Translation (Phase 2):

I.

Write a one page response to the experiments you did for phase 1, and consider the following:

What happened to the original text? Is it important?

Who does this poem belong to?

What liberties do you think a translator can take when working with a source text?

Should the translator be visible or invisible?

Be faithful or unfaithful?

Is there any such thing as a "correct" translation?

What can post-modernism or post-colonialism learn from translation?

II.

Translation: Group workshop

(Students are broken into groups and each group is given a different untranslated poem. These poems were selected based on what languages were represented in the class–in other words, who was "fluent in" or "knowledgeable about" another language.

1. Fluent/knowledgeable person (a.k.a. “expert”) goes through poem and points out which words are nouns, and which are verbs, and provides definitions for just the nouns and verbs. Everyone else notes this on their copy of the translation.

2. “Expert” goes back through the poem and provides a literal translation–every word translated in the exact order it is in the original.

3. Whole group works together to render a rough draft of this literal translation into English.

4. For homework: using a dictionary, go back and research some of the nouns/verbs, and re-write the rough draft so that it "works".

III.

Process writing, one page response:

What happened between the rough draft and the final draft of the translation? 

What was it like to navigate between languages?

What did you learn about English?

About the language from which you were translating?

Where did you get stuck in working on this translation?

IV.

Research the poet. What country is he/she from? What era? What literary movements were happening simultaneously? What political events were happening in the country at the time? Who is the audience for this poet? We will use your research to do a close reading of the poems in the next class.