VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS
HUMANITARINIŲ MOKSLŲ FAKULTETAS
ANGLŲ FILOLOGIJOS KATEDRA
Irma Stundžytė
LAISVŲJŲ EILIŲ VERTIMO Į ANGLŲ KALBĄ PROBLEMOS: JONO ZDANIO, LAIMOS SRUOGINIS IR KERRY'O SHAWNO KEYSO POEZIJOS VERTIMŲ ANALIZĖ
Magistro baigiamasis darbas
Taikomosios anglų kalbotyros studijų programa, valstybinis kodas 62404H123 Filologijos studijų kryptis
Vadovė prof. habil. dr. Milda Danytė ______(parašas) (data)
Apginta ______(Fakulteto dekanas) (parašas) (data)
Kaunas, 2009
SOME ISSUES IN TRANSLATING FREE-VERSE POEMS FROM LITHUANIAN TO ENGLISH: AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSLATIONS BY JONAS ZDANYS, LAIMA SRUOGINIS AND KERRY SHAWN KEYS
By Irma Stundžytė
Department of English Philology Vytautas Magnus University Master of Arts Thesis Supervisor: Prof. dr. Milda Danytė
May 2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SANTRAUKA ...... 1
SUMMARY …………………………………………………………………………………...... 2
1. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………...... 3
2. INTRODUCTION TO THE LITHUANIAN POETS: Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijole Miliauskaite, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis ………….. 6
3. FREE VERSE AND ITS TRANSLATION: THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION……....13
4. SYNTACTIC AND FORMAL FEATURES IN LITHUANIAN FREE-VERSE POEMS …………………………………………………………….……………………...... 19
4.1 Ways of Categorising and Analysing Line-breaks as a Syntactic Feature of Free Verse ……………………………………………………………………….……. 19
4.2 Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s System for Kinds and Functions of Repetition ………………………………………………….………………………….. 21
4.3 Formal Characteristics of Free-Verse Poems …………………………………...... 25
4.3.1 The Purpose of Layout in Free-Verse Poems: Visual Effects ………………… 26
4.3.2 The Importance of Alliteration in Free-Verse Poems ……………………...... 30
5. STRATEGIES USED BY JONAS ZDANYS, LAIMA SRUOGINIS AND KERRY SHAWN KEYS IN TRANSLATING LITHUANIAN FREE-VERSE POEMS ……...... 34
5.1 Theoretical Concepts Used for Translation Strategies by Lawrence Venuti and Eirlys E. Davies ………………………………………………………………………… 34
5.1.1 Lawrence Venuti’s Concepts of Domestication and Foreignisation …………….34
5.1.2 Eirlys E. Davies’ Categories of Translation Strategies …………………………. 35
5.2 Applying Venuti’s Concepts of Domestication and Foreignisation to Translation Choices Made by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys …………….. 38
5.2.1 Issues in the English Translation of the Titles of Lithuanian Free-Verse Poems ……………………………………………………………………...... 38
5.2.2 Transferring Line-breaks and Layout from Lithuanian to English in the Translations …………………………………………………………………….. 42
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5.2.3 Strategies in Translating Alliteration from Lithuanian to English ………...... 52
5.2.4 Translators’ Strategies in Dealing with Repetition …………………………….. 61
6. CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS IN SOME FREE-VERSE POEMS: CATEGORIES AND TRANSLATION ISSUES ……………………………………………………………. 71
6.1 Categorising Culture-Specific Items in Lithuanian Free-Verse Poems ………...... 72
6.2 Translation Issues in Rendering Lithuanian Culture-Specific Items ………………….... 75
7. CONCLUSION ...... …… 80
APPENDICES:
APPENDIX 1: The Lithuanian Originals and Their English Translations of the Poems Discussed in the Thesis ……………………………………………………….. 83
APPENDIX 2: Photographs of the Poets and Translators …………………………………..... 91
LIST OF REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………..... 95
2 SANTRAUKA
Šiame darbe aptariama keletas pasirinktų laisvųjų eilių vertimo į anglų kalbą problemų. Analizuojant lietuvių eilėraščius ir jų anglišką vertimą akcentuojama tam tikri sintaksiniai ir formalūs laisvųjų eilių bruožai. Darbo tikslui atrinkta devyni laisvųjų eilių eilėraščiai tokių Lietuvių poetų kaip Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas ir Sigitas Parulskis. Jų eilėraščius į anglų kalbą išvertė pripažinti literatūros vertėjai, Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis ir Kerry’is Shawnas Keysas. Analizuojant vertimus siekiama paneigti nuomonę, jog poezija neišverčiama, pateikiant pavyzdžių kaip sėkmingai, išvardyti vertėjai, perteikia originalo teksto stilistines, ekspresyvines ir kultūrines reikšmes. Teorinėje darbo dalyje pateikiami lietuvių poetų biografijos faktai, bei jų laisvųjų eilių kūrybos tematika ir stilistika. Taip pat aptariamos pagrindinės laisvųjų eilių poezijos teorijos, išskiriamos svarbiausios jos savybės ir vertimo ypatybės. Pirmiausiai, apibrėžiamas terminas ‚laisvosios eilės‘, vėliau išskiriami būdingiausi šios poezijos bruožai ir nurodomi jos vertimo sunkumai. Kaip charakteringiausi sintaksiniai bruožai išskiriama eilučių skaidymas ir pakartojimas; formalūs bruožai: eilėraščio forma arba struktūra (teksto išdėstymas puslapyje) ir aliteracija. Lyginamoji originalo ir verstinio eilėraščio tekstų analizė, visų pirma pateikia ir aptaria formalias ir sintaksinias priemones esančias originalo tekste. Tuomet analizuojamas verstinis tekstas, atsižvelgiant į pasirinktus vertėjų sprendimus perteikiant atrastas eilėraščio savybes. Dėmesys skiriamas Jono Zdanio, Laimos Sruoginis ir Kerry'o Shawno Keyso vertimo strategijoms, verčiant lietuvių poetų laisvąsias eiles. Jų sprendimai aptariami remiantis Lawrence‘o Venučio bendraisiais vertimo terminais „svetimžodžio vartojimas“ (angl. „domestication“) ir „priartinimas prie verstinio teksto kultūros“ (angl. „foreignisation“), bei Eirlys E. Davies konkrečiomis literatūrinio vertimo strategijomis. Analizuojant vertimus atsižvelgiama į tai, kaip vertėjams pavyksta perteikti verčiamo teksto eilučių skaidymą, jo formą, pakartojimus, aliteraciją, bei kultūrines realijas. Analizuojant eilėraščius pastebėta, jog pasirinkti lietuvių poetai dažniausiai naudoja tokias menines priemones kaip išskirtinią eilėraščio formą, aliteraciją ir pakartojimus, rečiau aptinkami prasminiai eilučių skaidymai. Tuo tarpu minėti vertėjai kaip įmanoma stengiasi atkurti bendrą originalo teksto efektą jų skaitytojui, sukurtą poeto naudojant pasirinktas sintaksinias ir fomaliąsias priemones. Taip pat vertėjai suvokia kultūrinių realijų svarbą originalo tekste, tadėl jų vertimo sprendimai dažniausiai sėkmingai perteikia kultūrinę informaciją verstiniame tekste. Apibendrinant, vertėjai linkę išlaikyti kuo artimesnę originalo eilėračio reikšmę labiau nei jo formą, o pasitaikantys semantiniai ar stilistiniai praradimai kompensuojami kitomis panašų estetinį ir emocinį efektus skaitytojui sukeliančiomis priemonėmis.
3 SUMMARY
In general this thesis discusses some issues in translating free-verse poems from Lithuanian to English. Certain syntactic and formal features of free-verse are considered while analysing the original Lithuanian poems and discussing their translations into English. For this purpose, nine Lithuanian free-verse poems by Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis have been chosen. The translations of these poems have been done by well-acknowledged translators such as Kerry Shawn Keys, Jonas Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis. The thesis argues against the idea of the untranslatability of poetry and shows how relatively successful these translators are in transferring the stylistic, expressive and cultural values of the Lithuanian free-verse poems. The thesis starts with a theoretical section which, first, offers some major biographical facts about the poets’ lives and points out significant thematic and stylistic characteristics of their free-verse poems. It also provides insights into major theories about the nature of free verse and its translation, first by defining the concept of free verse and commenting on its characteristic features, and then by referring to problematic aspects for its translation. The syntactic features discussed include line-breaks and repetition, while the formal features that are considered include layout and alliteration. A comparative analysis of Lithuanian free-verse poems and their translations is carried out, first by observing and discussing certain formal and syntactic features used by Lithuanian poets and then by looking at the decisions made by translators in rendering these features. The focus is given to the strategies that are used by Kerry Shawn Keys, Jonas Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis in translating Lithuanian free-verse poems. For a discussion of translators’ choices, Lawrence Venuti’s broad concepts of domestication and foreignisation are applied together with more specific categorisations of translation strategies by Eirlys E. Davies. The analysis of the translations looks specifically at how translators manage to transfer line-breaks and layout, to render repetition and alliteration, and to deal with culture-specific items that appear in the original texts. It has been noted that the devices that are commonly used by Nagys, Geda, Miliauskaitė, Jonynas and Parulskis are layout, alliteration and repetition, while line-breaks are less prominent. The analysis of Keys, Zdanys and Sruoginis’ translations shows that these translators do their best to produce the same over-all effects that are created by a particular poet’s use of syntactic and formal devices. They are aware of the importance of cultural references in the Lithuanian texts, and their translation decisions of these are, in the majority of instances, successful. In general, translators seek to be faithful in transferring meaning more than form, but, in most cases, they compensate for these formal losses by using other poetic devices to achieve similar aesthetic and emotional effects.
4 1. INTRODUCTION
During the history of literary translation a number of different views have emerged about the translation of poetry. In general, poetry is considered the most challenging of all the literary genres to translate, for a poem contains not only certain linguistic features, but also particular aesthetic and expressive values that are created through an extremely complex interplay of form and meaning. These factors lead some to believe in extremes such as that poetry is untranslatable. However, this notion has been widely criticised since, indeed, loss is inevitable in all processes of translation, because it involves structural differences between two languages in terms of lexicon, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and aesthetic traditions. Still, the creativity required in translating poetry is acknowledged to be almost equal to its original creation, for here the translator is required to deal with very complex formal features as well as content. The translators’ principal task is not a search for complete equivalence for the form and content of the original poem, but the creation of a similar intellectual and emotional effect on the target-text readers, as well as the retention of the poet’s major stylistic choices. There are many types of poetry that have been translated; among these is free verse, which in general can be differentiated from other verse forms as one that lacks regular metre or a fixed rhyme scheme, but instead uses various other formal and syntactic devices to create a sense of regularity and to produce the aesthetics of a poem. Although in this case the translator does not have to struggle with the task of creating a metrical pattern or transferring regular rhyme, readers have to be careful not to underestimate the complexity of the stylistic features of a free-verse poem. This thesis, which is divided into seven main sections, discusses some issues in translating free-verse poems from Lithuanian to English. For the purpose of the analysis, nine free-verse poems have been chosen from those written by Henrikas Nagys (1920-1996), Sigitas Geda (1943-2008), Nijolė Miliauskaitė (1950-2002), Antanas A. Jonynas (b. 1953) and Sigitas Parulskis (b. 1965). The general goal of the thesis is to identify and discuss certain formal, syntactic and cultural free-verse features in these specific Lithuanian poems, and to analyse twelve translations that have been made by well-acknowledged translators such as Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys. Only Antanas A. Jonynas’ poem “Gaisras” (“Fire”) is a collaborative translation by Zdanys, Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury. The analytical part of the thesis seeks to provide some insights into translators’ choices when tackling problematic cases in Lithuanian free-verse texts. In general, the thesis argues against the idea of the untranslatability of poetry and shows how relatively successful these translators are in transferring stylistic, expressive and cultural values of these particular Lithuanian free-verse poems.
