

Same allusion

Same allusion

Different allusion

Same joke

Different joke

No joke

Diagram (4.1)

Copley stands in the middle between Jonson and Marris as far as (in)visibility is
concerned (see the diagram below where the three translators are seen on a scale).

28

Most
visible

Jonson

Copley

Marris
Invisible

More visible
than Copley
and Marris

More visible
than Marris,
less visible
than Jonson

Less visible
than Copley
and Jonson

Diagram (4.2)

Diagram (4.2) clarifies the amount of intervention performed by each of the

three translators in comparison with each other, and shows how (in)visibility may be
gradable.
It is important to always put in mind that the above translations, just like all
other translations, have been produced in accordance with the factors that come in
play within the process of translation, as will be seen in 4.4 below.
3.3 Case Study
In this section, two English poems will be reviewed along with their translations
into Arabic. These poems are T.S. Eliots Journey of the Magi and Ezra Pounds The
RiverMerchants Wife: A Letter. Both of them were translated by the late Iraqi poet
Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab, a pioneer of free verse in Arabic poetry. These translations
were published in 1955 in Al-Sayyabs anthology book  
which contained his translations of twenty poems for different poets from all
over the world, all representing modern trends of poetry. The translations will be
considered in terms of the factors that affect the translator during his work (see 3.3
above). This is to show how the translator works within the conditions that the factors
may lie upon him, and how and why the TT comes to take its final form. The factors
are:
1- The translators Interpretation
2- The translators Intention
3- The Context, which includes the elements of language, audience, time and
culture.
And as mentioned in 3.3 above, these factors do, sometimes, intertwine, and
some of them might not be of considerable effect on the translation process as other
factors or elements are.

29

3.3.1 Journey of the Magi

Eliot wrote this poem when he converted to Christianity; to describe not only
the journey that three Zoroastrian wise men made to Bethlehem to witness the birth
of the baby Jesus Christ, but furthermore to symbolically describe his own spiritual
journey from void, meaninglessness, and futility (that he found in himself as well as
in the world around him) to faith and religious satisfaction (Braun, 1996) Eliot was
baptized in the Anglican-Catholic Church in 1927 which was one of the most
important events in his life and soon after that he published Journey of the Magi as
the first of a group of his poems he later called the Ariel poems (Lombardo, 1996) .
Below is the full text of the poem, retrieved from the American Literature
Research and Analysis Web Site (<http://www.itech. fgcu.edu>, 1996).
Journey of the Magi
A cold coming we had of it,
just the worst time of the year
for a journey, and such a long journey:
the ways deep and the weather sharp,
the very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the nightfires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
30

With a running stream and a watermill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vineleaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? there was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Al-Sayyab is a big admirer of Eliot. The effect of Eliots poetry and themes can
be felt in some of Al-Sayyabs poems like  ,   and 
(Bishai, 1986: 9).
The following is Al-Sayyabs translation of Journey of the Magi (Al-Sayyab,
1955: 9-12).





.
31



.
.

 " " 


.


:
.





.




""

.
.



 ( ) .



 :
32

"" ""

.
.
"" .
.""



.
.
The effect of the factors is reviewed in the sections below.
3.3.1.1 (A) Context: Culture
Al-Sayyab renders the first five lines of the poem without giving them any
special position, though they are put between two quotation marks in the original. In
fact Eliot lifted these lines from Lancelot Andrewes' nativity sermon of 1622 and
modified them and used them, because he needed a second voice to take part in the
poetic drama (Dixon, 1996). Al-Sayyab probably found it unnecessary to make these
lines distinct from the rest of the poem so that not to confuse the TL reader who is not
acquainted with Andrewes or his sermons which are part of the Anglican Christian
tradition and part of the English culture.
The original poem has many Christian symbols, such as: the three trees [4th
line, 2nd stanza], symbolizing the three crosses of Calvary on which Christ was
crucified along with two other men (Dixon, 1996). And six handsdicing [7th
line, 2nd stanza] symbolizing the six Roman guards who played dice over Christs
clothes (Al-Wasiti, 1980). These symbols are not culturebound, at least not in the
eyes of Al-Sayyab who is well-known for his frequent use of Christian (Biblical)
allusions in some of his own poems, as in the quotations below:
...
()

