poetry translations
It's a fascinating question. Perhaps we can "trust" some translators more than others - sometimes the translator will have known the poet personally, for example. Certainly most translators will try to render a translation which "maintains what the poet intended", but the very fact that different translators produce different translations proves that none are 100% successful.
I don't think there can any such thing as a totally clear, accurate, "straight" translation of any text, because different languages say the same thing in different ways. It's like playing a tune on different instruments, you can't make a tuba sound like a xylophone no matter how clever you are. Where poetry is concerned, so much of the meaning and intent depends on the sound, the feel in the mouth and the ear, that when we talk about translation we're only talking about rough approximation. Obviously closely-related languages are more easily translated into each other than unrelated languages - Swedish to Danish, or Middle English to Modern English, should be close to 100% while Japanese to English relies massively on the translator's judgement and intuition.
So I think the answer is never, except where the translation is by the author (e.g. Beckett). Even then, the original and the translation are two consciously different works which, although informing each other, require separate evaluations. What do others think?
I don't think there can any such thing as a totally clear, accurate, "straight" translation of any text, because different languages say the same thing in different ways. It's like playing a tune on different instruments, you can't make a tuba sound like a xylophone no matter how clever you are. Where poetry is concerned, so much of the meaning and intent depends on the sound, the feel in the mouth and the ear, that when we talk about translation we're only talking about rough approximation. Obviously closely-related languages are more easily translated into each other than unrelated languages - Swedish to Danish, or Middle English to Modern English, should be close to 100% while Japanese to English relies massively on the translator's judgement and intuition.
So I think the answer is never, except where the translation is by the author (e.g. Beckett). Even then, the original and the translation are two consciously different works which, although informing each other, require separate evaluations. What do others think?
That depends on whether you think a poem's quality improves with its proximity to the author, i.e. a poem which faithfully represents the intent of its author is better than one which doesn't. This view was fairly well established until postmodernism came along; for my part I don't think the presence of a translator or someone other than the author necessarily invalidates the text. Whether it makes the poem inferior depends only on the skill of the translator as a poet.
On the other hand, it makes sense to me that usually the author will be more familiar with the poem than anyone else. So the chances are that a good poem translated by the author will retain more of its impact and appeal than the same poem translated by a capable but unrelated translator.
Then of course, so what? If you need a translation, generally it's because that's your only option, i.e. you can't understand the original. If you can understand the original, why bother at all with the translation? It might be fun, I suppose. But life's too short!
There's so much you can say about this subject.
On the other hand, it makes sense to me that usually the author will be more familiar with the poem than anyone else. So the chances are that a good poem translated by the author will retain more of its impact and appeal than the same poem translated by a capable but unrelated translator.
Then of course, so what? If you need a translation, generally it's because that's your only option, i.e. you can't understand the original. If you can understand the original, why bother at all with the translation? It might be fun, I suppose. But life's too short!
There's so much you can say about this subject.
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Ray Trivedi
Parallel texts are good for seeing if the translator managed to convey something of the original. I have found related languages, e.g. German to English, make it convenient.
Try it.
Try it.