5 Keys, Zdanys and Sruoginis are not only literary translators, but poets in their own right as well. All of them have a good knowledge of Lithuanian and are recognised as bilingual translators in the United States and Lithuania. These translators took their university degrees in English literature and writing. Most important, their competence in Lithuanian is very good, for either they acquired it growing up in a Lithuanian family or while living in Lithuania for many years. Thus, for instance, Kerry Shawn Keys (b. 1946), whose Lithuanian is the least fluent, was born in the United States and is not Lithuanian in origin, but has lived in Lithuania for a number of years; according to a website, “he taught translation theory and creative composition from 1998 to 2000 at Vilnius University” (“Kerry Shawn Keys” 2009). He mainly translates from Lithuanian into English and has published about ten books of his translations (“Kerry Shawn Keys” 2008). A member of the Lithuanian Writers Union from 2002 and of the PEN Centre of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators, he is recognised as a talented literary translator in Lithuania. Jonas Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis are both Lithuanian-Americans for whom English has become their strongest language, though Lithuanian, the native language of their parents, was the first they spoke. An internet source states: “Zdanys (b. 1950) [was] born a few months after his parents arrived in the United States from a United Nations camp for Lithuanian refugees” (“Book Signing” 2007). Lithuanian was his first language as he did not learn English until he started attending school (“Book Signing” 2007). As Andrew Maloney points out, from 1992 Zdanys has been a member of Lithuanian Writers Union; he is also a member of the Editorial Board of PEN of the Lithuania and of Lithuanian Association of the Literary Translators (2008). In comparison to Sruoginis and Keys, he has written and translated the most, over thirty-seven books (“Book Signing” 2007). Zdanys, contrary to Keys, translates in both directions: from Lithuanian into English and the reverse Like Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis (b. 1966) is Lithuanian in origin and as Rima Pociūtė states, “grew up in the Lithuanian émigré community in the United States, but spent her high school years studying at the Lithuanian Gymnasium in Germany” (1996). She visited Lithuania for the first time when she was sixteen in 1982 (“Laima Vincė” 2001). Later, as Pociūtė indicates, Sruoginis “spent a year in Lithuania in 1988-1989 studying Lithuanian literature at Vilnius University” (1996). As a literary translator she has compiled and edited three anthologies of contemporary Lithuanian literature (“Laima Sruoginis” 2006). The nine Lithuanian free-verse poems and their translations that have been chosen for this thesis are as follows: Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura” (1959), translated by Zdanys; Sigitas Geda’s poems “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” (1987), translated by Zdanys as “An Answer to the Martians’ Inquiry” and Sruoginis as “An Answer to a Martian Chronicler,” “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” (1982), translated by Zdanys as “An Angel Falling in Palanga” and by Keys as
6 “Angel Falling in Palanga,” and “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (1987) translated by Keys as “Trash Truck in Justiniškės;” Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poems “auksinį plauką…” (1993), “I found a golden hair,” translated by Zdanys, “sėdėjo prie pat gatvės” (1993), “Sitting Beside the Very Street,” translated by Sruoginis, and “Lėlių siuvėja” (1993), which Sruoginis calls “Doll Maker” and Zdanys “The Doll Maker;” Antanas A. Jonynas’ “Gaisras,” translated as “Fire” (1994) by Zdanys in cooperation with Danielius and Czury; and, finally, Sigitas Parulskis’ poem “Šaltis” (1993), translated as “Cold” by Sruoginis. Where are two different translations of the Lithuanian poems, this allows a comparative analysis to reveal preferences for certain strategies by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys. The major sources used in discussing free verse and its translation include critics like Chris Baldick (1990), J. A. Cuddon (1991), Peter Newmark (1992), Frederick Garber (1994), Donald Wesling and Eniko Bollobás (1994), T. V. F. Brogan (1994), M. H. Abrams (1999), Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Károly (2002), Lawrence Venuti (2002), and Eirlys E. Davies (2003). Section 2 offers some biographical facts about the five Lithuanian poets and points out significant thematic and stylistic characteristics of their free-verse poems; the poets are grouped under three different generations. Then Section 3 provides insights into theories about free verse and its translation, first by defining the concept of free verse and commenting on its characteristic features, and then referring to problematic aspects for its translation. A clear distinction between metrical and free verse is made in this section by analysing concrete examples of each. These features are discussed in greater detail in Section 4, which is divided in three sub- sections. Accordingly, Sub-section 4.1 introduces two main categories of line-breaks and analyses their instances in concrete examples taken from free-verse poems, while Sub-section 4.2 is devoted to a discussion of Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s system for kinds and functions of repetition. Further, Sub-section 4.3 examines some formal characteristics such as layout and alliteration that are very common devices used in free verse. Here Sub-section 4.3.1 discusses the importance of layout, commenting on the effects of the positioning of lines, stanzaic patterns, and other visual cues, including white spaces between words, lines and stanzas. Next, Sub-section 4.3.2 focuses on alliteration as one of sound devices most often used by free-verse poets. Several different approaches to the concept of alliteration are provided along with a table in which alliteration is categorised according the relative positions of repeated sounds in words or lines: these categories have been created by the author of this thesis. A comparative analysis of the selected Lithuanian free-verse poems and their translations starts in Section 5. Here the focus is on the strategies that are used by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys in translating Lithuanian free-verse poems. Sub-section 5.1 introduces some major theoretical concepts used for translation strategies in literary texts. In Sub-
7 section 5.1.1 Lawrence Venuti’s broad concepts of domestication and foreignisation are discussed, while Sub-section 5.1.2 focuses on more specific categorisations of translation strategies by Eirlys E. Davies, some of which are useful in the analysis of the English translations. In addition, Sub-section 5.2 analyses the English translations according to Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignisation. In this case, the focus is on four key issues: Sub- section 5.2.1 looks at the translation of titles; Sub-section 5.2.2 deals with transference of line- breaks and layout into English; Sub-section 5.2.3 examines the translators’ attempts to retain patterns of alliteration that appear in Lithuanian texts; and, finally, Sub-section 5.2.4 looks at what strategies these translators use in dealing with repetition. Section 6 deals with another problematic aspect in translation, known as culture-specific items. Sub-section 6.1 provides a categorisation of culture-specific items that have been observed in selected Lithuanian free-verse texts. They are grouped as follows: culture-specific items from Western cultural tradition, Lithuanian geographical names, and other Lithuanian culture-specific items. Here the discussion concerns how familiar or foreign the Lithuanian cultural references may appear to English readers. Accordingly, Sub-section 6.2 analyses the translators’ decisions in rendering concrete culture-specific items. The appendix of this thesis provides a list of Lithuanian free-verse poems and their English translations under analysis; it also contains photographs of the poets and translators.
2. INTRODUCTION TO THE LITHUANIAN POETS: Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis
This section provides some biographical and critical information about the five Lithuanian poets whose poems and their translations into English are analysed in this thesis. First, some biographical facts are given as background information. In addition, some major ideas about their poetic style are presented. These particular poets have been chosen mainly because their specific poems present interesting translation issues. However, as it happens, they represent different generations of modern Lithuanian poetry. For this reason, the poets Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis can be placed in three different generations. The first is the interwar generation, to which Nagys belongs, who was born in 1920, and the majority of whose poems were published in exile. Three other poets, Sigitas Geda (born in 1943), Nijolė Miliauskaitė (born in 1950) and Antanas A. Jonynas (born in 1953), who lived and did much of their writing in the Soviet period, belong to the World War II and Soviet post-war generation. The youngest of these five
8 poets is Sigitas Parulskis (born in 1965), who has published mostly in period of renewed Lithuanian independence and thus belongs to the newer generation of writers. The discussion of features of their poetry dwells upon two major topics: general themes and style, focusing on aspects relevant to the poems that appear in the analysis. Since the majority of the critical sources were written in Lithuanian, the translation of all the quotations from these has been done by the author of this paper. Henrikas Nagys (1920-1996), the oldest of these five poets, belongs to the interwar generation. Though only one of his free-verse poems, “Laterna Obscura” (1959), from the collection Mėlynas sniegas (The Blue Snow, 1960) is discussed, it has been chosen because it is an excellent example of a free-verse text that manages to create a very strong sense of rhythm without using traditional metre or rhyme. The major critical sources that have been used to provide information about Nagys’ life and poetic style are Julius Kaupas (1958; 1963), Alfonsas Čipkus (1959), Ilona Gražytė (1975), Milda Danys (1986), Vytautas Vanagas (1996), Virginija Balsevičiūtė (2001), and Rūta Miliauskaitė (2001). Nagys’ biography should be discussed along with the historical situation of his time. Born in Mažeikiai on October 12, 1920, he started his studies in Vytautas Magnus University but after its closing in 1943 and the renewed occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet army, he left Lithuania to go to Austria (Gražytė 1975: 12; Kaupas 1959: 477). Here he completed a doctorate in German literature on Georg Trakl’s poetry (Gražytė 1975: 12; Kaupas 1959: 477). As Milda Danys explains, a very large number of Lithuanian artists and intellectuals fled from their homeland when the Soviet army occupied their country for a second time in 1944 (1986: 43). The most usual reason was that “people feared of being sent to Siberian camps as such deportations had occurred during the first Soviet occupation in 1941 (Danys 1986: 275). Danys further explains that “those who left Lithuania expected to return there after the war, but when the Soviet Union continued to occupy their homeland, they stayed in refugee (DP) camps in Germany” (1986: 275), becoming Displaced Perssons (DPs). Here Nagys published his first book of poetry, Eilėraščiai, 1946 (Poems). When the camps were closed, Nagys emigrated in 1949, first to the United States and then settled for the rest of his life in Canada (Danys 1986: 275, 347). Though he worked briefly as a lecturer at the Université de Montréal (Gražytė 1975: 12), he had to take a variety of jobs, eventually working in a secondary school (Kaupas 1959: 477). Meanwhile, Nagys was able to express himself as a writer within the Lithuanian diaspora community. One of his major positions, as Kaupas indicates, was “serv[ing] on the editorial board of the Lithuanian literary review (1952-1959) Literatūros Lankai (Folios of Literature)” (1959: 477). This journal developed from the Žemė (Earth) anthology published in the United States of America in 1951 (Grinius 1966: 228). According to Antanas Grinius, the anthology united writers
