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Solving for the Unknown X
The Translation (Into Neutral Spanish)
of Edgar Allan Poe’s “X-ing A Paragrab”
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To J. A. Pérez Bonalde (1846-1892)
Abbreviations
Foreword Some years ago, I translated a free dubbing version (in verse) of E.A. Poe’s “The Raven” (1845), performed by the animated characters Pinky and The Brain. That made me read some literature about J. A. Pérez Bonalde (1846-1892) Venezuelan poet and translator whose Spanish version of “The Raven” is considered to be one of the best. Recently, with my assignment in mind, I found myself encouraged to search for an equally challenging text. As I was looking for “non-translated-texts” in the Internet, I found Edgar Allan Poe’s “X-ing A Parabrab” (1850) Coincidence! I saw its potential as an example of almost all cultural implications one could find when rendering equivalents. I now recommend reading the attached translated version from a neutral Spanish speaker point of view. Then, consider all translation strategies applied. The original is also attached, I recommend reading it at the very end. M.S. Caracas, Venezuela
1. Introduction “X-ing A Paragrab” had mysteries I liked to picture as the unknown X to be solved for. This was not only about decoding the meaning and purpose of the whole text, but also about how to render it properly. As I translated, I tried to avoid what Venezuelan poet, essayist and translator Rafael Cadenas describes as “The fissure of a language”as he discusses translation in the scope of Mass Media:
And that “fissure” was avoided by seeking a proper translation, facing all “inherent intercultural communication problems”, wisely categorized by German PhD, scholar and professor Christina Nord as:
Thus, the formula employed to solve for the unknown X in Poe’s equations was given by (avoiding Cadenas’ scenario = facing Nord’s four translation dilemmas). The objective of this paper is to present that process to you, with some emblematic examples from the text.
2. The Unknown X 2.1. Proper names At the very beginning of the “X-ing”, the first name can be read: (en.) Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head. Nord (2003) shows us in detail some of the techniques commonly used by translators when rendering proper names:
As I bumped into “X-ing” proper names, I knew that translation was imperative. The reasons? “We may safely assume... that there is no name in fiction without some kind of auctorial intention behind it, although, of course, this intention may be more obvious to the readers in one case than in another” (Nord, Idem).
2.1.1. Substitution Poe suggests his characters’ personalities through their names; I felt my duty to do so as I rendered. This would involve Nord (1987) translation problems. In the case of (en.) Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head, I thought it would be insipid to use a literal translation option: (es.) El señor Temerario Artillero. I was sympathetic with the idea of its substitution by a Spanish name with the implicit meaning of “Touch-and-go” and “Bullet-head”. This character ended up baptized as (es.) Leónidas Guerra.Leónidas is a Spanish proper name of male which comes from (es.) león > (en) lion.Guerra is a common Spanish surname which means (en.) war. I wanted to transmit the same as Poe with Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head: someone aggressive, warlike and imprudent. “We assumed that in fictional texts there is no name that has no informative function at all, however subtle it may be” (Nord, 2003). Nord (2003) says that the translation of a proper name sets a “cultural mark”, which gives a reason to render the rest of the names. John Smith was an interesting case. Assuming that in prose proper names have meanings beyond its common use, perhaps symbolic, John Smith could portray the idea of someone strong or tough if we recall the notion of a (en.) smith. Although the Spanish translation for (en.) John is Juan, a name with an O in it was needed. So, (es.) José was a better option. (es.) herrero > (en.) smith, is not a common Spanish surname, but (en.) fierro > en. iron actually is, and would imply toughness. (es.) Beto is a diminutive of proper name Alberto, same as (en.) Bob is of Robert. I let readers know which the original names were, through the respective translation notes (see reference in section 2.3.1.). (en.) Oh, Moses! (p. 2, pr.2) could not be translated into its literal equivalence (es.) ¡Oh, Moisés! This is not an usual exclamation among Spanish speakers. So, a substitution was made. (es.) ¡Oh, Jesús! would stand for (en.) Oh, Moses! It has the same nature: an exclamation of scandal by an appealing to a religious figure.
