Chapter 6. Translating rhyme and rhythm
proper is very much a separate, autonomous action from the wider aspects of
translation production and reception that are analyzed in Chapter 3.
As using text helpers is often crucial to poem re-creation, this was the only
interpersonal aspect to feature in the protocols. Even in Krik, there was no refer-
ence to other players or roles: thus E was mentioned only as an informant, and not
as the project’s commissioner or its editor. Whereas Hugo and Geoff in Toen wij
had briefly referred to hypothetical readers’ knowledge, I did not mention readers
in either poem. Therefore, how poetry translators carry out their brief (to translate
a collection of sonnets, say) seems based largely on their own interpretation of the
source poems, only incidentally on perceived readers’ needs – and not at all on
commissioners’ demands. Similarly, Flynn’s poetry translators report that “it is as-
sumed” by poetry project commissioners that translators “know what should be
done” (2004: 280). Thus E commissioned the Soneti/Sonnets project on the basis of
my previous work on Dizdar, without mentioning how they should be translated
(e.g. whether I should recreate the sonnets’ rhyme and rhythm). All in all, this
highlights the working autonomy of the poetry translator.
Another possible reason why wider project issues are not mentioned in the pro-
tocols is that translating an individual poem is a medium-level action that simply
helps to put into effect a previously-negotiated object (i.e. the overall project). Dis-
cussions between myself and other team members about the Kulenović project, its
team, and its text-complex structure certainly took place: E informing me about
graphic artist Berber’s input, for instance, or our later discussion as to whether I
should translate just a selection (as I proposed) or all forty sonnets (where E’s urging
prevailed). As my translating Krik simply implemented such decisions without rais-
ing any problems with them, there was no reason why they should have occurred in
the protocols. This also explains why the protocols do not mention Krik’s fit with the
other sonnets, because by then I had already formulated my overall translating ap-
proach (e.g. to reproduce rhyme schemes roughly rather than exactly).
The ideological motivation for the Soneti/Sonnets project, to promote a cos-
mopolitanist vision of Bosnian culture and identity, also failed to register in the
protocols. This needed no negotiation, though the main team players knew from
conversations and reading each others’ publications that they shared this vision.
Hence it not only operated outside the actual translating action, like the structural
decisions just mentioned, but it was also largely implicit – another reason why I
did not refer to it while translating. Of course, my wish to convey Krik’s semantics
and poetics as reliably as possible could be seen as reflecting the team’s aim of
promoting Kulenović as a poet. But, as previous chapters indicate, loyally repre-
senting the source poet is the default stance of present-day European poetry trans-
lators. Hence there is no evidence that my actual translating processes and decisions
were informed by socio-political motives per se.