9 in emigration who came to poetic maturity during World War II and the period of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania (1966: 228); the poets who belonged to the Žemė (Earth) anthology were Juozas Kėkštas, Kazys Bradūnas, Alfonsas Nyka-Niliunas, Vytautas Marčėnas and Henrikas Nagys. The editor of Žemė (Earth) Juozas Girnius identified philosophical and existential tendencies as the most common characteristic of this generation (1966: 228). Later their work appeared in the form of the journal Literatūros Lankai (Folios of Literature). This generation of poets was formally innovative; thus, it was differentiated from the older generation of poets romantics who followed strict thematic and formal traditions (Čipkus 1958: 290). Nagys published eight collections of poetry from 1946 to 1996: Eilėraščiai (Poems, 1946), Lapkričio naktys (November Nights, 1947), Saulės laikrodžiai (The Sundials, 1952), Mėlynas sniegas (The Blue Snow, 1960), Broliai balti aitvarai (Brothers, White Spirits, 1969) (Gražytė 1975: 13), Prisijaukinsiu sakalą (I’ll Tame a Hawk, 1978), Grįžulas (Bear, 1990) (Vanagas 1996: 339) and Sakalų valanda (The Hour of Hawks, 1996) (Balsevičiūtė 2001: 309). Although Nagys’ experience in emigration in Canada constituted a major loss for him, it did have a great impact on his thematic choices in his poetry. In general, Kaupas states that “Nagys’ poetry is individualistic, idealistic and cosmopolitan” (1959: 478). Thus, as Kaupas explains, “being dissatisfied with erotic, patriotic, and religious themes, Nagys turned to the totality of human existence and extolled man's freedom for self-determination and his indeterminateness” (1963: 53). However, not all of his poetry refers to existentialist issues; in Kaupas’ words, frequent references to his childhood and the landscape of his particular region of Lithuania are also observable in his later collections one of which is Mėlynas sniegas (The Blue Snow), from which the poem “Laterna Obscura” is discussed in this thesis. Ilona Gražytė argues that “Nagys has enriched the traditional lyrical, graceful and light- coloured Lithuanian romanticism with darker, richer colours, with a dramatic tone emptied of romantic self-pity” (1975: 13, tr. Stundžytė). Further, Kaupas indicates that Nagys’ very first poems (1938-1939) were already different from earlier, traditional Lithuanian verse and manifested new stylistic tendencies (1959: 477). Thus, Nagys is a significant figure as a pioneer of new, more Western traditions in poetry in which traditional forms for poetry are replaced by free-verse (Kaupas 1959: 478). Still, Nagys prefers splitting a poem into stanzas, linking him to traditional forms. Section 5 presents a more detailed analysis of Nagys’ use of free-verse features in a specific poem, “Laterna Obscura.” The second poet whose work has been selected for examination is Sigitas Geda (1943- 2008), the oldest of the three who came to maturity in the Soviet period: the generation of the World War II and post-war. Some useful articles on his poems have been written by Rimvydas Šilbajoris (1992), Vytautas Kubilius (1996), Laima Sruoginis (1997), Dalia Satkauskytė (2001), Elena
10 Baliutytė (2002) and Vladas Braziūnas (2007). Geda was born in Pateriai on February 4, 1943. He graduated from Vilnius University in 1966 in Lithuanian language and literature (Sruoginis 1997: 66). His first collection of poems Pėdos (Footprints) was published in 1966, soon after his graduation (Satkauskytė 2001: 147, tr. Stundžytė). According to Dalia Satkauskytė, Gedas’ début “demonstrated an extraordinary poetic potential” (2001: 147, tr. Stundžytė) which was immediately recognised, so that after a year he was accepted as a member of Lithuanian Writers’ Union (Sruoginis 1997: 66). In the course of his poetic career, Geda published over sixteen collections of poetry, including Pėdos (Footprints, 1966), Užmigę žirgeliai (Sleeping Horses, 1970), 26 rudens ir vasaros giesmės (26 Hymns of Autumn and Summer, 1972), Mėnulio žiedai (Blossoms of the Moon, 1977), Žydinti slyva Snaigyno ežere (The Blooming Plum-tree on Snaigynas Lake, 1981), Varnėnas po mėnuliu (Starling Under the Moon, 1984), Mamutų tėvynė (The Homeland of Mammoths, 1985), Žalio gintaro vėriniai (Green Beads of Amber, 1988), Septynių vasarų giesmės (Hymns of Seven Winters, 1991), Babilono atstatymas (Reconstruction of Babylon, 1994), Gedimino valstybės fragmentas (A Fragment from Gediminas’ State, 1997), Jotvingių mišios (The Mass of the Jotvingiai, 1997), Skrynelė dvasioms pagauti (A Little Chest for Catching Spirits, 1998), Sokratas kalbasi su vėju (Socrates Speakes to the Wind, 2001) (Satkauskytė 2001: 185), and Po aštuoniolikos metų: atsisveikinimas su Jabaniškėmis (After Eighteen Years: Farewell to Jabaniškės, 2003) (Braziūnas 2007). While reading Geda’s poems, it is easy to note that they indeed go beyond traditional boundaries and create their own forms. Since the selected poems in this paper are from Geda’s collection Žalio gintaro vėriniai (Green Beads of Amber, 1988), most of the attention is given to the thematic choices and style in this collection. Writing about Geda, both Šilbajoris and Sruoginis state that the major themes in this collection are childhood, Lithuanian historical periods, and fragile and dark everyday existence (Šilbajoris 1992: 414; Sruoginis 1997: 66). Sruoginis indicates that many of Geda’s poems “draw its strength from his childhood and from Lithuanian history, merging a pantheistic voice with postmodernist aesthetic” (1997: 66). Baliutytė agrees with this idea: she states that from the very first poems, Geda experiments and uses innovative style in his poetry (2002: 265). According to Brian McHale a specialist in postmodernism, “postmodernist features are organised in terms of opposition with features of modernist poetics: contradiction, randomness, excess, urbanism, dehumanisation, primitivism, experimentalism [and others]” (1987: 14). Some of these characteristics can be observed in Geda’s poetry as well, especially those of contradiction, urbanism and experimentalism. The most prominent feature of Geda’s experimentation, noted by Braziūnas, is his “manipulation with language: forms and grammar” (2007, tr. Stundžytė). In addition to this, in
11 Baliutytė’s words, he is also known for his untraditional forms of poems (2002: 96). Specifically, Kubilius points out that Geda uses “discontinuous sentences which usually are not visibly connected on a page” (1996: 550, tr. Stundžytė), because they do not start with capital letters and do not end with a full stop: a sentence may appear as the middle part of some very long poem. Similarly, Kubilius points out that Geda uses a “dynamic stream instead of logical constructions in a poem” (1996: 552, tr. Stundžytė). The third poet under consideration is Nijolė Miliauskaitė (1950–2002), a Lithuanian woman writer who in free verse created her own manner of constructing verse lines, using certain patterns that illuminate the mood and aesthetics of a poem. Aušra Tamaliūnaitė-Tamošiūnienė and G. Ramoškaitė-Gedienė suggest that Miliauskaitė’s writings can be divided into two major periods of her poetic creation: the first (1985-1988) and the second periods of her creation (1995-1999). The latter period is the most productive and focuses more on her inner experiences, refering to eastern philosophy and existentialism (Ramoškaitė-Gedienė 2003: 3-8). The three poems which have been selected belong to this period and are taken from the collection Uždraustas įeiti kambarys (The Forbidden Room, 1995). Again, as with Geda, not many extensive critical studies on Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poetry and life have been published; however, three valuable books on her biography and poetry provide an appropriate source of critical material: Viktorija Daujotytė, Esė apie poeziją ir esimą: esė (2001); G. Ramoškaitė-Gedienė, Moteris su lauko gėlėmis: knyga apie Nijolės Miliauskaitės: atsiminimai, pokalbiai, laiškai (2003); and Aušra Tamaliūnaitė-Tamošiūnienė, Tylos skambėjimas. Nijolės Miliauskaitės gyvenimas ir poezija (2005). Some additional information has been taken from critical articles. Daujotytė writes that Nijolė Miliauskaitė was born in a working-class family in Keturvalakai on January 23, 1950 (2001: 140). Her parents sent her to a boarding school for children of poor families (Daujotytė 2001: 140). Here she wrote her first poems which were published in the school newspaper (Daujotytė 2001: 140). In 1973 she graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in Lithuanian language and literature (Daujotytė 2001: 140). She married Vytautas Bložė, who is also a major Lithuanian poet (Daujotytė 2001: 140). Her first collection of poetry Uršulės S. portretas (The Portrait of Ursula S.), appeared in 1985; her later collections are Namai, kuriuose negyvensim (The Home We will Never Live in, 1988), Uždraustas įeiti kambarys (The Forbidden Room, 1995) and Sielos labirintas (Labyrinth of the Soul, 1999) (Daujotytė 2001: 140). Tragically, Nijolė Miliauskaitė died of cancer on 27 March 2002 at the age of 52 (Tamaliūnaitė-Tamošiūnienė 2005: 8). In general, Miliauskaitė is considered, as has also been said of Nagys and Geda, a writer whose poetry is often discussed in connection to her life; for example, according to Tamaliūnienė-
