Comments on: Recreate or Re-Create: Creativity and Translation http://tinhousebooks.com/blog/?p=204 All things Tin House Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:56:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Landiao http://tinhousebooks.com/blog/?p=204&cpage=1#comment-26 Landiao Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:58:02 +0000 http://bookmaster.hostcentric.com/blog/?p=204#comment-26 While I think creativity is without a doubt essential to all good translations, I also see a danger in claiming that translation is "essentially" a creative act. That is, it permits lousy translators to be irresponsible to what they're translating, to insert their own creativity *over*, as opposed to through, the style of what they're translating. I imagine this is more a problem for poetry than for fiction--perhaps only because we're more likely to read poetry translations in en-face publications, and more likely to notice when the translation departs from the source text--but I've read many translations that suffer because the translator had an over-inflated sense of his or her (usually his) creativity. I guess my point is only that I see a difference between employing creativity to solve difficulties in the source-text and, conversely, using creativity as an excuse to ignore the difficulties of the source-text. Hopefully we can also understand that the "creative turn" doesn't mean that we stop translating. It's supposed to give translation equal standing with fiction- or poetry-writing, not give us more reasons to abandon translation for creative work. Lucas While I think creativity is without a doubt essential to all good translations, I also see a danger in claiming that translation is “essentially” a creative act. That is, it permits lousy translators to be irresponsible to what they’re translating, to insert their own creativity *over*, as opposed to through, the style of what they’re translating. I imagine this is more a problem for poetry than for fiction–perhaps only because we’re more likely to read poetry translations in en-face publications, and more likely to notice when the translation departs from the source text–but I’ve read many translations that suffer because the translator had an over-inflated sense of his or her (usually his) creativity.

I guess my point is only that I see a difference between employing creativity to solve difficulties in the source-text and, conversely, using creativity as an excuse to ignore the difficulties of the source-text. Hopefully we can also understand that the “creative turn” doesn’t mean that we stop translating. It’s supposed to give translation equal standing with fiction- or poetry-writing, not give us more reasons to abandon translation for creative work.

Lucas

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