(Al-Sayyab, 1987: 101)


()

(ibid: 27)


33

()

(ibid: 57)


()

(ibid: 78)

3.3.1.1 (B) Context: Language

When mentioning the places that the Magi have come by in their journey, Eliot
states: cities, towns and villages [14th and 15th lines, 1st stanza]. They are translated
by Al-Sayyab respectively into , and .
The language Eliot uses in this poem is very simple and the words are very
common, and Al-Sayyab does the same thing in his TT. But the word cannot be
used to render both cities and towns, especially when they are both used in the
same line. For this reason, Al-Sayyab chose the infrequent word  to stand for
towns, which are smaller in size than cities.
In the same way, Al-Sayyab renders the weather sharp [4th line, 1st stanza]
into " "His choice of words is a little strange here; because  may not
collocate with  in the normal Arabic use. But Salman Al-Wasiti (1980: 282)
suggests that Al-Sayyab did not use words like or instead of because he
already used in the first line.
In the third stanza of the poem, Eliot talks about Birth and Death using
capital letters for the initials. This is because he refers to them as concepts of the
Christian faith; the Birth of Christ will lead to his Death, and his Death is but Birth or
Rebirth for Christianity. As for the Magi, the Birth of Christ represents Death of their
old beliefs, and that is why they wonder Birth or Death? [5th line, 3rd stanza]
(Streeter, 1996). But capital letters cannot be represented in Arabic, so Al-Sayyab
uses inverted commas to keep the emphasis of Eliot, and to give these words a
distinct status as in the original poem.
3.3.1.2 Interpretation
It is believed that the image of the old white horse in the 5th line of the 2nd
stanza And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow either stands for
paganism and the dispensation that will die with Christs birth and the ancient beliefs
that will fade and go away at the dawning of Christianity, or that the white horse
refers to the militaristic and conquering Christ of revelation according to Kaplan
and Walls suggestion (Dixon, 1996). But considering either of the two
interpretations, it is difficult to tell why Al-Sayyab translates the line into:

34

Al-Sayyabs translation does not mention that the horse is white or the direction
towards which the horse is galloping, as the original text states that the horse is
galloping away. Al-Sayyab, probably, had a different interpretation of this image that
led him to produce his translation, or he might have had a certain intention in
translating this particular line this way. The translators interpretation of the original
text cannot always be determined, and sometimes it has to be guessed, and so is his
intention.
3.3.1.3 Intention
Obviously, Al-Sayyabs intention in this translation is to remain as close as
possible to the original, of course, as much as the other factors allow him to be. Thus,
he preserves the characteristics of the original poem in the TL version, such as the
use of simple language, with the exception of some instances (see 4.4.1 (B) below).
Al-Sayyab even produces a TT that corresponds to the original text in being
unrhymed.
3.3.2 The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
The second poem to be reviewed here is Ezra Pounds The River-Merchants
Wife: A Letter. This poem is in fact a translation, made by Pound, of a Chinese poem
from the 8th century. It was published in Pounds third collection of poetry Cathay in
1915. However, critics and poets have appreciated this translation and acclaimed it as
one of the most beautiful poems in English written last century (Maguire, 2004).
Pound was very steeped into Chinese culture all through his literary career,
making China part of his general project to rethink the nature of the West, to discover
in poetry the best that humans had ever said or thought (Hayot, 1999). Pounds
interest in Chinese language and the Chinese ideogram led him to invent his original
concept of Imagism in early twentieth century, and to start the Imagist movement in
modern English poetry in Britain and the United States .
The Imagists believe in the complete freedom of subject matter, the creation of
new rhythms, and the use of the language of common speech for the sake of
producing clear, sharp, precise and concentrated images (Shaw, 1995: 196). The
RiverMerchants Wife: A Letter is a very good example of an Imagist poem.
Below is the full text of the poem followed by Al-Sayyabs translation of it.

35

The RiverMerchants Wife: A Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married my lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?
At sixteen you departed.
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the west garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fo-Sa.

36




 - 
.


.
:" -" 
.