12 Tamošiūnienė, “personal life experience and general truths of life are the strongest aspects of her poetic expression” (2005: 26, tr. Stundžytė). Her book Uždraustas įeiti kambarys (The Forbidden Room) has several themes which dominate as well in the free-verse poems which have been chosen for this paper: according to Ramoškaitė-Gedienė, “a working woman, everyday existence, and childhood” (2003: 188, tr. Stundžytė) are the principal themes of this collection. Sigitas Parulskis and Daujotytė agree that most of Miliauskaitė’s free-verse poems are written in an informal, more colloquial language; they are detailed and full of colourful expressions (Parulskis 2002: 12, tr. Stundžytė; Daujotytė 2001: 148, tr. Stundžytė). Another important feature of her style is the form of the poem which, as Parulskis indicates, is more similar to prose than to poetry (2002: 12, tr. Stundžytė). Her verse lacks regular division into lines and stanzas, so that the whole poem tends to be read as a single sentence. However, she does leave spaces between groups of lines which regulate the reading pace. In considering Miliauskaitė’s style, Parulskis states that “she does not rhyme her poems; her speech flows freely without a strict changing of rhythm” (2002: 12, tr. Stundžytė). At the same time he argues that “to a certain extent, her poems are composed of fragmented discourses which create a kind of rhythm in a poem” (Parulskis 2002: 53, tr. Stundžytė). This indicates that, though these poems do not use any traditional metres, they provide the readers with a sense of regularity. Even more, her poetry often sounds colloquial, a speaking voice which is much less formal than that used by, for example, Henrikas Nagys. Parulskis explains that “the lack of punctuation and capital letters in any of her poems, and the use of line-breaks as well as repetitions make her poems free and unconventional in style” (2002: 53, tr. Stundžytė). Similarly, Daujotytė notes that “her language is not very logically structured; it is more a stream of thoughts” (2001: 147, tr. Stundžytė). The fourth poet whose work is discussed in this thesis is Antanas A. Jonynas born, on November 26, 1953 in Vilnius. The critics that have been selected for the analysis of his poetry include Valentinas Sventickas (1991), Vytautas Kubilius (1996), Vytautas Vanagas (1996), Ričardas Pakalniškis (2001), Viktorija Šeina (2001), Rita Tūtlytė (2006) and Vladas Braziūnas (2007). Jonynas, the son of an earlier Lithuanian poet, Antanas Jonynas (1923-1976), grew up and developed as a poet in the capital of Vilnius, which allows some critics to consider him as “a representative of urban culture” (Braziūnas 2007, tr. Stundžytė). He graduated from Vilnius University in 1976 with a degree in Lithuanian language and literature (Braziūnas 2007). He has published more than eleven collections of poetry which include: Metai kaip strazdas (A Year as a Thrush, 1977), Atminties laivas (Ship of Memory, 1980), Parabolė (Prabola, 1984), Tiltas ir kiti eilėraščiai (A Bridge and other Poems, 1986), Nakties traukinys (Night Train, 1990), Toks pasaulis: eilėraščiai Šiaurės Atėnams ir Visatai (Such the World: Poems for the North Athens and
13 the Universe, 1994), Krioklys po ledu (Waterfall under the Ice, 1997), Aguonų pelenai (Ashes of Poppies, 2002), Laiko inkliuzai /Inclusions in Time (2002), Lapkričio atkrytis (The Relapse of November, 2003), Rugsėjo pilnatis (The Moonlight of September, 2003), and other (Tūtlytė 2006: 181). Jonynas may be considered as the most lyrical poet of the five discussed in this thesis, though mainly writing in free verse. Thus, the chosen poem is a sonnet written in a free-verse style. Accordingly, Braziūnas and Sventickas agree that the form of Jonynas’ poems varies from a sonnet to a symmetrical quatrain (Sventickas 1991: 94, tr. Stundžytė). The prevailing themes in his poetry, as Pakalniškis indicates, are love and death (2001: 204, tr. Stundžytė). Most of the critics agree that a common feature of his poetry is musicality (Braziūnas 2007; Kubilius 1996: 565; Pakalniškis 2001: 203; Sventickas 1991: 95). For instance, Kubilius explains that Jonynas writes a poem “as a piece of music with many improvisations and repetitions of sounds proceeding to the rhythmic of jazz and the blues” (1996: 565, tr. Stundžytė). Similarly, Šeina specifies that improvisations made by Jonynas include the playing with “consonance and assonance of sounds” (2001: 18, tr. Stundžytė). Even more, Šeina indicates that Jonynas deliberately “distorts the rhythm and does not keep to the same number of syllables per line in order to achieve a spoken rhythmic which is similar to jazz” (2001: 18, tr. Stundžytė). Other important aspects noted by Sventickas in Jonynas’ poetic style are the absence of punctuation and repetition of words (1991: 67). Still, Sventickas points out, though Jonynas repeats words many times in a poem, he prefers not “to emphasise them in any other way (for instance, using some morphological variations), for words to be of equal importance” (1991: 93, tr. Stundžytė). Nevertheless, Sventickas indicates that “[Jonynas] creates rhythm and sometimes even rhyme by repeating the sounds of consonances and assonances, making lines flow melodically” (1991: 96, tr. Stundžytė). The youngest poet whose work is discussed in this thesis is Sigitas Parulskis (b. 1965), who belongs to the more recent generation of poets, and is especially popular with the younger public. As a fairly recent writer, it is not surprising that there is little critical material on him. Nevertheless, some critics have been found who provide a useful insight into his poetry: Gintaras Bleizgys (1996), Donata Mitaitė (2001), Vanda Zaborskaitė (2002), Vladas Braziūnas (2007) and Juozas Jasaitis (2007). Parulskis was born in the village of Obeliai on February 10, 1965 (Mitaitė 2001: 372). In 1990 he got a degree in Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius University (Mitaitė 2001: 372). From 1994 he has been a member of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union (Mitaitė 2001: 372). He has published four collections of poetry: Iš ilgesio visa tai (All This is from Longing, 1990), Mirusiųjų (Of the Dead, 1994), Mortui sepulti sint (1998), 50 eilėraščių (50 poems, 1999) (Jasaitis
14 2007: 555). The poem “Cold”, which is analysed in this paper, is taken from the collection Mirusiųjų (Of the Dead, 1994). According to Zaborskaitė, Parulskis should be discussed from “the perspective of postmodernism” (2002: 28), which has also been noted in Geda’s poetry. She points that Parulskis writes about present-day Lithuania “in crude, ironic words; here death is something that dominates this sphere” (Zaborskaitė 2002: 28, tr. Stundžytė). Furthermore, Parulskis’ poetic style in general has similarities to Geda’s poetry, in that it also contains some aspects of the postmodernism. In Mitaitė’s words, his poems are “short and concise in which the common stylistic feature is the use of crude aesthetics” (2001: 373, tr. Stundžytė). Braziūnas explains that Parulskis uses laconic phrases, figurative and accurate language (2007). Stylistically, Bleizgys explains that “he experiments and plays with line-breaks, for instance, he breaks a line in an unusual way (syntactically unexpected) which arouses new meanings in readers’ mind, or on the contrary, makes the line incomprehensible” (1996: 35-36, tr. Stundžytė). Moreover, Bleizgys points out that Parulskis uses this technique “in the middle of a poem, leaving empty grammatical spaces between words” (1996: 35-36, tr. Stundžytė). Like Geda, too, Parulskis avoids using punctuation to a great extent (Mitaitė 2001: 374). Even more, Mitaitė notes that he seems to prefer unconventional forms for his poems (2001: 374). As has been suggested by some critics, Parulskis manages to create a certain rhythm mainly by using the repetition of sounds (Mitaitė 2001: 374; Zaborskaitė 2002: 27, tr. Stundžytė; Bleizgys 1996: 35, tr. Stundžytė), while a unity of images is achieved through using words that have corresponding connotations. Thus each of these five poets, Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis is formally innovative, though in different ways; many use autobiographical elements in their poetry, although their themes are also individual. All of them are considered important Lithuanian poets and the fact that some of their poems have been translated shows that English translators agree with this evaluation.
3. FREE VERSE AND ITS TRANSLATION: THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION
Free verse is a modern form of poetry widely practiced among contemporary poets. The term is constructed of two words, ‘free’ and ‘verse’, which denote its major features. The concept of free verse is discussed in this section by considering definitions, commenting on formal and syntactic features and briefly discussing problematic aspects for its translation. In general, free verse may be defined as verse in which no regularly repeated patterns of rhyme or fixed stress count are used. However, it is considered ‘free’ only in the sense that it does not have the fixed rhythm, number of syllables and regular stress pattern which are present in
15 traditional metrical and rhymed verse. Indeed, free verse is most often defined in opposition to metrical verse because it does not contain established metres or rhyme patterns, which have become traditional forms in Western literature since the Middle Ages. At this point, it is useful to define what is meant by metre, rhyme and rhythm in poetry. According to Chris Baldick, “metre is the pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse” (1990: 135). J. A. Cuddon puts the same idea in more technical terms by referring to it as “the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse” (1991: 545). Both these critics emphasise the fixed number of syllables in the line (Baldick 1990: 135; Cuddon 1991: 545). Further, they distinguish a variety of patterns of metre that are identified according to the number of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. Baldick and Cuddon explain the technical terminology for metrical verse by stating that the length of a metrical line is often expressed by the number of feet it contains (Baldick 1990: 136; Cuddon 1991: 545). Therefore, Baldick and Cuddon explain that “if the line contains two feet then it is called a dimeter, if three then trimester, if four – tetrameter, if five – pentameter, if six – hexameter,” etc. (Baldick 1990: 136; Cuddon 1991: 545). Another important aspect of the concept of metre which is stressed by Baldick and Cuddon is that metrical patterns are rarely absolutely fixed and thus “are open to different kinds of variation” (Baldick 1990: 136; Cuddon 1991: 545). Poets may choose to obey or break rules depending on many factors. A second concept that distinguishes free verse from metrical verse is rhyme. This concept is defined similarly by Baldick and Cuddon as “the identity of sound” (Baldick 1990: 189), which is “associated with the sense of music, of rhythm, and beat” (Cuddon 1991: 797). Baldick further explains that rhyme usually occurs “at the ends of the verse lines” (1990: 189); and, as Cuddon states, it “assists in the actual structure of verse that helps to organize the verse, simultaneously opening and concluding the sense” (1991: 797). This notion is helpful while discussing free verse as well since, though it does not keep to a regular rhyme, it may occasionally use some internal rhyme. A third concept which has particular importance in the discussion of free verse is rhythm: this can be identified, using Baldick’s general idea, as the principal “pattern of sounds” that is used in a poem (1990: 190). Baldick and Cuddon define rhythm as the recurrence of equivalent beats at more or less equal intervals (Baldick 1990: 190; Cuddon 1991: 798). In addition, Cuddon points out that, traditionally, these patterns of sounds are based in English on the regular alteration of “stressed or unstressed syllables” (Cuddon 1991: 798). An important idea which concerns rhythm in verse and contributes to the understanding of how free verse differs from metrical verse is provided by Baldick when he argues that “while metre involves the recurrence of measured sound units, rhythm is a less clearly structured principle: one can refer to the unmeasured rhythms of non-metrical verse, for example, free verse” (1990: 190).
