Chapter 7. Conclusion
whereas the work of first-order teams can reflect third-order socio-political or
intercultural ideologies.
Zabic and Kamenish describe as “intercultural catalysts” those translators
whose life’s work is to translate poetry from a certain region (2006). The same
might be also said for all translators, like those in Chapters 4–5, who spend much
of their free time translating poetry. If they are to have intercultural effects, how-
ever, their work needs to be read or heard, which means working with other play-
ers – at least with a publisher, and often also with text helpers, the source poet and/
or an editor. Indeed, one of these other players may be the intercultural catalyst,
like the Bosnian anthology editor Chris Agee, and translators the catalyzed.
Similarly, translating is interconnected with other project tasks, such as select-
ing poems or writing a critical introduction – because translators often either per-
form such non-translating tasks, or liaise with others who perform them (anthology
editors, for instance). Furthermore, translated poems are linked into a web of in-
tertextual networks: with other texts within the text complex, but also with related
poems and projects in the source and receptor culture.
However, this does not mean that everything is always interconnected in prac-
tice. For instance, translating processes may take little account of non-textual con-
siderations, such as a project’s target readers, or its ideological motivation.7. 2 The translator and translating
The following sections examine the model in detail, beginning with its central ele-
ment: the translating subject.7.2.1 Emotion
Emotion is a key element in motivation. Liking or empathy for a source work can
drive translators to translate it; and support from source-culture interest networks,
or the pleasure of the task itself, can keep them translating. Conversely, lack of
support from receptor-culture networks can demotivate, as with Derek’s negative
review. Socio-political motivation may also have an emotional element: the feel-
ings of nostalgia for pre-war Bosnia and outrage at the war that drove me to accept
Chapter 2’s essay-editing commission, for example.
Translating processes themselves, however, seem more cognitively than emo-
tionally driven, apart from occasional emotional evaluations of source-poem and
target-version items. These processes are discussed below.