.
!  
. ..
 

!


!

: ""

. ..
! .

 !
.


37


 ""

! .

 ""
: 

!"--"
3.3.2.1 (A) Context: Culture
The effect of the element of culture is very clear in Al-Sayyab's translation,
since he is very faithful in conveying the images that display the Chinese culture (In
fact, he is very faithful in conveying all the images of the original into the TL, as will
be discussed in 4.4.2.3).
Al-Sayyab conveys the images that are very much attached to the Chinese
culture with much concentration on the details. One of these images is in the first line
of the original poem.
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead.
Al-Sayyab translated this line into


The image of a little Chinese girl pops immediately in the mind of the reader
when reading the original and the same thing is true as far as the Arabic version is
concerned, especially if the reader is familiar with Chinese culture. This is because all
little Chinese girls normally have their hair cut straight across the forehead (Yip,
1969). Another image can be found in the last line of the 4th stanza.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead
.
 !

38

This image is also related to Chinese culture. In fact, it involves the TT reader in an
environment that is very unusual, because it includes elements that are strange to him.
The importance of this image in the original poem lies in that it expresses the feelings
of sadness and despair of the wife of the rivermerchant through the use of Chinese
cultural elements. Realizing its importance, Al-Sayyab conveys the image in full in
spite of its exoticness. (See 4.4.2.3, for further analysis of the translation of this line).
By conveying all the details of the image into Arabic, Al-Sayyab is not only
translating the text literally, but also transferring the whole cultural atmosphere
represented in the details. Here, Al-Sayyab is using the Imagist belief (that Pound
himself is using in The River-Merchants Wife: A Letter) of luminous details. Once
the details are gathered, they provide the reader with a sudden insight into the text
(Gentzler, 1993: 20).
3.3.2.1 (B) Context: Language
In his poem, Pound uses simple language and neglects rhyme. His use of
simple language is one of the important features of Imagism that he derived originally
from Chinese poetry, and this can be felt in almost every line of his poem; consider I
never laughed, being bashful, You dragged your feet when you went out, or
Please let me know beforehand. These examples seem to be extracts from everyday
conversation, rather than poetic. But, Pound also uses odd collocations, as with
pulling flowers and blue plums, in order to give the poem a sense of strangeness
and make the reader aware of the different literature presented through the poem, i.e.
the Chinese literature.
Al-Sayyab, however, does not resort to simple language. He rather utilizes a
more poetic language and, unlike Pound, he uses rhyme. He opts for some variations
in his translation for the sake of maintaining rhyme.
At the beginning of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stanzas, Pound writes At fourteen, At
fifteen, and At sixteen respectively, to show the progress of time in the poem. AlSayyab translates At fourteen into      to rhyme with the line
that follows it .But he avoids translating At fifteen and At sixteen as they are
because they will not match the rhyme that he intends. Instead he renders the phrases
into  in both the 3rd and 4th stanzas, which implies that the wife has
turned fifteen in the 3rd stanza and then sixteen in the 4th.
Also in the 3rd stanza of the TT, Al-Sayyab repeats the phrase  
twice. The phrase can be found in the 2nd line of the 3rd stanza and in the last line
of the same stanza. This repetition is meant to create rhyme in the last two lines of the
stanza.
39

3.3.2.2 Interpretation
Al-Sayyab translates plums [4th line, 1st stanza] into . A plum is a
kind of fruit, but it seems that here Al-Sayyab confuses plums with plumage (the
feather covering a birds body (Hornby, 2004)). Probably, the reason of this
interpretation is the phrase playing with blue plums. How can one play with plums?
Let alone being blue, strange colour of fruit? Maybe that is why Al-Sayyab interprets
plums as plumage; plumage can be blue and children would rather play with plumage
than with plums.
Actually, Pound deliberately produces odd collocations in his translations of
Chinese poems. Accordingly, he translates the colour green into blue every time it
occurs in the Chinese original as with the above mentioned "blue plums", and also in
his translation of the Chinese poem The Beautiful Toilet, the first line of which goes
"Blue, blue is the grass about the river". Definitely, plums and grass are not blue in
China; they are green. This is merely a technique that Pound utilizes in order to
emphasize the remoteness and strangeness of the Chinese culture (Hayot, 1999). AlSayyab may have not been aware of this technique of Pound. Thus, playing with
blue plums was rendered into:

.
Another example of Al-Sayyabs interpretation is his translation of the last line
in the 3rd stanza.
Why should I climb the lookout?
It is believed that Pound was referring to a ritual in ancient China where a woman,
after her husbands death, receives offers of marriage from other men. Pound
describes this ritual as climbing the lookout. But Al-Sayyab does not seem to be
satisfied with this interpretation. So he interprets this line into another image; that of
a woman who climbs to a window (a lookout) to have a sight of other men, because
she does not like her husband. So when this woman starts to love her husband, she
asks: Why should I climb the lookout? According to this interpretation, Al-Sayyab
translates the line into:

He even adds the phrase  to clarify the idea.

40

3.3.2.3 Intention
There are some intentions of Al-Sayyab, which can be determined through
analyzing his translation of The RiverMerchants Wife: A Letter.
First, Al-Sayyab intends to convey every single image with all its details into
his Arabic version. Al-Sayyab published his translation of Pounds poem in his 1955
book without saying anything about the poems Chinese origin; he just wrote that the
poem is by Ezra Pound. (Abdul-Amir, 2002). This probably shows that Al-Sayyab
had translated the poem as a poem of Pound, as an Imagist poem rather than as a
Chinese poem.
Al-Sayyab was not an Imagist, but his concentration on the images in the
translation is due to their importance in this poem as in all Pounds poems. Pound
insists on the centrality of image to poetry, and The RiverMerchants Wife: A Letter
is an eloquent manifestation of this principle.
In this poem each stanza concentrates on one image, and each line within the
stanza expresses a complete idea that contributes to the image, with no spillover into
the next line This technique is termed "endstopped" lines
(<http://www.cs.rice.edu>, 1999). But to convey all the details of the idea, Al-Sayyab
has occasionally to cut the single line into two or three lines, thus, spreading the
details of one line in the ST over two or three lines in the TT, as in the examples:
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
[1st line, 1st stanza]


You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
[3rd line, 1st stanza]

.
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
[4th line, 1st stanza]


.
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies.
41

[2nd line, 4th stanza]

: " "

. ..
Another intention of Al-Sayyab in this translation is to produce a poetic and
rhymed TT. Pounds poem has what William Van O'Connor describes as internal
music and a songlike quality (<http://www.cs.rice.edu>, 1999) and Al-Sayyab wants
to compensate for these features through making many additions and changes most of
which carry the special touch of Al-Sayyab. In fact, the final product sounds very
Sayyabian if one may say.
For example, in translating the line
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
Al-Sayyab cuts the idea into two lines and adds a question to the second line.

 !
The question is obviously added to create rhyme, and also to make clear the idea of
the wife for whom everything, even the happy sounds that monkeys make, is
sorrowful, because the weight of her sorrow is so great; as she is waiting for her
husbands comeback (Gale, 2001).
The question is, in fact, a very evident Sayyabian touch. Al-Sayyab is very
wellknown for his frequent use of questions in his poems. It is his hallmark to lay
such questions as in:

()

(Al-Sayyab, 1987: 89)


()

(ibid: 96)


42

()

(ibid: 25)

Or in:

()

(ibid: 79)

Another method Al-Sayyab uses to create rhyme can be seen in his translation
of the 3rd line of the 4th stanza:
And you have been gone five months.
! .
Al-Sayyab here repeats the phrase "" twice at the beginning of the line and
at its end, so that the line rhymes with the one preceding it. This method can also be
found in some of Al-Sayyabs original poems as in:
 
!..
()
(Al-Sayyab, 1987: 102)
Al-Sayyab also renders the two following lines
[lines 2 and 3 of the 3rd stanza]
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Into:

!
Here, the idea of the second line starts at the end of the first line, so that the two
could rhyme together. And that is another technique of creating rhyme that AlSayyab has used before in his poems, for example:

 . .
()
(Al-Sayyab, 1987: 44)

43

But, Al-Sayyabs most noticeable touch is his use of the word

to create
rhyme in the first two lines of the 4th stanza.

