General Notes on Translation
1. To state the obvious given the title of this course, several classic literary works are received through translation. One of the most widely read literary works which has been translated into hundreds of languages would be the Bible, which was originally written in Hebrew. Aside from the classics, however, so much more of the media surrounding us is received via translation: several classic and popular movies are dubbed or re-filmed in different languages. One example that comes to mind is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was originally a Swedish film but later made in America as well. Also, news about global events need to be transmitted in several languages. News of recent terrorism events in Paris, for example, were transmitted to various nations via their respective languages.
2. Translation allows for the themes of the major literary works of a country or time period to be transmitted on a global scale and accessed by all. It allows us to understand what was previously unknown to us, and educates us on the histories and paradigms of nations foreign to us. For example, William Wordsworth makes several allusions to Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote in The Prelude, despite the fact that the two writers were of different time periods and different countries. Thus, while one may argue that many of the works which he or she has read and been educated by were not translated, it is very likely that the writers of those works were influenced by translated works of other great writers.
3. The task of a translator is by no means an easy feat. On the one hand, a translator has to have a thorough knowledge of the language in which a text is written as well as the language in which he or she wishes to translate it into. On the other hand, the translator has to see beyond the literal, word-by-word translations and be able to keep the overall meaning or tone of the text which is being translated. This is the hardest part of translating a work- to preserve the “feeling” of the text while simultaneously communicating the work in ways that the audience will understand.
4. There are different degrees of literal translation, but no such thing as 100% literal translation. An example to illustrate this point would be describing the weather. In English I can say that it is breezy outside, whereas in Spanish I would say “hay un poco de viento,” “está fresco,” or “hace un poco de frío.” While all three of these phrases indicate that it is breezy or chilly outside, there is not a direct translation that I know of for “breezy.”
5. The line between a translation choice that provides gain and one that enforces change is blurry and ultimately up to the critic. I think that what is generally agreed upon, however, is that a translation choice which provides gain is one that adds to the original meaning of the text and enhances it by looking at it from a slightly different angle, whereas a translation choice that enforces change alters the original text in a way that deters from the intended meaning.
6. Sometimes translators must make ethical choices. I actually saw a situation in which a “translator” took an active stance and altered a text due to ethical considerations during last winter interterm. I was taking a class on cultural humility as it relates to the medical field, and the faculty member teaching the class wrote a quotation on the board in which the word “he” was used to refer to a general person. However, because the quotation was taken from several decades ago, in which political correctness did not exist to the same degree that it does now, the faculty member chose to change the word “he” to “they,” in order to include all other non-male persons. I think this translation actually helped to preserve the integrity of the original speaker of the quotation.
7. I believe that translators have to “perform” in the sense that they attempt to present their own interpretation of a work to the audience, much like a theatre director or an actor. Under this viewpoint, readers can be more aware of the obligations and conflicting duties of a translator to preserve the intended meaning of a text, which may entail paradoxically altering a text when need be.
8. Sometimes the way words simply sound when read out loud can lend a certain tone to a text which influences the way in which it is interpreted. Having to translate a text thus lets us see that expression is much more than the literal definition of a word; words can express abstract concepts in ways that their definitions fail to convey, and in ways that words from another language sometimes cannot fully express.
Goals of My Translation
- Serve as a social commentary on the current situation of mainland Puerto Ricans and U.S. Puerto Ricans.
- Demonstrate the variety of Spanish and Spanglish and how each can be used as a vehicle to maintain or challenge the status quo.
- Make Romeo and Juliet relatable not only to Hispanic literature, but also to modern, Americanized Hispanic literature.
Difficulties in my Translation
Probably the hardest part of my translation of Romeo and Juliet was not the textual translation, but rather the audio recordings. I first tried to narrate dialogue that was meant to be performed by several actors solely by myself (as can be seen in the audio recordings to the first and third drafts), since it was really hard for my friends and I to find a time to meet together. I had to introduce which character was speaking before reading their respective script, which I felt interrupted the flow of the play, and the fact that the voices of different characters were read by the voice of one narrator will likely hinder the experience of listeners. I eventually managed to scrap together enough people for the audio recordings of scenes 4 and 5 of Act I (as seen in the final translation), but still couldn’t find enough people for the recording of scene 3.
Another obstacle related to the audio recordings was reading each character’s lines in their respective, intended accents. I could hear the voice of each character in my head, but felt like I failed to voice the dialect that I had imagined when reading the lines out loud. When I speak Spanish, I have a blend of a Puerto Rican accent and an American accent, which is beneficial when reading the lines of a Nuyorrican Romeo. But for the other characters, I have to admit that I failed to bring them to life in my voice recordings. I tried to speak a fast Spanish for members of the Capulet family and the nurse, at the rapid pace that most Puerto Ricans speak, but found that I stumbled over my words when doing so. Likewise, I am ridiculously bad at imitating accents in either English or Spanish, so the intended Mexican and Spaniard accents of the Spanglish speakers Benvolio and Mercutio, respectively, were lost in the audio recordings for the rough drafts. I am thus very pleased that I was able to find friends at the last minute that could imitate the intended accents much better than myself
Lastly, I found that reading a pre-written Spanglish was difficult due to the impromptu nature of Spanglish itself. That is to say, when I speak Spanglish, it comes naturally to me as I improvise and mix English and Spanish words off the top of my head. I tried to preserve this spontaneity when writing each character’s dialogue by first “hearing” a voice in my head and then writing the words on paper as they came to me. However, precisely because Spanglish is truly an impromptu language, I realized that sticking to the script when reading the dialogue was extremely difficult to do. On several occasions I inadvertently read the dialogue in a manner that was different from its written form, not because it could have been better phrased, but rather because a sentence in Spanglish can be said in so many different ways that are more or less equally valid. If my translated sections were thus to be performed on stage, I would encourage the actors to not worry too much about sticking to the precise wording of the script, but rather to speak the lines in any way that remains faithful to their feeling and to the personalities of the character. The precise words may vary from one performance to another, which I would argue attests to the fact that Spanglish is 1) improvisational and 2) rich in its possibilities of expressing a single thought.
Specific Notes by Scene
Please see the sidebar icon titled “Notes on my Translation” in order to see notes on the specific choices that I had to make when translating Shakespeare’s drama and my reasons for doing so.