2.1.2. Morphological adaptations In the first two of the following cases, a literal equivalent in Spanish existed. In the case of the third, a made-up term (See section 2.4), a literal equivalent was possible; therefore, a morphological adaptation was likely. It was the best translation technique to express the original meaning, the back translation of the resulting Spanish renditions would be exactly its original in English.
2.1.3. Non-translation (en.) Concord (p. 3, pr. 4) was a straight reference to transcendentalists, it had to persist, and it was therefore a case of non-translation, or perhaps transcription, since it has no Spanish “exonym” (the specific form of a geographical name: Nord, 2003) To translate it into (es.) Concordia would have been useless, since we are not talking about the connotative meaning of the word (union) but its very specific denotative one: a town called Concord, in Massachusetts, U.S.A. This anecdote was explained to readers with a translation note. Another case was specially considered: (en.) Brownson. But it is more appropriate to go further on that in section 2.3.
2.2. Translating Intention A complex situation is present at the beginning of the story, where a reference to the (en.) wise men > (es. lit.) hombres sabios is made. This literal translation will have no connotative meaning at all, since in our culture the wise men are known as(es.) Reyes Magos > (en. lit.)Magician Kings. This situation goes further at phrase level: “the wise men came from the east”. For Spanish speakers, the Reyes Magos did not come from (es.) el este > (en.) the east, but from (es.) elOriente > (en.) the Orient. It may seem now logical to translate it as simple as: Los Reyes Magos procedían de Oriente. The problem is that wise is then used in its denotative sense, as an adjective to describe Mr. Bullet-head, and east is referred to the place where Bullet-head came from (the east coast of USA). In this case, (en.) wise should be indeed (es.) sabio, and (en.) east should be (es.) este. This connotative and denotative harmony present in the ST must have been rendered to the TT to sustain this story intention: the satire (to transcendentalists, pictured as “wise” and native from the “east”- coast of USA). The rendering of intention is one of rules for the translating of prose according to Hilaire Belloc:
This advice was taken and some words were added in order to accomplish both connotative and denotative meaning, as well as intention (p. 1, pr. 1, translated version). Poe’s story intention (satire) represents pragmatics or text functions (Nord, 1987).
2.3. Substitution and omission 2.3.1. Substitution In Poe’s lines one can find the phrase: “it would have required all the logic of a Brownson” (p.1, pr. 1). The first thing I had to take account of, was that “a Brownson” represented a straight reference to Orestes Brownson (an American transcendentalism figure, 1803-1876) made by Poe in the spirit of satirizing that movement; this reference had to remain. However, the persistence of the English word “Brownson” in the translated version would be awkward (“cultural mark”, section 2.1.1) I considered its substitution by (es.) un trascendentalista > (en.) a transcendentalist, translating therefore not the name but the implicit information within it. Another translation note was made.
2.3.2. Omission “So much of Buckingham!” (p. 3, pr. 2) was a phrase whose origins took days to be discovered. It was written in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, by English poet, playwright and actor Colley Cibber (1671-1757) Cibber’s version of Shakespeare was not well seen by traditionalists, although it was preferred by almost all American actors and directors in that time. What was Poe trying to imply? Perhaps that Mr. Bullet-head could not quote Shakespeare’s very own words, but the ones from a more easily digestible version. Maybe Mr. Bullet-head, in the eyes of Poe, was the equivalent —in our days— of someone not fond of the idea of “reading too much” and therefore more sympathetic with televised or movie screen versions rather than original novels. A phrase with all these possible implications and metaphorical quality was not available in Spanish. So, an omission was made. Of course, a translation note did justice again; this explanation was to mitigate the impact of the omission in terms of meaning.
