The study is structured so that it can reflect both the (co-)creative and critical nature of my process-based approach to translation. The argument of the study develops in conjunction with an account of this process, revealing more and more coherence in the approach as the study progresses. Each chapter will be punctuated with an ‘inter-chapter’ – a commentary in which practical approaches to translation are discussed and carefully exemplified, both with reference to the methods used, and with respect to the poems themselves. Since the methods are, I believe, innovative with regard to the translation of formal poetry, these have been described in detail, with supporting documentation based on my audio-recordings of the process, and related as appropriate to the theories, concepts, and poetics discussed in the preceding chapter(s). The intention is not only to exemplify my own translation process but to produce several possible models with pedagogical implications for the teaching of poetic translation. The first commentary, however, is of a different nature, in that it examines my approach to translation at an earlier period. It serves as a contrast to the later translation work, and a measure against which that work can be judged.
The background methodological approach of this study is that of critical analysis, both broad and deep, influenced by stylistic and formalist approaches to a text, although not only based on these. At times, and especially where content, form, and context are not easily separated from each other, which in any case they always are only as a convenience, formal analysis has been leavened with thematic analysis, sometimes of a broadly descriptive nature, sometimes computational. Of necessity this will mean that translation-based questions are sometimes postponed whilst the details of the analyses are presented; however, the aim of these analyses has been to deepen my knowledge of each writer’s poetics in order to approach the translation-work with greater confidence.
42 The most important formal features I investigate are those of rhythm, pausing and phrasing, sound and iconicity in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The aspect of poetic form which might present most difficulty in translation, that of schematic rhyme, has been subsumed into my discussion of these other formal features. The reasons for this are discussed throughout the study and are centred on aspects of the poets’ own poetics. In the case of Nijhoff I argue that rhyme-schemes are made less noticeable either by the characteristic use of strong enjambements, intricate syntax and long sentences, all interacting with the breath-pause, whilst in Achterberg’s poetry the iconic use of sound effects, and the singing quality of the voice, is dominant over regularity of rhyme, even in his adaptation of set forms22 such as the sonnet.
The angle of approach I have taken in the practical aspects of this investigation is a psycho-physiological one, primarily influenced by the poetics of both the poets under consideration, as will be shown throughout this study, but also, and especially as the study developed, informed by work in cognitive poetics, by traditions of drama-training, especially that of the later Stanislavski, experiential approaches to education, pragmatic philosophy, and experimental psychology. The main focus, however, has been on the work of the poets themselves – an approach fully justified by the act of translation which is primarily an act of co- and re-creative reading. Reading, as will be seen in the inter-chapter commentaries, and as argued and exemplified in a number of works by Clive Scott (e.g. 2000, 2011, 2012a, 2012b), can also be approached psycho-physiologically, and made more active by exercises designed to bring the acts of imagination and bodily activation which reading naturally provokes to the forefront of the translator’s consciousness, with the ultimate aim of strengthening the translator- poem relationship so that the quality of the translation of the poem as a poem, as an artistic artefact, may improve. My hope is that this kind of self-training, informed also by more traditional forms of critical analysis and by in-depth
22
A set form in poetry is one which has been handed down by tradition and follows a set and recognizable pattern of metre and /or rhyme. In the Western tradition set, or fixed, forms would include not only the sonnet but also the ballade, rondeau, rondel, sestina, and villanelle, most of which Nijhoff in particular experimented with. These set forms, in spite of the term, are not unchangeably fixed throughout their history, the sonnet in particular having been subject to much variation and development. Nevertheless, a set form would be expected to retain some elements of the form to be recognizable as such.
43 knowledge of the context of the poet’s work, may help overcome the notion that certain aspects of form in poetry present obstacles to effective translation.
My thesis question put simply, therefore, is can a (co-)creative, critical process- based approach to translating formal poetry improve the quality of translation? Are the methods developed within the course of this study likely to prove useful to other translators? The study by implication also probes the question: what does it mean to approach the translation of formal poetry by a psycho-physiological route?
44 snow-white on the slender shoots...
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