Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid s Metamorphoses in Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture

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1 Article 24 in LCPJ Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid s Metamorphoses in Abstract The proposed paper deals with some problems in translating literature and especially in the representation of Ovid s poem in Bulgarian language, literature and culture. The Metamorphoses of Ovid with its relatively longlasting recurrence, including twelve translations in the period from the end of 19 th century till the end of the 20 th century, are in many ways representative of the reception of ancient literature and the perception of ancient culture in Bulgaria. The article makes clear that the translator of a literary text is not concerned with establishing equivalence of natural languages but of artistic procedures. And such procedures cannot be considered in isolation, but must be located within the specific cultural and temporal context within which they have been utilized. We shall summarize, in this presentation, our study on the Bulgarian free translations of Ovid s work. Some changes in literary imagery due to translators specific purposes and translating strategies will be observed. Translated texts will be considered as a peculiar instance of human communication achieved through translators task and as a particular literary product responding to audience s expectations in the times they were created. Translating Classics As far as the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in modern times and societies is concerned, we shall in this brief exposé present a specific kind of dialogue 33 LCPJ Publishing

2 between languages, civilizations and cultures that does not concern a synchronic communication but rather a diachronic and inter-temporal one. For some scholars what matters about a classic text is its aesthetic quality only (Martindale: 2008:84). A work that has been given classic status becomes involved in different kinds of interpretation that generate new readings for a complex of reasons, no need to render the work as modern and communicative, to accommodate it to the different circumstances and requirements of the recipients culture. We shall throughout this paper think about free translation in a positive and appreciative way disregarding to a great extent the requirements for faithfulness and fidelity towards the source text and its author, and questioning the traditional hierarchical assumptions that rank the target text under the source text. Free translations are, in a sense, aesthetic translations, predestined to bring together form and content in order to produce a new thing of beauty. The Bulgarian free translations of pieces of Ovid s work involve the creation of a new object of art by an act of aesthetic reproduction, which is not like a purely instrumental form of copying. They will represent an illustration of the way modern cultures perceive and apprehend our common European past. The Bulgarian free translations of Ovid s Metamorphoses In the period from the end of 19 th century till the present days three free (and partial, covering three stories of the poem - Pyramus and Thisbe, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Daedalus and Icarus) translations of Ovid s poem in Bulgarian could be traced. They are accomplished in the 1940s by one of the most notable Bulgarian poets Blaga Dimitrova, and by another translator, and yet another woman Milka Spasova, of whom we do know nothing apart from her translation of Daedalus story from the Metamorphoses. Both of them were schoolgirls at the time they took up with their translation task and aimed at developing their own poetic experience through translating from Latin. The free translations of Ovid s tales represent original poetic hyper-textual forms, a kind of over-translations defined by translators personal and prominent poetics (Берман: 2007:38). Authentic Ovidian topics are recontextualized through a distinct pursuit of situating the source narratives in a broader and more universal framework, putting on the stress so common LCPJ Publishing 34

3 to all mankind motifs as suffering (Orpheus, Daedalus, Pyramus and Thisbe), love (Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe) and art (Orpheus). Among the common features of all the three free translations is the fact that they are published in the same periodical the journal Prometheus, whose subject theme is Antiquity, under the same heading of Youth s page. Young translators have been granted with these pages in order to make their first attempts not only at translating but rather at writing poetry. The only fact of directing readers attention to the poets-translators and their literary inventions already acts as a distraction from the original author, his intentions and stylistics. Another current hallmark of the Bulgarian free translations proves to be the determining role of translators personal poetic vision in leading the literary reflection and the reproduction of the source text s subject-matter. Shifts in narrative structure The different and heterogeneous aesthetic attitudes of both author and translators set the pattern for divergent narrative and poetic techniques characterizing the source and the target texts. In many passages, peculiar Ovidian detailed descriptions have been substituted by economic imagery and the concrete has been replaced by the abstract. Such instances of specific diversity between the original and its translations could be observed in the statement of the construction of the wings by Daedalus (Met ), as well as in either avoiding or strongly reducing the direct speeches of characters in Blaga Dimitrova s translation of Pyramus and Thisbe (Met ) and Orpheus and Eurydice (Met ) tales. Similar shifts occur in the re-creation of the metamorphosis topic in Pyramus and Thisbe story. The depiction has been rendered economic and curtailed compared to Ovidian detailed and visual over-explicitness (Met ). The effect of such changes on readers reception is much more descriptions and much less theatricality. 35 LCPJ Publishing

4 Shifts in subject-matter and narrative focus Characteristic of the free translations are shifts of subject-matter and focus reflecting the closer look of the poet-translator and the more distanced one of the original author towards the plot. Some motifs have been put on the foreground, while others have been given minor importance. In Pyramus and Thisbe s story the actualization of the romantic and tragic aspects of the plot goes along with the laying aside of characters scenic and theatrical acts, of humorous, piquant and grotesque details and minutiae, as seen in the case with the omission of the famous pipe simile (Met ) at the moment of Pyramus suicide when Ovid compares his streaming blood wound with the cracking of a pipe and water streaming, or personages appeal to the wall, which happened to separate them, as if it was a person acting in the plot (Met ). Comparable shifts in translation come about in the text of Milka Spasova reproducing Daedalus and Icarus tale. She has omitted words plays (e.g. the play with the word father (pater) who was actually not a father already because of having already lost his son (Met ) and has foregrounded the relationship between parents and children on the account of the hybris and homo faber topics. Mythologems have been left as peripheral and of secondary importance. All these changes seem natural given the fact that they have aroused because of the striving for privileging and aestheticizing the great universal themes of love and suffering. On the other side, they are opposed to Ovid s attempt to displace and remote readers attention from the pathos of the situation, but in the same time they represent a sign of translators wish to draw target audience s reception more deeply into characters emotive experience. Shifts in the imagery of the figures in the plot Some translation shifts are referring to figures and agents in the storyline. Target texts are displaying divergent treatments of characters. In Blaga Dimitrova s translation of Orpheus and Eurydice s story much more attention is paid to the figure of Eurydice, thus making her an equal protagonist to Orpheus. Some LCPJ Publishing 36

