For Mary Ann Caws--noted translator of surrealist poetry--the most
appealing translations are also the oddest; the unexpected,
unpredictable, and unmimetic turns that translations take are an endless
source of fascination and instruction. Surprised in Translation is a
celebration of the occasional and fruitful peculiarity that results from
some of the most flavorful translations of well-known authors. These
translations, Caws avers, can energize and enliven the voice of the
original.
In eight elegant chapters Caws reflects on translations that took her by
surprise. Caws shows that the elimination of certain passages from the
original--in the case of Stéphane Mallarmé translating Tennyson, Ezra
Pound interpreting the troubadours, or Virginia Woolf rendered into
French by Clara Malraux, Charles Mauron, and Marguerite Yourcenar--often
produces a greater and more coherent art. Alternatively, some
translations--such as Yves Bonnefoy's translations of Shakespeare,
Keats, and Yeats into French--require more lines in order to fully
capture the many facets of the original. On other occasions, Caws
argues, a swerve in meaning--as in Beckett translating himself into
French or English--can produce a new text, just as true as the original.
Imbued with Caws's personal observations on the relationship between
translators and the authors they translate, Surprised in Translation
will interest a wide range of readers, including students of
translation, professional literary translators, and scholars of modern
and comparative literature.
