spiritual translation

ORAL POEM

• culture is collective and unified/individual is interconnected
• medium is sound (speaking and hearing)
• poetic properties: balance, rhythm, repetition, alliteration, assonance, epithets
• measure of poem's success: its applicability
  
• measure of poem's originality: rearranging traditional stories to successfully accommodate new situations/contexts
  

WRITTEN POEM

• culture is individualistic and divided/individual is egocentric and introspective
• medium is sight (writing and reading)
• poetic properties: [see those of the oral poem]
• measure of poem's success: its potential to endure over time
  
• measure of poem's originality: creating completely novel stories

In the last several weeks, we, as a class, seem to have come to an agreement concerning what a translation should look like; in its ideal form, a translation is that which accurately renders the language, the concept(s), and/or the spirit of something (I’ll use the generic term, “poem” here) in a different context. This description seems simple and innocuous enough and so we, generally, take it as a given in our reactions to assigned readings and contributions to class discussions. Yet, when we break our common intention as translators into its constitutive elements, we come to understand that our shared purpose as translators is contradictory, antagonistic, even violent, to both the pure translating process and to the objects of translation themselves.

The most critical words to examine in our definition of a successful translation are “ideal,” “accurately,” and “spirit.” Only when the act of translation is situated between ourselves and a textually bound, analytically fuelled, and linearly directed culture just like our own are the terms “ideal” and “accurate” relevant. We, as a literate society, strive for the accurate, the ideal, and the definitive only because textuality has made possible an outside frame of reference known as objectivity, with which we constantly strive to align ourselves and our productions. If a poem is to pass, unscathed, from one language, culture, situation, and consciousness into another, it is the spirit from which the poem emanates that must be translated. In the case of an oral poem being translated in a textual form, the spirit that must be translated does not embrace or even understand the abstract ideal of accuracy; it is rather characterized by recursivity of thought, interaction of community, and a simultaneous, unified, and omni-present sense of the human experience.

How does one infuse a textual representation with a spirit that’s, for all means and purposes, antithetical to textual imperatives and ideals? The answer, it seems, does not lie in producing a complete textual score that one may use to perform the poem as it was originally delivered. After all, form must be secondary to spirit. The textual medium must be endowed with the specific oral qualities of presence, power, and polyphony, properties which both inform and result from the spirit of orality. These can be captured in text by providing specific directives for each translated oral poem. Some of these may include 1) while reading along, crossing off lines, syllable by syllable, to evoke the sense of time as a continuous present, 2) “saying back” to the poem (through analysis, critique, or emotional response) after it is read in an effort to empower oneself as both recipient and author, and 3) in a group setting, taking turns reading the poem aloud to create an interactive, give-and-take atmosphere to accommodate the poem’s communal spirit.