Poetry Translating as Expert Action
Chan 2004), it is beyond this book’s scope to map even part of this tradition. In-
stead, these writings are used as support data to gauge how far the book’s findings
might be generalizable outside its specific subjects. Secondly, many of this book’s
conclusions might well also apply to poetry-translation communities from other
times and places, but it cannot automatically be assumed that they can. This is
because the writings just mentioned derive mainly from the translator subjects’
broad literary community: that is, most were written in English during the last
forty years, though some older works and non-English writers are occasionally
referred to.
Thirdly, as mentioned above, all the translations I examine are produced by
published translators. Hence editors, publishers or festival organizers have ap-
proved their output as “fit for purpose” – the only translation-quality criterion
with legal force (Hammond 1995). I do not add my own quality judgements of
these translations. This is not just because poetry editors and publishers are better
qualified to judge fitness for purpose. More importantly, the book examines trans-
lated poetry as produced and read, not as it should be produced and read. Never-
theless, readers do often judge the quality of what they read: therefore, in one
chapter, I survey the translation norms of English-language poetry readers.
This book follows the assumptions, approach and methods of modern transla-
tion studies, the concerns of which were first mapped in 1972 by poetry-transla-
tion scholar James Holmes (reprinted in Holmes 1988: 67–80). This broad base
means that the model of poetry translation developed in this book can potentially
apply to other genres. More specifically, if the action of the poetry translators ex-
amined here is indeed expert, this book can potentially shed at least some light on
expert translating in general. Moreover, even some of its detailed findings may ap-
ply to other genres where style, linguistic form and expressiveness are crucial, like
literary prose, drama or publicity texts.
Nevertheless, despite its academic orientation, what inspired me to research
and write this book was my own passion for translating poetry – at least some of
which can, I hope, be felt behind what I write. Hence I also hope that this book’s
readers are not only those with an academic interest in poetry translation, but also
my fellow poetry translators.1.2 Reasons for researching poetry translation
1.2.1 The value of poetry translation
So why is this map of modern poetry translators’ action worth drawing? The main
answer is that poetry translation matters. Reading poetry is a valued experience