2.4. Made-up words (es.) Hacia arriba, detrás duradero-fluir luneció > (en.) Upward, behind the onstreaming, it mooned would be the word-by-word translation for (tl.) blör u fang axaxaxas mlö > (en.) the moon emerged over the river, as points out Jorge Luis Borges when explaining a made-up language from a made-up planet in his short tale “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1988: p. 21). Borges’ example can be seen as the expressive potential that a language can reach when it is pushed beyond common use by someone’s wild imagination. Poe, entitled as “Creator of Words” (Burton P.: 1974) did so.An equivalence of both form and meaning was needed at word level, so was the creation of terms with an “imaginative nature” easily recognizable by TT readers. To avoid the “fissure” of the Spanish language (Cadenas: 1997) when creating equivalent made-up words, Diccionario Clave del Uso del Español Actual was consulted, and also Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos, by Andrés Bello. Let us now analyze case by case.
2.4.1. Frogpondium It was through the reading of Burton P.: 1974, that I was aware what Poe meant by Frogpondium (p. 2, pr. 5); this is how he used to refer to Boston, his city. This idea of a ‘pond where frogs live and are born’ is expressed in Spanish with the word Ranario, not admitted by Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, but recognized in veterinarian jargon. I considered —for the sake of Poe’s style and his imaginative intention— to present it in its “Latin-like” form: Ranarium. An anecdotic translation note was added.
2.4.2. The verb “to O” and “O-ing” as noun. Spanish endings for the infinitive of verbs are “ar”, “er”, “ir”. Thus, the proper formula was to take the letter O as a root, and then add one of these terminations. “ir” was immediately discarded since the infinitive Oir would have been formed and, in Spanish, that means “to listen”. Oer was also not possible, because in the translated version it was needed the third person of the imperfect preterit, which would be (es.) oía > (en.) he listened. Oar was the option, although it meant the creation of a defective impersonal verb with no possible first person conjugation (Bello: 1847). But the needed conjugation was the third person of the imperfect preterit (es.) él oaba, not the first one. Why? Because even though Poe switches tenses in his story: (p. 2, pr. 4) he came away from Down-East in a great hurry. (Past) Wonder if he O’s as much there as he does here? (Present) in Spanish, it is more proper to keep it all in past tense; the meaning remains unchanged. Finally, as the Spanish grammar allows, the form of an infinitive verb can be also the one of its noun. Thus, Oar would also mean “the habit of o-ing too much”, besides “the action of o-ing repeatedly”.
2.4.3. The adjective O-wy The formula was again to take the letter O as a root, and then add a possessive suffix, which defines somebody as fond of something. In Spanish there are several of theses suffixes. (es.) áceo, was chosen in order to form the word oáceo since it is phonetically alike to reáceo (obstinate) one of Bullet-head characteristics.
2.4.4. X as verb It is grammatically impossible to form verbs in Spanish with the letter X as a root, it simply could not be pronounced.Therefore, the phrases “so x it he did” and “to press it went x-ed” (p. 5, pr. 4) suffered several turns in the translation, such as (es.) el párrafo terminó compuesto con resuelta x-actitud y a la imprenta fue x-pedido > (en.) the paragraph ended up composed with resolute x-actness and to the press it was x-pedited. This solves a linguistics’ translation problems (Nord: 1987) present in language structure. It was mandatory —within grammatical posibilitéis— to push Spanish language beyond its common use, as did Poe with English, so both stylistic and intention equivalence could be reached, and by that, the composing of a text able to draw a smile in Spanish readers’ faces. It is a satire what we are reading; we are supposed to laugh. He (the translator) must understand not only the obvious content of the message, but also the subtleties of meaning , the significant emotive values of words and the stylistic features which determine the “flavor and feel” of the message (Nida, 1964: p. 150-1, quoted by Gentzler, 1993: p. 57). Let us finish this section with two of the four types of Popovič’s translation equivalence, cited by Bassnet, (1980: p. 25) Popovič describes, in other words, what has been presented in this section:
2.5. Rhetoric 2.5.1. Similes and impure metaphors A simile is a resemblance made through a pair of grammatical links of explicit meaning (Diccionario Clave) I will now refer to a pair of the similes present in “X-ing”:
In the case of the latter, by way of sediment, I thought it was an idea of very explicit meaning, so no major changes were needed. This was not the case of in the light of a salamander, which rather than a simile, could be perhaps considered more as an ‘impure metaphor’ (Diccionario Clave) that is, that one where only the meaning of one of the two comparison objects is evident, in this case, Mr. Smith. I thought it was proper to clear this up in the translated version with these added words (underlined): (es.) una salamandra enfurecida por el fuego > (en.) a salamander enraged by fire. Since Poe did not refer to “The Salamander” but “a salamander”, it was assumed that he was not describing the mythological animal, but perhaps the salamanders scared away and enraged by flames when the logs they live in are used for bonfires.
