Translation
experiments (Phase 1):
Do at least two of the following exercises:
Imitation
translation: From Handbook of Poetic Forms (Teachers and
Writers Collaborative, 1987): Do an imitation:
“i.e. Robert Lowell’s Imitations, a
collection of
Homolinguistic
translation: Take a
poem (someone else's then your own) and translate it "English to
English" by substituting word for word, phrase for phrase, line for line.
Or try a "free" translation as a response to each phrase or sentence.
Homophonic
translation: Take a
poem in a foreign language that you can pronounce but not necessarily
understand and translate the sound of the poem into English (i.e. French
"blanc" to blank or "toute" to toot). (Cf.: Louis and Celia
Zukofsky's Catullus.) Rewrite to suit.
Lexical
translation: Take a
poem in a foreign language that you can pronounce but not necessarily
understand and translate it word for word with the help of a bilingual
dictionary. (Rewrite to suit.)
Oulipo
translation: Using a bilingual dictionary in the language of
the original text, substitute selected parts of speech in a text for the same
part of speech seven entries below the word. Then proceed to translate.
Cross-genre
translation: Translate
from one arts medium into another.
For example, try translating a symphony, dance, or drawing into words, or a
poem into a photograph.
Grammar
translation: Translate
only selected parts of speech in a poem.
For instance, translate only the adjectives. Or translate everything except for
the nouns.
Cut-up
translation: Working
with four or more translations of a text,
construct your own translation by choosing what to include from the various
translations. In other words, merge the various translations into one poem.
The above
exercises are compiled in part from:
Charles Bernstein’s translation exercises: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/syllabi/transl.html);
Cole Swensen and Stacey Doris’s “Translation Try-Ons: Ideas for the Classroom”
presented at the
One Page response:
Consider the following questions after you have done two of the above exercises:
What happened to the
original text?
What happened in regards to meaning, sound, form?
What happens when you work with someone else’s words?
Is it possible to truly translate a text? Think of all the different applications
of translation that you use in your everyday life.
Should the translator be visible or invisible?
Be faithful or unfaithful?
Is equivalence possible?
What can post-modernism or post-colonialism learn from translation?
Proceed to PHASE 2