Poetry Translating as Expert Action Processes, priorities and networks

Chapter 4. Talks with translators 

4.3.3.4 Speed and momentum

Even when working on commissioned projects, interviewees said they could usu-

ally set their own deadlines, enabling them to work at their own pace and to sub-

mit the final manuscript only once they felt that further revision was pointless –

although one translator (Bruce) felt that external deadlines helped to “concentrate

the mind”. This lack of external pressure allowed ‘translating speed’ to emerge as

another cognitive continuum: see Figure 19. ‘Speedy’ translators, like Carl, claimed

to first-draft and revise “at great speed”, leaving just an overnight gap before send-

ing a rapid succession of versions to text helpers for feedback, and translating even

long cycles of formal verse within a short time: “once the manic urge takes over,

I’m going to do the whole bloody lot”. The downside, however, is that momentum

might run out: “once I have got to the second draft [...] the danger is I am losing

interest [...], that the white-hot heat is cooling down”. ‘Steady’ translators like Alan

and Bruce, by contrast, reported working more steadily, with longer drawer-times

and without running out of momentum.

4.3.4 Translation as product

Section 5.3.3 has examined how cognitive similarities and differences between

translators might affect their reported translation processes. This section examines

how attitudinal similarities and differences between translators might affect their

reported translation products.

4.3.4.1 Reliability

All interviewees saw it as important to give a reliable representation of the source

poem. Derek, for instance, felt that the poetry translator should be “like a pane of

glass through which one can glimpse the heart of the matter; [...] not a mirror or a

reflection, but a transparent film” – that is, that the translator’s identity should be

one of invisibility, a non-identity. All reported controls to ensure that the target

poem reflected the source, such as writing the target version alongside the source,

having target versions vetted by helpers, or working with co-translators whose

prime loyalties and expertise lay with the source language. Derek also felt that

Steady Speedy

Alan Ellen Derek Carl

Bruce

Figure 19. Translating-Speed Continuum