Poetry Translating as Expert Action
2.6.1 Translating agents, text complex and transmission
The key translating agent is the translator. This is often one person – as in the
Dizdar extract, where I did not use T1’s preliminary translation. Translating proper
may also be shared between two or more ‘co-translators’ – as in one poem from the
1999 Kameni spavač/Stone Sleeper, which Translator T3, who normally works from
Chinese, translated from my English intermediate version into his native Scots.
Among other translating agents (cf. Bly 1983: 16,42–43) are what might be called
‘text helpers’. Source-text/language/culture informants advise on source-poem or lan-
guage-transfer issues. None were involved in the essay project, but Informant I, a
linguist and literary scholar in English and his native BCS, read the pre-publication
version of Stone Sleeper, and gave me feedback on misunderstandings of the source
text. Target-poem advisors, by contrast, read translated versions without reference to
the source. Translator T3, for example, read and advised me on some Stone Sleeper
translations, though I cannot recall if he was involved with the Figure 3 extract.
Poems often form part of a larger ‘text complex’ – the essay collection, for ex-
ample, contained essays, initial quotes, a contents list and index, a photo-essay on
wartime Sarajevo, and cover graphics. Producing a translated text complex, there-
fore, implies other textual actions besides translating poems – my essay editing,
for example. Among other texts in a complex might be:- Matrix text: a larger text containing the poems in question. For the Dizdar
extract, this is the essay Bosnia, supreme archipelago. - Paratexts: texts supporting the main text, such as contents list, preface or notes
(Bishop 2000: 66–67). Thus the Dizdar extract acted as a paratext for Bosnia,
supreme archipelago. - Co-texts: texts that have equal status – the Qur’an quote and the Dizdar ex-
tract, for example. - Intertexts: texts quoted, alluded to or otherwise recycled in another text. None
appear in the Dizdar extract. Other poems in Kameni spavač, however, have
strong allusions to the Bible, and use folk-poetry forms.
Producing the whole target text complex may involve several translators, along
with specialist writers, editors, etc. (for clarity’s sake, omitted from Figure 4). Thus
Translator T1 produced the first English version of the essay matrix text, for exam-
ple. Conversely, poetry translators may produce or co-produce non-poem texts in
the complex – as with my essay editing.
The first-order network also involves text transmitters and the transmission
means they produce. The translated essay collection, for instance, involved several
text transmitters: publisher P (as mentioned above), a graphic designer, a photog-
rapher, printers, distributors and booksellers. This may involve poetry translators