2.5.2. Idioms Also known as fixed expressions, idioms are forms of utterance, exclusive of a language, whose meaning cannot be deduced from the words they are made from (Diccionario de la Real Academía Española). I now present two cases of idioms in “X-ing”. Consuming the midnight oil (p. 3, pr. 3) has an equivalent in Spanish: quemarse las pestañas, which means “to study or work up to late at the night”. The second case, “the devil to pay and not a bit of pitch hot” (p. 4, pr. 8) was a complex one:
In Unit 6 of our course “Introduction to Translation Studies” (CELS, 2002: p. 68) some strategies for translating idioms are given:
I could not use any of the three above, and I was also reluctant to omit it, so, my decision was to substitute it by the Spanish idiom for ‘the difficulties some people must face when the bosses have gone wild’. I thought this situation fits perfectly in Poe’s story. Then, in the translated version it was written: (es.) juegan los burros y pagan los arrieros > (en.) the mule plays, the muleteer pays.
2.6. One word, several meanings (en.)Genius, devil, bombshell are the most emblematic examples of words found in Poe’s story whose meaning must have been carefully analyzed. Several senses for just one word in a phenomenon defined in Unit 3 of the course “Lexis” (CELS, 2002: p. 37) as homonymy, or “a word that has the form of some other word with different meaning and etymological origin” (Diccionario Clave). In the first case, genius (p. 2, pr. 2). I was confused by its use as an insulting word, I gave for granted that it meant “someone particularly smart”. However, a genius could be also portrayed as an evil spirit that influences one’s life (Dictionary Webster of American Language). In Spanish, that could be a kind of goblin, who causes alterations and disorders (Diccionario Clave). That is why I rendered it into (es.) trasgo > (en.) goblin, this is more an insulting term. Devil was perhaps the most multi-meaning word present in X-ing: 1) The seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, 2) Malevolent person, 3) (fixed expression) Go to the devil! 4) Printer apprentice. The fourth case constitutes a total loss in the translation. It was not possible to find an equivalent in Spanish, neither of form nor of meaning; therefore, a translation note was added. Finally, bombshell; (p. 2, pr. 3) I was not sure if I should understand “bomb” by that. For Spanish speakers, a bomb is a modern weapon. This story was written in 1850, perhaps weapons were not that industrialized by then. So I translated it as (es.) bala de cañón > (en.) cannonball. It was a more likely term. A different case of complexity in meaning was Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head referring to himself as “The Tea Pot” and to Mr. John Smith as “The Gazette” (p. 3, pr. 2). This represented a problem of meaning related to person: gender (Unit 7, “Introduction to Translation Studies” CELS, 2003: p. 79). I thought, for the sake of clarity, that it was better not to say in Spanish a phrase such us: (es.) él (La Tetera) > (en.) he (The Pot) but (es.) él (el editor de La Tetera) > (en.) he (the editor of The Teapot), and explain, through the added words (underlined), what was meant by he or him or to whom the action was attributed.
2.7.Technical language and Register 2.7.1. Technical language In “X-ing”, the technical language formerly used in antique printers is present. It was needed to render it accurately. Words such us case, box, and set up (p. 4, pr. 2-3) were rendered into their exact equivalent linguistic sense (es.) caja, cajetín, componer. This was perhaps one of the few cases in which our formula “avoiding the fissure of a language = facing translation problems” was easily applied.