16 To illustrate how traditional fixed metre functions, the poem “Loveliest of Trees” (1896) by A. E. Housman (1859-1936) has been chosen for a brief analysis. This poem consists of three four- line stanzas with the rhyme scheme aabb. The first stanza reads as follows, with the stressed syllables marked: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. (Housman 1920: 632, ll. 1-4; stressed syllables marked by the author of this thesis)
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, which requires that each line contains eight syllables, with four iambic feet. Mostly it is regular, because out of four lines two consist of eight syllables, while the first line has nine syllables and the fourth one has seven. As Baldick explains, an “iamb is a metrical unit or foot of verse, having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable” (1990: 105). Thus the second and third lines are regular, with each second syllable being stressed: “Is hung with bloom along the bough, / And stands about the woodland ride” (ll. 2-3). Sometimes, however, metrical verse contains variations of the number of stressed syllables, which is the case in the first line. Baldick claims that iambic verse is rarely without any variations, pointing out that “it may often begin with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, which is called a reversed foot” (1990: 105). In the first and the fourth lines, indeed, Housman chooses to reverse the first foot, beginning with a stressed syllable: “Loveliest of trees”; “Wearing white.” Furthermore, Housman’s poem has a fixed rhyme pattern, aabb, because, for example, in this stanza the first line ends with the word “now” that rhymes with the word “bough,” while the third line ends with “ride,” rhyming with the “tide” in “Eastertide”. In contrast, as an example of free verse, the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” (1923) by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) has been chosen. This poem has no regular metre or rhyme: so much depends upon
a red wheel barrow
glazed with rain 5 water
beside the white
17 chickens. (Williams 1983: 561; stressed syllables have been marked by the author of this thesis)
When analysing the poem by applying the same criteria that have been used for metrical verse, what immediately catches the reader’s eye is the irregular number of syllables in lines. Thus, the syllable count for these lines is as follows: four, two, three, two, three, two, four, and two. However, Williams uses another structure which does create a degree of regularity. The eight lines of his poem are divided into four two-line stanzas, in which lines 1 and 7 contain four syllables, while lines 3 and 5 contain three syllables; the rest of the lines contain two syllables. It means that the first line of each part has two stressed syllables while each second line has only one stress: “so much depends” (l. 1); “barrow” (l. 2). Though this kind of pattern creates a rhythm of a sort, there is no fixed sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables; therefore, the poem does not have a traditional metrical pattern, as appears in Housman’s poem. Another observable feature of William’s poem is that all the lines are very short, with the longest having only four syllables: “so much depends” (l. 1), while each second line has the same number of syllables − two. Since the poem has neither a regular metrical pattern nor any rhyme scheme, it fits into Baldick’s general statement that free verse is “a kind of poetry that does not conform to any regular metre: the length of its lines is irregular, as is its use of rhyme – if any” (1990: 88). Nevertheless, although the writers of free verse do not use strict syllabic patterns, they may employ a loose syntactic parallelism, or choose to accentuate visual elements of the poem on the page such as stanzaic segmentation. They may even use a set number of syllables, or other fixed elements. In this case, the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” has a visual effect on the reader because of the different length of the lines, their brevity and their arrangement on the page. In effect, each free-verse poem uses its own form and style: there are many poems in English written in iambic tetrameter quatrains like Housman’s “Loveliest of Trees”, while Williams’ form for “The Red Wheelbarrow” is unique. It is important to identify those elements of form and style that are purposefully selected while creating a specific free-verse poem. Accordingly, the critics point out that, although the term free verse does imply a sense of irregularity, this does not mean that a free-verse poem is formless or has no sense of rhythm or any regular pattern (Wesling and Bollobás 1994: 96-98; Baldick 1990: 88-89; Abrams 1999: 105). As Baldick explains, “instead of a regular metrical pattern it [free verse] uses more flexible cadences or rhythmic groupings, sometimes supported by anaphora and other devices of repetition” (1990: 88). Similarly, according to Wesling and Bollobás, the means for achieving a feeling of “regularity” and “natural flow” include the use of various devices that also appear in rhymed verses, such as “repetition”, “parallelism” and “sound patterns”, as well as “the
18 use of formal arrangements” on the page to create a particular visual effect (1994: 96-97). All these common features are referred to in Abrams’ definition of free verse, in which he explains that “conspicuous visual cues—the variable positioning, spacing, and length of words, phrases, and lines—to control pace, pause, and emphasis in the reading” (1999: 106) are used to create a degree of regularity in free verse. Therefore, it can be asserted that free-verse rhythms are based on the poet’s individual use of patterned elements such as sound, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, rather than on a fixed number of metrical units per line. Here it is again worth quoting Abrams’ words that free verse is written in “rhythmic pattern [in which lines are] not organised into a regular metrical form […] has irregular line lengths, and either lacks rhyme or else uses it only sporadically” (1999: 105-106). Similarly, Wesling and Bollobás emphasise this contrastive feature by arguing that “free verse is distinguished from meter by the lack of a structuring grid based on counting of linguistic units and/or position of linguistic features” (1994: 96). Another significant feature of free verse which has been referred to is that it uses the positioning of words on the page. Wesling and Bollobás indicate that “some free verse uses visual forms such as the disposition of the poem across the page in representational design” (1994: 98); this creates a sense of patterning, too, replacing that provided by regular metre and rhyme. Therefore, several critics agree that it would be inaccurate to state that free verse has no internal structure or patterning; instead, it uses more flexible linguistic combinations and has an open form which allows writers to create patterns of their own (Cuddon 1991: 680; Baldick 1990: 88; Bristow 1991: 105). According to Wesling and Bollobás, “much free verse is, however, as regular as much metrical verse; the difference is that in free verse, regularity is based on linguistic or textual features that are less prominent” (1994: 97). The primary ones are variations in line length, the construction of visual unit, stanza patterns, line-breaks, parallelism, sound patterning and repetition which, as Wesling and Bollobás state, “create prosodic regularity” (1994: 97). In this way, free verse uses devices of its own to create the kind of rhythm, musicality and flow that readers associate with the broad genre of poetry. Wesling and Bollobás, Abrams, and Baldick agree that free verse relies heavily on various line lengths and grammatical breaks, uses visual cues and different stanza patterns and contains a good deal of repetition, sound patterns and parallelism (Wesling and Bollobás 1994: 97; Abrams 1999: 106; Baldick 1990: 88). These features may be divided into two broad categories: formal and syntactic. The term ‘formal’, in this paper, is considered in Frederick Garber’s words as “a mode of arrangement of the poem” (1994: 93). A more precise explanation is given by Eleanor Berry, who considers it “the way textual materials are organized so as to create shape [of the text]” (1994: 94). The most prominent formal features used in free verse which are examined in the analysis of the poems and their translations in this paper are
19 layout (stanzaic pattern, irregular line length, spacing, variable positioning or design) types of alliteration These allow the poet to create a kind of regularity, as well as to support or suggest the meaning of a poem. The outstanding syntactic features of free verse include line-breaks repetition These characteristics are discussed in more detail in Section 4, where concrete instances of these elements will be examined in the Lithuanian poems and their translations. Given the complexity of formal elements that poetry contains, it is not surprising that, on the whole, the translation of poetry is considered one of the most challenging forms of literary translation. In his article “Problems in Translating Poetry,” Sugeng Hariyanto names aesthetics as one of the problematic areas that the translator faces while translating a poem (2006). He believes that “aesthetic values are conveyed in word order and sounds” so that if the translator does not follow these he or she “distorts the beauty of the original poem” (Hariyanto 2006). Another problem that Hariyanto notes in the translation of poetry that concerns free-verse translation in particular is the maintenance of poetic structure (2006). What he means by this is “the shape and the balance of individual sentence or of each line” (Hariyanto 2006). Each free-verse poem has its own structure on the page which, for example, is created by the shape of stanzas or their division, or by the length of lines and by spacing. Thus, in free-verse translation the translator has to determine which features of the original poem have priority and only then to translate the poem focusing on these values. Sachi Ketkar states that the translator can choose several ways to translate poetry, for instance, either to be faithful to the original text or to foreignise it and to create a kind of interpretation of the original poem (2007). Lawrence Venuti and Burton Raffel argue that only a translator with “correct taste” (Venuti 2002: 73) can translate a poem; Venuti believes that “none but a poet can translate a poet” (2002: 73) and “in order to translate poetry one has to be a poet” (Raffel 1988: 102). Whether this is really true or not, still the use of this argument shows that these critics believe that what matters in translating poetry are both the aesthetic level and the poetic form. In general, thus, although translating free verse does not create problems like the transference of a similar metrical pattern or the preservation of rhyme patterns, it does include many other stylistic elements that are as difficult to retain in the target text as those of metrical or rhymed verse. Furthermore, Fabian Gudas and Michael Davidson point out the greater importance of form in free verse than in metrical verse (1994: 336). They explain that “there should be a direct relationship between the amount of space and the length of pause, in that space can fulfill such
20 expressive, and rhetorical functions as distance and silence, signaling emotion too great for words” (Gudas and Davidson 1994: 336). Therefore, free-verse poets can exploit these possibilities through the arrangement of a text on the page. In such cases, form allows poets to express themselves distinctively from content, since content deals with what the author says, which may differ from his or her unspoken implications. Finally, each free-verse poem contains different linguistic and textual elements as well as visual cues and forms which contribute to the overall meaning of the poem. Accordingly, translators have to be aware of the relevant features of free verse so that, as far as possible, they do not distort the poetic style of a specific poem and preserve as many of the interpretations implied by the poet as is possible.
4. SYNTACTIC AND FORMAL FEATURES IN LITHUANIAN FREE-VERSE POEMS
This section provides theoretical insights into some of the most common syntactic and formal features that are used by free-verse poets to create an individual style. Sub-section 4.1 considers the categorisation of line-breaks as a syntactic feature of free verse, providing specific examples for each category. Then Sub-section 4.2 presents Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s system of repetition where its kinds and functions are defined and exemplified. The third sub-section focuses on the formal characteristics of free-verse poems and is divided into two parts, where Sub-section 4.3.1 deals with how poets use layout for specific visual effects, while Sub-section 4.3.2 concentrates on the importance of alliteration as a formal device, for example, to achieve emphasis and to create musicality in a poem.