 ""
Al-Sayyab uses this word more frequently in his poems than which is the more
normal in Arabic, as in:
.
()
.
()

(Al-Sayyab, 1987: 80)

(ibid: 82)

The word  can be found in the Arabic-Arabic dictionary Mukhtar Al-Sihah (ArRazi, 1982: 301) as an equivalent to , but it is less frequent in modern Arabic
usages.
3.4 Discussion of Case Study
Through analyzing both of Al-Sayyabs translations in 4.4 above, one can
strongly perceive the effect of the factors (of context, interpretation and intention) on
the translators work. Those factors, in one way or another, repeatedly make the
translator take one decision rather than the other. Having major influences on the
process of decisionmaking, these factors undoubtedly cause the translator to be
visible or invisible accordingly. When comparing the two TTs, it becomes clear that
in  the translator i.e. Al-Sayyab - is not very visible, while in 
   he is very visible; whether through his creative poetic abilities, or
through his use of some words and sentence constructions of his own. But in both
translations Al-Sayyab gives a new life to the STs, produces them in another world;
the world of the TL, and introduces them to new readers.
Translating these poems from English to Arabic, Al-Sayyab has, in fact,
involves himself in a process of rewriting; or in other words a process of writing
anew the poems, and constructing the images of the poets as well as their worlds in
the minds of the TT readers. Moreover, these translations of Al-Sayyab enrich the TT
culture and literature.

44

Through all this, Al-Sayyab exercises an authority so great, still justified and
necessary, in order to present a TT that accords with the factors in action. This
authority that the translator has is as influential as that of the original author, since an
author cannot reach the readers of other languages but through the translator who
becomes the writer and author of the text in the TL; the new world in which it is
going to survive.

45

Conclusions
The following are conclusions drawn from the present study:
1. The translator is a writer, or an equal to the writer of the ST, since both -the
translator and the writer- play important roles in enriching the cultures and
literary traditions to which they belong and developing the languages in which
they write. In addition, the translator, like the writer, has an authority over the
text that he produces. He has the ability to manipulate the text and make his
creative will felt. In Other words, the first hypothesis is verified.
2. The translator who deals with the poem as an artistic piece of work rather than
just a text will put in mind the importance of reviving the artistic touches of the
original poet in the TT.
3. Some translation scholars are prescriptive and very critical in their discussions
of translation which is not very helpful to translators. They even, sometimes,
ask translators to take one measure rather than the other (for example to
translate rhymed poems into rhymed poems and not blank unrhymed verse).
Discussions of translation may be more useful if they were descriptive. Thus, a
scholar may describe a certain situation and analyze it and leave the decision
for the translator to make, because the translator is more aware of the
conditions of his work.
4. The terms visibility and invisibility as used by Venuti are misleading,
confusing and not helpful for a study such as the present one; since Venuti
considers the appearance and disappearance of the foreign qualities of the ST
in the TT as the standard for being the translator visible or invisible. Bassnett,
on the other hand, uses the term visibility to refer to the situation in which
the translators creative interventions are evident in the TT. The present study
emphasizes Bassnetts suggestion against that of Venuti.
5. The amount of manipulation and intervention that the translator opts for in a
text is subject to three factors that control the translators work, they are:
A. Context, i.e. the environment in which the TT is produced, which
includes language, culture, time and audience.
46

B. Interpretation, i.e. the way the translator interprets the ST and perceives
its elements.
C. Intention, i.e. what the translator intends to present in his translation.
These factors sometimes intertwine and one of them may not be of
considerable effect on the translation process as other factors are. This is
proved in the case study, and hence the second hypothesis is verified.
6. The TT can be analyzed in accordance with the three factors suggested by the
researcher. This analysis shows the amount of intervention that the translator
has performed in the process of translation, and determines whether the
translator is visible or invisible. This means that the study has given credence
to the third hypothesis.
7. The TT must be considered for its final literary value. Hence, the translator
should not be criticized for the smallest mistakes that he makes. Before
offering any criticism, one should first consider the factors that affect the work
of the translator and may lead him to make mistakes.

47

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