2.7.2. Register Diccionario Clave defines Register as: “a linguistic variant employed according to the social situation of the speaker”. This “social situation” could be what Hatim and Mason (1990) categorize as “social dialect”, as they analyze register in the translating of context.
In “X-ing”, there is a very touching character named Bob, the devil (press apprentice), a socially disadvantaged and uneducated boy who has a deficient way of speaking. However, this is no reason for him not to attempt imitating the “refined” English of the people around him, but in that process he articulates the most intricate phrases one could imagine. It was therefore needed the reproduction of a “low class” way of speaking and some common children utterances as well, plentiful of mispronounced words.
2.8. “Freestyling” - Deconstruction. Freestyling: (hip hop, rap) to make up lyrics These two grammatically complex situations were present:
Both cases, at first sight, may look “untranslatable”, “one can also argue, following Benjamin (1923), that for that very reason it must be translated” (Venuti, 1992: Johnston, p.42). Bassnett (1980: p. 34) quotes the two types of “untranslatability” distinguished by Popovič:
At this point we could assume that those lines in the original text could be “untranslatable”, since there does not seem to be a way to achieve a simultaneous equivalence in all form, structure, meaning and function. However, what if we become a little rebel about this and consider what nihilists and deconstruction followers have to say? This paper does not deal with deconstruction, however, it is perhaps convenient to know that:
I remitted myself to the preexisting idea: in the first case, to misunderstand “harm someone” by confusing the sound of a letter with the name of a body part. In Spanish, there was no other option but to associate the plural of the letter S: eses, with what I would call its “identical phonetic twin”: (es.) heces > (en.) faeces. Therefore, it ended up as (es.) sacar las heces > (en.) beat the faeces out, a euphemistic form of a common to both SL and TL vulgar expression, meaning “beat someone badly” I do not know if Poe would have been that scatological, but no other Spanish Alphabet letter have the “identical phonetic twin” of something related to the human body. This also explains why this translation is presented as done into neutral Spanish (the one free of regionalisms, spoken through all Latin-American continent and U.S.A.) because in this case, the “c” of (es.) heces is pronounced as an “s”, and this whole trick is therefore possible, not the case in the so-called ‘pure’ Spanish (the one spoken only in continental Spain) where that letter “c” would be pronounced with the tongue between the teeth, i.e. (en.) think. In the case of the feature paragraph, I try to compose an insult in verse, with cadence and rhyme, words full of the letter O, pejorative references to animals and specific places. I helped myself with the use of (es.) voseo, similar to (en.) thy, an archaic form of verbs conjugation and person addressing, absolutely probable in the way a Spanish speaker would talk or write in 1850. It is perhaps in the scope of what deconstructionist have to say about translation, that the product of these two cases “rendering” could be understood and accepted by those who sees free translation with punitive eyes, since here the word free got as free as it can ever get, and that is usually polemic.
3. Conclusion Translation is believed to be a communication act, taking account of the model: sender (translator) —> message (translation product) —> receiver (reader) Being a bachelor in sciences of communications, I must point out that there is another model of communication (bilinear) Here, it is required a sender, a message, a receiver, and a feedback from the receiver to the sender, which means that the receiver becomes a sender itself, and it is within this alternation, and roles alternation, that actual communication takes place. Rather than assuming that translation is a communication act according to the former model, or arguing that it would not be possible considering the latter, I prefer to say that I see it as such in the light of the theory that defines communication as the vicar experience (Ferrero, 1973: p. 123), or the process that makes an individual able to live the experience of some other individual, thanks to messages received. Throughout this paper it has been established that, thanks to translation (message), a Spanish speaker (receiver) can revive the spirit of Poe (sender), and experience what he lived and thought more than 150 years ago. The vicar experience explains how our own individual universes become someone else’s, or vice versa, when a clean and comprehensible message unite us. In the case of translation, a clean message requires avoiding “fissures” in both TL and SL languages, by facing all the cultural implications of a rendering process.
4. References 4.1. Bibliography
4.2. Publications
4.3. On-line sources
5. Acknowledgments
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Miguel Siso