4.1 Ways of Categorising and Analysing Line-breaks as a Syntactic Feature of Free Verse
One of the prominent syntactical features in free verse is the line-break. Since free verse does not have a meter, fixed rhyme, or regular rhythm, line-breaks are mainly used to create a deliberate system for reading a free-verse poem. Along with other syntactical characteristics in free-verse poems, line-breaks allow poets to add extra meaning to a whole line because the way it is split has an impact on the way it is read and understood by the reader. However, the main effect that line- breaks produce is a sense of regularity: the line can be broken in a particular place to make the whole poem sound more or less rhythmical. This subsection provides a categorisation of line-breaks with a brief analysis of examples to illustrate their emotional or stylistic function. T. V. F. Brogan indicates that, according to the way a line ends, two major categories of line-break can be distinguished: “end-stopped” and “run-on lines” (1994: 159). An end-stopped
21 line, in Brogan’s words, appears if “line units regularly align with sense units, for example, (…) a couplet ends the first line at a major syntactic break and the second at a full stop (sentence end)” (1994: 159). Usually end-stopped lines are closed with a full stop or suspension points, which is known as enjambment (Brogan 1994: 159). James H. Pickering and Jeffrey D. Hoeper provide a more concrete definition, explaining that “an end-stopped line ends with a sentence or with a full stop and together with normal syntactical break-offs may be called a natural place of breaking a line” (1994: 745). This means that usually a line does not end with a full stop but rather in a way that is called a natural way of breaking a line because it does not deviate from syntax. A good example of an end-stopped line can be seen in Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Nojaus arkos” (1960: 29) (“Noah’s ark”): “Mes esam žvėrys, šventraštyje neminėti.” (l. 16); “We are the beasts the Scriptures do not mention.” (Nagys 1960, tr. Zdanys 1978: 141). As is indicated, the line ends with a full stop which here is not only a syntactical marker to signal closure of sentence and the line, but it also corresponds with a logically completed thought. In Brogan’s words, “the free- verse line-break affects both rhythm and intonation; [when] an illogical counter-rhythm [is turned] into the logical rhythm of syntax” (Brogan 1994: 160). This choice of a line-break allows the poet to facilitate the reading of a free-verse poem. However, very commonly, line-breaks are run-on lines which, as Alison Allexander and her colleagues. suggest, appear when “the thrust of the incomplete sentence carries on over the end of the verse line” (1983: 861). Ismail El-Naggar provides a more simple explanation that run-one lines “can be read as if a single sentence [which] are related in respect of meaning and become clear only after reading all the lines of a poem” (2003). In other words, if a line does not end with a natural syntactic break and its idea forces the reader to proceed to further lines, it is called a run-on line. A. R. Ammons’ poem “Small Song” illustrates this idea: The reeds give way to the
wind and give the wind away (Ammons 1990: 43; underlining added by the author of this thesis)
The poem is a single sentence that is split up into four lines and two stanzas. The first three lines end in run-on lines; each of them does not convey a complete meaning. Indeed, the meaning becomes unambiguous only after the final line is read. Analysing the example more closely, it shows how run-one lines can be further subdivided into normal syntactical line-breaks and unnatural syntactical line-breaks. Thus, if a line is broken in a way which interrupts syntax, but does not violate logical and grammatical sense, then it can be considered a normal syntactical line-break, while if the breaking of a line is unnatural because it deviates from grammatical and logical norms, then this type of run-on line can be called an
22 unnatural syntactical line-break, as in the separation of an article from its noun or the splitting of a word. For example, in A. R. Ammons’ poem “Small Song” the first line is a normal syntactical line- break, although it disrupts the complete syntax: “give / way” is a verbal phrase in which a verb is split from the noun; grammatically it is acceptable, even though the thought is not complete. However, the second line shows an unnatural syntactical line-break: the article “the” is split from its noun “wind”, which is even placed in another stanza. As Marjorie Perloff notes, when “the normal syntactic chain of the poem is broken” (1998), the writer calls the reader’s attention to particular words that carry more emphasis than others and are emotionally or semantically loaded (1998). Moreover, if the line is not end-stopped, its purpose can be to speed up the reading of a poem or to make pauses in places where normally they would not occur. Furthermore, while end-stopped lines make a poem sound as natural as possible, run-on lines, and especially those that are split against logical and grammatical norms, remind readers of the writer’s control over the text, for readers have to make pauses in unusual places and so become aware of its specific style. These types of line-breaks are common in both free verse and more traditional kinds of poetry. However, they carry more weight in free verse, where they are used more radically and are not offset by rhyme.
4.2 Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s System for Kinds and Functions of Repetition
One of the common stylistic feature of free verse is repetition which, in general, can be defined as the recurrence of a word, phrase or line in a poem (Shapiro 1994: 249). There are several types of repetition and, as Marianne Shapiro indicates, most of it is partial, while complete repetition is less common in literary texts (1994: 249). The further discussion in this sub-section focuses on types of repetition according to Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Károly’s (2000) taxonomy of lexical repetition. To make the discussion more comprehensible, a table of their types of repetition is provided, with examples that have been created by the author of this paper. The discussion also includes some explanation of how repetition can function in a text. There have been many theoretical discussions of lexical repetition in the literary text; however, a systemic model of repetition has been prepared by Michael Hoey (1992) who distinguishes two main types of repetition: “lexical repetition (simple or complex) and paraphrase (simple or complex)” (Hoey in Klaudy and Károly 2000: 145). Although Hoey’s model is a useful one, Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Károly have proposed a more detailed analytical version of his model, which is very helpful in discussing actual instances of repetition in a text. Table 1 illustrates the categories of repetition which they identify.
23 Table 1 Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Károly‘s Categories of Repetition (2000)
Categories Examples (examples are created by Irma Stundžytė)
LEXICAL RELATIONS Simple Derived
I. Same-unit repetition He went into the night. It A note is hanging on the was the night before outside door, which reads 1. repetition Christmas. “Please note the bookstore will be closed on Monday.” II. Different-unit repetition She concealed her inner John is always jealous of his feelings from the teacher, but best friend. Unfortunately, his 2. synonymy he could see that internal envy can destroy their rage in her eyes. friendship.
3. opposites She seems very remote, She rests all day and so will though we used to be very not finish her work today. close. 4. hyponymy They took all the furniture to a new house. Only the old- fashioned table was left for me. 5. metonymy I knew it was a woman because I found lipstick on a pillow.
TEXT-BOUND His wife was guilty. Mary always blinks when she is lying. RELATIONS (equivalence)
6. Instantial relations He told us about his little girl. Her name was Susan. (naming)
In general, Klaudy and Károly point out that lexical repetition in its primary form appears in a text when “a lexical unit, as a cohesive relation, is repeated in exactly the same form or with inflectional or derivational change” (2000: 146). However, in addition, they broaden the idea of repetition by claiming that “the content of the unit can be totally or partially repeated through a semantically related lexical unit, such as a synonym, opposite, hyponym, and metonymy” (Klaudy and Károly 2000: 146). Accordingly, they distinguish two general categories of repetition: “lexical relations” and “text-bound relations” (Klaudy and Károly 2000: 146). Both of these types can be “simple” or “derived” (Klaudy and Károly 2000: 146), as is indicated in Table 1. Klaudy and Károly explain that “the recurrence of the same lexical unit with possible inflectional difference [is called] simple same-unit repetition” (2000: 146). For example, in the two sentences, “He went into the night. It was the night before Christmas,” the word “night” appears in both without any change in form (Example 1). Meanwhile, Klaudy and Károly writes that derived same-unit repetition “refers to the appearance of an identical root morpheme, but with possible
24 derivational difference, for instance, zero derivation, phonological change, and word class change” (2000: 146). Thus, as can be seen in Example 1, sentences like “A note is hanging on the outside door, which reads ‘Please note the bookstore will be closed on Monday,’” the word “note” is a noun in the first statement, while in the second it is a verb. This is an example of zero derivation because the repeated words have the identical root and differ only in word class. Different-unit repetition can be further subdivided into four classes: synonymy, opposites, hyponymy and metonymy. Only the first two classes, synonymy and opposites, are distinguished as simple or derived: for example, “She concealed her inner feelings from the teacher, but he could see that internal rage in her eyes” (Example 2). These sentences include words “inner” and “internal” that are considered near synonyms and can be used interchangeably, though one may be more common in certain contexts than in others. In contrast to this lexical repetition, the example “She seems very remote, though we used to be very close” (Example 3) illustrates a different unit repetition: here the words “remote” and “close” are opposites, but they are semantically linked and appear as a cohesive device in this sentence. An example of hyponymy is “They took all the furniture to a new house. Only the old- fashioned table was left for me” (Example 4), where the word “furniture” is a superordinate (a general word that represents a class of similar things) and the word “table” is a hyponym because it is a specific member of the broader class of furniture. Metonymy, on the other hand, can be seen as a kind of repetition with a ‘part for the whole’ relation; thus, in Example 5 “lipstick” denotes “a woman” because its use is traditionally associated with women, not men. Text-bound relations is a category of repetition which, as Klaudy and Károly point out, “refers to Hasan’s (1984) category of instantial relations [that] include text-bound relations [which he defines] as semantic relations” (2000: 146). Thus, the link or bond that is created in a particular text has its meaning only within that text: for instance, “His wife was guilty. Mary always blinks when she is lying” (Example 6). Here the words “wife” and “Mary” are semantically related just in this particular text; in another text, the word “wife” would not mean “Mary.” Basically, this kind of repetition works with names and pronouns. In general, examples of repetition can be found in very old forms of poetic texts. On the one hand, its use is pragmatic, since, in oral cultures, its use helped people to comprehend and memorise texts. Later, with the widespread use of writing, this tradition became less obligatory, though it has never been abandoned, expecially in texts that are presented orally, including speeches and poetry. Therefore, free verse contains a good deal of repetition, whose main function is, most often, to create a rhythmic pattern which makes a poem sound fluent. Shapiro contributes to this idea when she states that repetition signals to readers a possible rhythmic pattern of repeated lines [or units] within a poem (1994: 250). Moreover, she adds that the systematic use of repetition in
25 free verse creates continuity in a poem, because “the experience of the first occurrence is continuously maintained in the present in each subsequent recurrence” (Shapiro 1994: 250). This aspect is very important in free-verse poems, where the absence of fixed metre or regular rhyme may make a poem sound less coherent and relations between words and ideas become looser. Thus, repetition allows the free-verse poet to achieve regularity and even to create unity in the whole poem. Shapiro indicates another important idea about repetition when she states that “various aspects of form all involve some kind of recurrence of equivalent elements, differing only in what linguistic elements are repeated” (1994: 248). She notes that these repetitions are given different names so that, for instance, “the recurrence of syntactic elements is called parallelism, the recurrence of stress and quantity is called metre” (Shapiro 1994: 248). Though free verse does not use fixed metres, still Shapiro provides a useful idea for this thesis by stating that “recurrence of vocalic and consonantal sounds is, variously, alliteration, assonance, or consonance” (1994: 249), a patterning which is particularly observable in free-verse poems. As additional functions of repetition, Shapiro suggests “the progression and intensification of thought” (1994: 249). Indeed, one of the most important functions that any kind of lexical repetition performs is emphasis or semantic reinforcement. For instance, if a line or a stanza contains two words that are the same or very similar in a semantic sense, this often indicates that the poet wants to stress this word as particularly meaningful. One of the most extensive uses of repetition for emphasis and semantic cohesion can be noted in religious texts: an excellent ancient source is the Bible. Here the Psalms in the Old Testament can be taken as examples of the extensive use of repetition, which in translation are close to free verse in their form. An instance of same-unit repetition is found, for example, in the opening lines of Psalm 29, “God’s Majesty in the Storm”:
Give to the LORD, you sons of God, 1 give to the LORD glory and praise, Give to the LORD the glory due his name; 2 adore the LORD in holy attire.
In this first stanza, the most evident same-unit repetition is of the word “Lord,” which is even orthographically highlighted in the edition of the Bible used. This word appears four times and is used as a simple repetition. However, the words “glory” (noun), “praise” (noun) and “adore” (verb) are examples of a derived, synonymous repetition, though the word “glory” appears two times and thus is a simple same-unit repetition as well. Furthermore, the first line contains a different-unit repetition: the word “God” is a synonym of the word “Lord.” Even more, there is an instance of a text-bound relation, where the possessive pronoun “his” refers back to the word “Lord” (l. 2). A
26 similar example of lexical repetition can be found in line 6 of Psalm 30, “Thanksgiving for Deliverance from Death”:
For his anger lasts but a moment: a lifetime, his good will. At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn, rejoicing.
