Irish Folk Tales and Legends a Modern Translation

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Irish Folk Tales and Legends A Modern Translation A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore by W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory MASTER THESIS Bc. Lenka Šmídová Brno, Autumn 2009 Declaration Hereby I declare, that this paper is my original authorial work, which I have worked out by my own. All sources, references and literature used or excerpted during elaboration of this work are properly cited and listed in complete reference to the due source. Bc. Lenka Šmídová Advisor: Mgr. Martin Nˇemec ii Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Martin Nˇemec,for introducing me into the world of translation and his professional help and kind quidance throughout the optinal translation seminar. iii Abstract The diploma thesis is concerned with the translation process from both the theoretical and practical point of view and is divided accordingly. In the introductory part the reader is ex- posed to the life stories of the authors of the book in question and the historical background of the country where the book originated from. In the practical part, the author presents her own translation of the selected chapters of The Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. In the theoretical part the author consults the prominent author- ities and in comparison to the theory of translation tries to explain the particular solutions she applied during the translation. iv Keywords William Butler Yeats, Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore, Irish mythology, Lady Gre- gory, Ireland, analysis, translation, v PART I HISTORIC AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND 1 Introduction Being able to understand other language does not necessarily make a person a good translator. When speaking other language, people do not translate words into their native tongue but rather think and respond immediately in the target language. Though the purpose of commu- nication, both spoken or written, is same in all languages, the means differ greatly. Translation however, goes a step further, where one is able to acknowledge the peculiarity of languages and act accordingly. It is a rule that a translated piece of work needs to be read by the new audience as if it was originally written in their native tongue. Yet, it was not until the author dared do a translation of her own, that she became painfully aware of this fact. Word-for-word translation must be forgotten, and the transmission of the ideas of the text gains on importance. The translation could be compared to a dialogue between two people who do not share the same mother tongue. The meaning needs to be carried into the new language but the communicative means must be transferred in accordance with the new linguistic setting. Hence, every translation also becomes interpretation. It is the job of a translator to balance these well and employ an adequate solution. The author’s aim is to present the key issues of translation from both, the theoretical and practical, perspective. Thus, the diploma thesis is divided into three parts, the first being the introductory part, in which the reader gets acquainted with the life and work of William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, the authors of the book in question, and some major historical events in Irish history that played an important role in shaping the Irish society, its language as well as literature. Unless the reader understands these, the beauty and relevancy of the work will be forever lost. The second part is devoted to the theory of translation, foremostly including the ideas of Czech translation critics such as Knittlová and Levý, but also others, mainly Newmark. This part, however, does not only consist of the raw theory, the author further interferes with the facts stated and tries to imply them in comparison with her own translation. Translation is a process during which one has to learn to think in a completely new dimen- sion, find a satisfactory way to transfer a message from one language to another while using a different syntactical structure, establish their own style, combine it in an appropriate way with the theory of translation and still concentrate on the future reader, the task is not simple. Furthermore, the translator also needs to possess proficient knowledge in both languages; otherwise there is a high risk of misinterpretating the author’s original ideas, as well as being a good writer themselves in order to be able to preserve the original stylistic elements in the translation. Keeping in mind these, one has to realize that translation is an extremely demand- ing process. Yet ever since the author had taken the optional translation seminar, she became extremely interested in the ways various people do their piece of translation. In the seminar, however, it was only a game without any restrictions. The students were free to experiment, compare their ideas and discuss which one works and why the other fails its communicative purpose. Professional translators, on the other hand, face serious obstacles every day. These might be time pressure, need to respect social taboos, downplaying the personal interference, some- 2 1. INTRODUCTION where even the political correctness must be accounted for, fulfilling the task of evoking the same feelings the original readers experienced when reading the text, and still dealing with a completely different linguistic reality. While working on the mock translation in the before mentioned seminar, the author realized the best translations come from the people who are not only masters of the source language (English in this case), but also their native tongue. Their translations were enriching as they used varied vocabulary and never missed the slightest de- tail. Thus the comprehension of the message is only one side of the problem, the other one being the translator’s ability to give wording to it. What the author personally finds extremely hard is to determine the borderline between still doing the translation and starting writing an independent piece, merely based on the ideas taken from the original source, which was by no means intended. On the other hand, as one can learn in the theoretical part, there always exists a gap between the original and its reproduction in the process of translation that is impossible to completely overcome given the different cultural and historical background, variety of languages, their syntax, aesthetic elements, ethics, lexical elements and others. The author claims the right to leave it for the reader and their careful scrutiny to decide how well this chore was accomplished. Finally, the third part of the thesis is called the practical part since it is concerned with the translation. The author chose to translate Irish folk-tales by William Butler Yeats and, as a second thought, a legend by Lady Gregory. Having done the task, the author realised that such a theme is rather simple. The audience mainly comprises of the middle class people, including children of nearly all ages. The volume being the compilation of oral tradition, the language used is not over-sophisticated and lacks the piquancy of contemporary works. Yet, it deserves to be remembered and, after all, each translation brings several problems that must be dealt with. The author only hopes that these were cautiously depicted and discussed in the theoretical part. The problems that arose during the translation are twofold. 1. Yeats’ work itself, as well as Lady Gregory’s, is a translation on its own as the original Irish myths and legends were first written in Gaelic. Historically, Irish cultural heritage is based on a spoken word – the myths and legends would be passed to the forthcoming generations orally. The original oral tradition leads to the fact that the legends, although shared all along Ireland as well as parts of Scotland, vary subtly in every county. Al- though Gaelic language and culture have been extinct in the most of Ireland, its bits survive here and there all along the still alive oral and written cultural tradition. This was to be addressed in the actual translation as e.g. some place and people’s names are transcribed from Gaelic, often in variety as the transcription has not been codified. Thus, we can meet a single person – Cù Chulainn (original Gaelic name), which is also transcribed as Cuchulain (Lady Gregory’s version) and various mutations in other authors’ books. This required careful reading to avoid ambiguities during the translation and prevent the confusion of the respective people’s names, as various persons are called differently, but their names‘ transcription is very close in English, as Cucullin (a giant in one of the Yeats’ tales) and the before mentioned Cuchulain. 2. As Irish English is not the original language of the Irish, various grammatical structures and vocabulary which are not commonly seen in the Standard English, still survive in 3 1. INTRODUCTION the Irish English dialects and can be found throughout the book and had to be addressed during the translation. It can not be stressed enough that the Irish legends, some over two thousand years old were the major means of propagating and keeping the Irish national identity and self awareness. For a Czech reader, these may seem but a couple of old fairy tales and stories which stand along with tales like Budulínek, but the truth is these legends are at least as important as the Czech tales of Praotec Cechˇ , knˇežnaLibuše, or Blaniˇctírytíˇri. The fact these legends are still alive among the Irish people only proves their significance. They are reflected and referred to in the arts, music and literature today as they were a hundred years ago.

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