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When poets translate poetry

Authorship, ownership, and translatorship
  • Christian Refsum
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Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation
This chapter is in the book Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation

Abstract

This chapter discusses the interplay between translation and writing in the work of poets who also translate poetry. First, I present the Scandinavian term gjendiktning for the creative rewriting of poetry. I then discuss the role of the author and translator with reference to Michel Foucault’s essay“What Is an Author?”and the task of the poet-translator in relation to theories by Antoine Berman and Barbara Folkart. I then outline four areas of investigation relevant for examining the work of the poet-translator: (1) inclusion, (2) experimentation and renewal, (3) contextualization and positioning, and (4) friendship and community. Finally, I discuss the poet-translators Robert Bly, Tomas Tranströmer, and especially Jan Erik Vold to demonstrate the relevance of this approach.

Abstract

This chapter discusses the interplay between translation and writing in the work of poets who also translate poetry. First, I present the Scandinavian term gjendiktning for the creative rewriting of poetry. I then discuss the role of the author and translator with reference to Michel Foucault’s essay“What Is an Author?”and the task of the poet-translator in relation to theories by Antoine Berman and Barbara Folkart. I then outline four areas of investigation relevant for examining the work of the poet-translator: (1) inclusion, (2) experimentation and renewal, (3) contextualization and positioning, and (4) friendship and community. Finally, I discuss the poet-translators Robert Bly, Tomas Tranströmer, and especially Jan Erik Vold to demonstrate the relevance of this approach.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Part I. Opening the field
  4. Introduction 3
  5. Part II. Charting the field
  6. The Scandinavian singer-translator’s multisemiotic voice as performance 21
  7. Translators, editors, publishers, and critics 39
  8. The making of a bestseller-in-translation 61
  9. Contextual factors when reading a translated academic text 81
  10. When poets translate poetry 101
  11. Translators in search of originals 119
  12. Part III. Traveling the field
  13. Unraveling multiple translatorship through an e-mail correspondence 133
  14. Silenced in translation 159
  15. The voice of the implied author in the first Norwegian translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe 181
  16. Three voices or one? 201
  17. The voices of Cieza de León in English 223
  18. References 241
  19. Index 263
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.137.06ref

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Part I. Opening the field
  4. Introduction 3
  5. Part II. Charting the field
  6. The Scandinavian singer-translator’s multisemiotic voice as performance 21
  7. Translators, editors, publishers, and critics 39
  8. The making of a bestseller-in-translation 61
  9. Contextual factors when reading a translated academic text 81
  10. When poets translate poetry 101
  11. Translators in search of originals 119
  12. Part III. Traveling the field
  13. Unraveling multiple translatorship through an e-mail correspondence 133
  14. Silenced in translation 159
  15. The voice of the implied author in the first Norwegian translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe 181
  16. Three voices or one? 201
  17. The voices of Cieza de León in English 223
  18. References 241
  19. Index 263
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