This passage is full of lexical repetition of opposites: “anger” and “good will,” “a moment” and “a lifetime,” “nightfall” and “dawn,” and “weeping” and “rejoicing.” Such an extensive use of binary oppositions creates a specific kind of rhythm and musicality while listening to or reading these lines. Shapiro interestingly notes that “in free verse the mere fact of a repeated lineation itself is a form of repetition that tells the reader to expect rhythm and to pace the reading of the poem so as to realise, as prominently as possible, the rhythmic parallelism of successive lines” (Shapiro 1994: 250). This function is, to a certain extent, the most often intended by poets so that translators have to be aware of its importance. Although there are a number of approaches to lexical repetition in a literary text, Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Károly’s categorization has been chosen as an excellent recent pragmatic model that is easily applicable to the analysis of free-verse poems. This categorization allows verifying whether translations maintain the same kind and number of lexical repetitions as appear in the original poem.
4.3 Formal Characteristics of Free-Verse Poems
Free verse, as has been stated in Section 3, lacks the regular system of rhyme, rhythm and fixed metre that is used in a wide variety of traditional poetic forms. The concept of free verse does not include any specific form at all, contrary to, for instance, sonnets, limericks or ballads, which have predetermined forms. Nonetheless, free verse does have features of its own. This sub-section deals with two formal characteristics that are of great importance in the analysis of free verse. In Sub- section 4.3.1, the discussion of the first characteristic, layout, is mainly concerned with its visual effect which conveys additional meanings to readers. Sub-section 4.3.2 analyses the importance of sound patterns that are usually deliberately used by free-verse poets instead of traditional patterns such as rhyme and metre in order to make a poem sound rhythmic and melodious.
27 4.3.1 The Purpose of Layout in Free-Verse Poems: Visual Effects
The way a poem is designed and located on a page became important after the first written poems appeared. The concept layout can be considered as part of the broader term form. As Chris Baldick and Frederick Garber indicate, the latter term has a variety of meanings; the ones that are relevant to this discussion refer to form as “the structure or unifying principle of design” (Baldick 1990: 86), or a “mode of arrangement of the text; that is, the way textual materials are organised so as to create shape” (Garber 1994: 94). In addition, Baldick explains that “when speaking of a work’s formal properties, critics usually refer to its structural design and patterning” (1990: 86). Though form does not always refer to the visual appearance of a poem on a page, this idea is present in the critics’ discussion. Thus, for the analysis of free verse, it is necessary to consider the functions that a particular form, or, more precisely, the layout, serves for readers when they open a book and see a free-verse poem on the page. According to Baldick, literary criticism differentiates two principal forms that are used in poetry; these are “organic form” and “mechanic or conventional form” (1990: 86). Baldick explains that an “organic form is said to evolve from within the developing work, [while a] mechanic form is imposed as a predetermined design” (1990: 86). Good examples of mechanic or conventional forms include the sonnet, ballade and ode that have a definite structure. The opposite of a conventional form is an organic form: this can be viewed a non-standard, irregular or unconventional form which has been used by Western poets mostly since the beginning of the 20th century and is particularly observable in free verse. The latter form, according to Baldick’s definition, “follows its own inner logic according to the emotion or thought expressed” (1990: 86). Ocassionally, it can take its shape from the content of the poem itself and convey some additional emphasis to the words. For instance, the poem “The Altar” by George Herbert (1593-1633) has the shape of an altar which re-inforces the overall meaning of the poem; however, this poem has regular rhyme and metre. According to M. H. Abrams, free verse, as an organic form, uses such formal features as stanza patterns, irregular line length and visual cues to create a kind of regularity and to unify the overall meaning of a poem (1999: 106). In general, all these formal features are the major components of layout: the way words are arranged in lines, lines arranged in stanzas, and stanzas or lines arranged on a page. An important aspect in the discussion of layout is whether a poem is split into stanzas or not. Edward R. Weismiller defines stanza as “a group of lines, visually distinguished from other groups of lines by white space” (1994: 289). Weismiller also points out that almost all types of poetry vary in their use of stanzaic patterns (1994: 289-290), with free verse being no exception. He further explains that “splitting a poem into stanzas provides melody” (Weismiller 1994: 290): the stanzaic divisions create a sense of rhythm.
28 Furthermore, in certain cases, Eleanor Berry explains that “free verse [can] create tight syntactic and semantic connections [that] typically extend across stanza boundaries by arranging lines in sight-stanzas” (1994: 336). A sight-stanza, for instance, may begin not at the margin, but in the middle of a page. Sigitas Geda’s poem “Pavasaris tėvo sode” (Table 1) is a good example of this pattern. If poets decide to arrange their free-verse poems into sight-stanzas, they not only achieve lexical and syntactical unity but also, in Barry’s words, “score for performance” (1994: 336). This means that poets make their stanzaic division to direct the readers in pauses. Stanzas, however, are only one way of creating organic form. Weismiller suggests the interesting idea that “some free-verse poems are similar to conversation structure because we do not speak in rhyme” and do not use any stanzaic patterns (1994: 291). As Abrams states, in addition to stanzaic patterns, free verse uses various other “visual cues” (1999: 106), while Berry refers to the length of words or lines, spacing, the variable positioning of words or lines, and white space (1994: 336). A good example of how free verse play with the tradition of stanzas is Sigitas Geda’s free- verse poem “Pavasaris tėvo sode,” translated by Laima Sruoginis as “Spring: Father’s Orchard” (1997: 66-67).
Table 1
“Pavasaris tėvo sode” (LT) (Geda 1988: 20)
skaito angelas mano atverstą knygą 5 po lapą po skiemenį melsvą kas ją varto 10 šiam vėjy tarp tėvo baltų obelų 15 kas kad metai man trys aš jau miręs 20
Visually this poem has an unusual layout with variable positioning of lines on the page; some lines are indented, creating a kind of visual allusion to stanzaic patterns (sight stanzas). The poet does not use any punctuation marks or spacing between lines to signal pauses. The majority of words are one or two syllables, with only a small number having three syllables, so that Geda manipulates the reading pace through the length of words and lines. In addition, the indentation of some lines
29 juxtaposes images because it creates a pause before the beginning of another line; for instance, “po lapą / po skiemenį” (“page by page / each blue syllable”) which is a kind of listing, going from general to specific: “lapą” (page) to “skiemenį” (syllable). As this example indicates, irregular line- lengths are another way of achieving an individual layout in free verse. Wesling and Bollobás, along with Abrams, agree in distinguishing two types of free-verse lines: “shorter-lined” and “longer-lined” verses (Wesling and Bollobás 1994: 97; Abrams 1999: 107). Wesling and Bollobás claim that the length of lines is an important device for creating the over-all form of a poem as well as regulating the flow of the poem (1994: 97). They explain that “a short-lined free verse poem contains only one word or unit, or two, three words or units within a line, the intention of which is either to slow or to speed the reading of a poem” (Wesling and Bollobás 1994: 97). Another poem by Geda, “Kryžius, reiškiantis mirtį” (“The Cross, Meaning Death”), translated by Jonas Zdanys, provides a further example of extremely short lines.
Table 2
“Kryžius, reiškiantis mirtį” (LT) (Geda 1988: 84) lietuviai niekaip negalėjo priimt Kristaus 5 mokslo kadangi jis liepė gulti 10 ant moterų ir nukryžiuoti o 15 baltai paprastai įsigydavo sau palikuonių 20 pasisodinę jas ant žirgų pakeliui 25 į karą
This Lithuanian free-verse poem is made up of 26 lines in which all, except the last line, contain only a single word, while as many as seven of these lines have only one syllable. The layout of the poem requires a vertical, rather than the usual horizontal, reading of lines. The purpose of such a structure, as Wesling and Bollobás, as well as Abrams, state is to slow down the reading of a poem
30 and force readers to be more focused on isolated words (Wesling and Bollobás 1994: 97; Abrams 1999: 106). It could also be pointed out that a vertical arrangement of lines disturbs readers’ eyes because in Western texts such a layout of words is unusual. In contrast to extremely short lines, very long lines may be found in free-verse poems as well. When the line length becomes similar to that of a prose-text line, the reading becomes extremely horizontal, going from the left to the right side of the page. An example of a layout that compels an extreme horizontal reading is the poem “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” (1865) by Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
Table 3
“Cavalry Crossing a Ford” (EN) (Whitman 1994: 903)
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands, 1 They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun—hark to the music clank, Behold the silvery river; in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink, Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles, Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while, 5 Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
At first glance, this poem looks like a piece of prose because it seems to be written as a paragraph. According to punctuation, the whole poem consists of two very loosely punctuated sentences, of which the longest line has 16 words (l. 4), while the shortest contains six words (l. 6). Such long lines do not require emphasis on each word as in Geda’s poem. Though the poem does not have any definite meter, it does have a rhythm which is even more audible in the long lines. A final important formal feature of layout is the use of visual cues, the variable positioning of words, phrases, and lines, and spacing between words, lines and stanzas. According to Abrams, visual form starts with “the disposition of the poem across the page” (Abrams 1999: 107). Berry suggests that even “the white space may be as important as the blank print to express emotion—as an image of pause, disjunction, the silence that surrounds and spaces the text” (Berry 1994: 336- 337), while Wesling and Bollobás feel visual cues signal emotion that cannot be expressed in words or “juxtapose images” within the poem (Wesling and Bollobas 1994: 98). Examples of such visual cues will be discussed in Sub-section 5.2.2. In general, free verse uses various formal features to create a pattern in a poem or/and to control reading pace, emphasis and pausing of the poem by deliberately violating the standard
31 structuring of verse lines. Thus, formal features are an important part of free verse, even though the writer of free verse has more freedom of choice than the writer of, for example, a sonnet or haiku.
4.3.2 The Importance of Alliteration in Free-Verse Poems
A central feature used by free-verse poets in their works is the sound pattern. T. V. F. Brogan states that “sound patterning often highlights a sequence of key terms central to the thematic progression of the poem” (1994: 283). This sub-section focuses on one major type of sound patterning, alliteration, providing a table of categories and discussing some examples. The first concept associated with the use of sound patterns in verse is musicality. In general, Kirsten Malmkjaer states that “poetry […] explicitly invites attention to virtual sound, and poetry is in any case often written with a special eye to the sound effects that may be achieved at readings” (2005: 70). Since free verse has no regular metrical pattern and does not use rhyme or uses it sparingly and irregularly, it is the combination of sounds which creates musicality in a free- verse poem. According to James H. Pickering and Jeffrey D. Hoeper, “such sounds as ‘f, v, th, sh’ are gentle sounds and produce soft articulation, [whereas] sounds like ‘p, b, d, k, t’ echo more harshness” (1994: 753). Similarly, Brogan suggests that a poem’s sounds may express harmony and melodiousness or dissonance (1994: 285). Moreover, Ismail El-Naggar believes that in poems “sometimes, music becomes more important that the meaning of lexical units” (2003). One of the key sound devices to create a specific kind of musicality is alliteration, which is also the most common sound pattern in free verse. Brogan calls it “a scheme [that] organises, highlights, and intensifies meaning in all verbal strings (1994: 283, 285). If one looks at literary criticism, the main difference among existing definitions of alliteration is the approach to the positioning of sounds within a line. Therefore, Chris Baldick, J. A. Cuddon, Percy G. Adams, and M. H. Abrams explain alliteration as the repetition of the same sound which is an initial consonant of nearby words (Baldick 1990: 5; Cuddon 1991: 25; Adams 1994: 12; Abrams 1999: 8). Therefore, these scholars identify alliteration as appearing only in those places where a consonant recurs at the beginning of a word or when a stressed syllable is repeated within a word. However, Edwin J. Barton and Glenda A. Hudson argue that the term alliteration should not be limited to just initial sounds of words or syllables, but rather extended into a broader sense; they suggest that the recurrence of the same sound at the beginning, middle, or even at the end of words should be regarded as alliteration as well (2004: 8-9). The further analysis in this thesis follows Barton and Hudson’s more liberal notion of alliteration. Abrams, Baldick, and Barton and Hudson all differentiate between two major types of alliteration: consonance and assonance (Baldick 1990: 5; Abrams 1999: 8-9; Barton and Hudson
32 2004: 8-9). Accordingly, they describe consonance as the repetition of a sequence of the same consonant sounds, while assonance is the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds (Baldick 1990: 5; Abrams 1999: 8-9; Barton and Hudson 2004: 8-9). In a translation, it is unlikely that exactly the same sound can be repeated in the same place. Therefore, for this thesis alliteration is also categorised according its effect (the strongest, strong, weaker, weak), and as to whether it is maintained in the same place in the translation or with some variations. The table below illustrates categories of alliteration created by the author of this thesis.