5 aspects in the portraying of both heroes have been emphasized while others have been given minor importance. Orpheus emotional status and suffering have been actualized and carried to excess compared to the depiction by the original author. His archetypical role of poet and singer has been repeatedly put on the center as well (e.g. he has been given the name of poet 4 times and singer 5 times versus 2 occurrences of the word vates in the Latin text). Similar is the rendering of the figures of Pyramus and Thisbe in the Bulgarian translation, where their emotional characterization in the story landmarks has been extended. In the same framework of changes the translator of Daedalus and Icarus story focuses readers attention to the figure of Daedalus the father and Icarus the son, thus bringing to the fore the relationships between father and son and in a broader and universal perspective the relations between parents and children. Daedalus has been given the name father 4 times versus the occurrence of the word pater 3 times in the original text, and so is the naming of Icarus he has been referred to with the word natus 3 times in the Latin text and with the word child 5 times in the Bulgarian translation. All the above-mentioned translation shifts are bringing a strong impact on the overall poetic tonality by intensifying the characters dolorous experience. Bulgarian free translations are in general remarkable for their strongly expressive lexical register which has been accommodated to the receiving culture. Shifts in landscape depictions The enhanced emotional depictions of characters match the extended and amplified descriptions of landscape. The Bulgarian translation of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is representative of such types of translation shifts. According to St. Hinds there is a characteristic tension in the landscapes of the Metamorphoses between the beautiful settings and the sufferings which befall most of the characters who inhabit or enter it (Hinds: 2005: 130). On the contrary, there is a peculiar matching and association in the landscapes of the translation between the settings and the protagonists sufferings. The semantic field of Ovidian locus amoenus is thereby displaced and modified and consequently an enriched landscape is coming to the fore, drawing a parallel and dynamic background of events and characters feelings, which are combined with pathos and sympathy. 37 LCPJ Publishing

6 Conclusion: translators state of mind and transformations in target texts The transformations in the act of translating, the heterogeneous techniques that build up the narrative, the deviant lexical structure and register are all conditioned and resulting from translators conscious choice and (his/ her) decision for giving primacy to universal human values which might be preserved in the process of transfer. The decision-making process and therefore the process of translation itself are realized under the influence and authority of the extra-textual innate characteristics of the receiving culture and the addressees that translations were aimed at. Substantial and of primary importance for the free translations is the focus on the recipients audience and the orientation towards the target culture and language trademarks which might define them to an extent as ethnocentric translations (according to Берман: 2007:26). That is the particular framework in which we should reconsider and reinterpret the contrasting and distinct communicative aspects of the narrative and the shifts in linguistic form and imagery. Bibliography Lianeri, A., Zajko, V. eds. (2008). Translation and the Classics. Identity as Change in the History of Culture. Oxford University Press, New York. Martindale, Ch. (2008). Dryden s Ovid: Aesthetic Translation and the Idea of the Classic, in: Lianeri, A., Zajko, V. eds. (2008). Translation and the Classics. Identity as Change in the History of Culture. Oxford University Press, New York. Hardie Ph. ed. (2005). A Cambridge Companion to Ovid, Cambridge University Press, New York. Hinds, St. (2005). Landscape with Figures: Aesthetic of Place in the Metamorphoses and its Tradition, in: Ph. Hardie (ed.), A Cambridge Companion to Ovid, Cambridge University Press, New York. Ovidius, Metamorphoses, ed. W. S. Anderson, Lipsiae - BSB B. G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, LCPJ Publishing 38

7 Берман, А. (2007). Преводът и буквата или страноприемница за далечното, София Панорама плюс. (La traduction et la lettre ou l auberge du lointain) Овидий, Орфей и Евридика, прев. Бл. Димитрова, сп. Прометей, год. 5, кн. 3, Овидий, Пирам и Тисба, прев. Бл. Димитрова, сп. Прометей, год.5, кн.1, Овидий, Дедал и Икар, прев. М. Спасова, сп. Прометей, год. 5, кн. 3, The total number of words is 1985 LCPJ Publishing 2010 by Yoana Sirakova Dr. Yoana Sirakova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned her MA in Classical Philology in 1991 at Sofia University. Since then she is a lecturer in Latin language and literature at the Department of Classics at Sofia University. In the meantime she has worked also as researcher in the Linguistic Modeling Laboratory at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on several international projects dealing with computer-assisted translation. Since 1998 she has given lectures on history and theories of translation and seminars on translations of Latin texts in Bulgarian. Her PhD in Classics and Translation Studies has focused on Bulgarian translations of Ovid s Metamorphoses. Her research interest and publications have centered around translation studies and Classics and in particular on translation reception of Roman literature in Bulgaria. She was leading and has taken part in several projects concerning the modern reception of ancient literature - Translational Reception of European Literatures in Bulgaria during the 19th and 20th centuries; Romulus Bulgaricus a bilingual digital collection of Latin texts and their Bulgarian translations ( Bulgarian Digital Encyclopedia of the Ancient World; Contextualizing Classics. Renewal of Teaching Practices and Concepts, HESP Program for Excellence in Teaching ( Documentation and Research of the Reception of Ancient Drama in Bulgaria: Translation, Stage Presentation, Arts, Education, Cultural Policies ( 39 LCPJ Publishing