Table 1 Categorisation of Alliteration Patterns
Effect Categories I. SEMANTIC ALLITERATION:
Strongest 1. Same-word alliteration in the same line (eg. cloud … cloud ) Strong 2. Same-word alliteration in different lines (eg. cloud …/ … cloud) Weaker 3. Different-word alliteration in the same line (eg. clear … cloud) Weak 4. Different-word alliteration in different lines (eg. clear …/ … cloud) II. PHONETIC ALLITERATION:
Strongest 1. Initial letter of word or syllable alliteration in words that follow each other (eg. a bad boy carries a big bag) Strong 2. Internal alliteration within the same line (eg. The bag is big ) Weaker 3. Internal alliteration in different lines (eg. The boy is good/ And brings a big apple. Weak 4. External alliteration in words that follow each other (eg. I hold a bird)
A more detailed analysis of these categories together with examples is provided in Sub-section 5.2.3. Nevertheless, it is interesting first to present what can be called a general tendency in the use of alliteration by looking at the amount of repetition of sounds in free-verse texts and identifying some categories of alliteration patterns. For this purpose, first the poem “Vasaros pavakarys” (2001) (“Summer Evening”) by Antanas A. Jonynas, translated by Jonas Zdanys in cooperation with Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury, has been chosen. The instances of alliteration are emphasised by the author of this thesis in Table 2.
33 Table 2 Example of Consonant Alliteration
“Vasaros pavakarys” (LT) (Jonynas 2002: 34)
Žiogai mažytėm pašėlusiom žirklėmis įnirtingai kerpa peizažą žolėje ant kranto numesti suskeldėję irklai už upės gagena besiganančios žąsys beržo žieve ropinėja apkvaitusios skruzdės vakarop saulė ima garuoti subridusios nendrės kažką nesuprantamai kuždasi moteris tempia per pievą žiogų prišienautą karutį nieko nieko man tavo vardas neprimena visą dieną tavęs nepaminėjau nė karto tuoj danguje prasidės saulėlydžio Cinema tu iškirpta iš kadro
Once certain letters are put in bold, it is clear visually that this free-verse poem contains a good deal of alliteration, mainly of certain consonant sounds. Table 3 presents the results of counting consonant sounds that reappear in various positions in words and which are used throughout the poem.
Table 3 Types and Number of Alliterated Sounds
Alliterated Types of Sounds Number of Occurrences consonant sounds in the Poem plosive ‘g’ 7
‘d’ plosive 12
‘p’ plosive 15
‘k’ plosive 17
‘š’ fricative 4
‘ž ’ fricative 13
‘s’ fricative 29
The figures in the table show that the total number of frequently recurring plosives is 51 in the poem, while the number of recurring fricatives is 46. Such an extensive use of these consonant
34 sounds has to have a particular auditory effect. Since the poem is called “Vasaros pavakarys” (“Summer Evening”), the title itself evokes all kinds of images that here are mainly auditory and the chosen vocabulary indicates the poet’s intention to imitate the sounds as well as sights of nature: the sound that is produced while pronouncing fricatives is similar to the humming and rustle suggested by words like ‘žiogas,’ ‘žąsys,’ ‘skruzdės,’ and ‘kuždasi.’ In general, the extensive use of alliteration emphasizes the semantic meaning of the poem and gives richness and musical quality to its language. The recurrence of consonant sounds is not the only type of alliteration: free verse uses a good deal of the repetition of vowel sounds as well. Several lines from the poem “Strėlė danguje” (1969) (“Arrow in the Sky”) by Henrikas Radauskas (1910-1970) may be taken as an example that illustrates the use of assonance. The most interesting instances of assonance alliteration are put in bold.
Table 4 The Example of Assonance Alliteration
“Strėlė danguje” (LT) (Radauskas 1999: 25, ll. 15-18)
Paleido naktį į galingą dangų 15 Prašyt pagalbos, bet, neradus Dievo, 16 Strėlė klajoja tarp šaltų žvaigždynų, 17 Nedrįsdama sugrįžt. 18
Line 15 contains the phonemic alliteration of the vowel sound ‘a’ which recurs in the initial position of all the four main words within the line: this is the strongest kind of assonance. This sound is called unrounded by Kirsten Malmkjaer (2005: 73) and is very common in the Lithuanian language. Though not exactly the same sound, it is phonetically represented as [a: / Λ /a]. Overall, the vowel sound ‘a’ is repeated in the initial syllable in lines 15 to 17, which can be called the strongest category of alliteration. The last line has the long vowel sound ‘į’ [i:] in words “Nedrįsdama sugrįžt” (“And was afraid to return”). Here, the sound appears in a middle syllable of the first word and in the final syllable of the second word. The repetition of assonances even more than consonants gives musical tone to a poem and creates a strong rhythmical pattern that unifies words, images and the lines within the poem. In conclusion, although the concept of alliteration is defined according to different aspects by different critics, it is clear that writers use alliteration, in Adams’ words, “to join sound to sense and to decorate their lines” (1994: 13). Poets tend to use both types of alliteration extensively in their free-verse poems, and so achieve musicality as well as to produce a specific correlation of sounds and images within a poem. Furthermore, the most important effect achieved by poets using
35 alliteration is the emphasis of words that are either essential to the meaning of a poem or to its sound effects.
5. STRATEGIES USED BY JONAS ZDANYS, LAIMA SRUOGINIS AND KERRY SHAWN KEYS IN TRANSLATING LITHUANIAN FREE-VERSE POEMS
5.1 Theoretical Concepts Used for Translation Strategies by Lawrence Venuti and Eirlys E. Davies
Though the practice of literary translation includes many critical approaches, those that are suggested by Lawrence Venuti and Eirlys E. Davies have been chosen for the analysis of the translations of the free-verse poems under discussion. Subsection 5.1.1 defines and discusses Venuti’s general approach to literary translation. The second subsection reviews Eirlys E. Davies’ practical terminology for translation strategies that are easily applied to free-verse translation. Each of Davies’ seven major strategies is defined and illustrated with examples that have been created by the author of the thesis.
5.1.1 Lawrence Venuti’s Concepts of Domestication and Foreignisation
There are many different methods and strategies used in the translation of literary texts; these can be divided into those that produce a translation which conforms to the values of the source culture and stays as close as possible to the original text, in contrast to those that produce a translation closer to the norms of the target audience and their culture. Many critics use a variety of terms for different translation procedures that can be placed under two broad categories, which Lawrence Venuti (1995) chooses to call as domestication and foreignisation. According to Venuti, the translation of texts from one culture into another usually requires a choice between two translation procedures, domestication and foreignisation. A translator’s decision either to domesticate or to foreignise affects the whole translation process and leads either to a translation which fits in easily with the target readership’s cultural context, or to a text that constantly reminds target readers of cultural differences (Venuti 2002: 18-21). In Venuti’s words, “domestication is the reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values” (Venuti 2002: 20). In this case, the translator chooses to eliminate the more difficult cultural differences of the source text. Furthermore, Venuti argues that translators try to stay “invisible” (2002: 48) in the target texts they produce especially if they replace all the instances of foreignness that appear in the source text with conventional elements from the target language. Once they do this, the target readers can
36 read such a text as though it was originally written in the target language. In particular, Venuti notes that “Anglo-American culture has long been dominated [since the sixteenth century] by domesticating theories that recommend fluent translation” (2002: 21). Since this thesis deals with translations into English, an analysis of the translations of Lithuanian free-verse poems is an interesting way to see whether the translators Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys domesticate or not. The opposite strategy to domestication is foreignisation, which Venuti defines as “a method of translation which is the non-transparent representation of an essence that resides in the foreign text and is valuable in itself” (2002: 20). Furthermore, he explains that this strategy “signifies the differences of the foreign text, yet only by disrupting the cultural codes that prevail in the target language” (Venuti 2002: 20). Here the translator decides to deviate from target- language conventions by retaining some of the ‘foreignness’ of the source text’s language or cultural norms. Furthermore, Venuti indicates that “the strategy of foreignisation can alter the ways translations are read as well as produced” (2002: 24). For example, using non-English syntax reminds readers that the text is translated, not originally written in English. Therefore, he suggests that specialists “[should] (to) develop theory and practice of translation that resists dominant target-language cultural values so as to signify the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text” (2002: 23). He justifies this suggestion by insisting that each culture’s “strangeness” (Venuti 2002: 24) is a great value to target-language readers because they can acquire knowledge that contributes to their cosmopolitan experience. The extent to which the strategies of domestication and foreignisation are exemplified in the translations of the Lithuanian free-verse poems under discussion are examined in Sections 5.2 and 6.
5.1.2 Eirlys E. Davies’ Categories of Translation Strategies
Unlike Lawrence Venuti’s approach, which is broadly theoretic, Eirlys E. Davies suggests several pragmatic strategies of translation: though she focuses on culture-specific items, these can be applied for the analysis of the translations. The terms used by Davies for translation strategies have been chosen because, as Milda Danytė suggests, they are “transparent” and “easy understandable” (2006: 204). Davies identifies seven translation strategies: preservation, addition, omission, globalisation, localisation, transformation and creation (Davies 2003: 72-89). Davies’ first strategy is preservation: when a source-text item has no close equivalent in the target culture; it is maintained without any changes in the translation (Davies 2003: 72-73). For instance, if in a Lithuanian text the word “naminis” (a Lithuanian mythic creature, a bogeyman of a domestic kind) appears, the translator may decide to preserve the word as it is without any change
37 or explanation in the English text, even though this word does not convey its real meaning to the English readers. In this case the exotic sense of the Lithuanian-text word is preserved in the English translation, but what is changed is the effect which the word has on the English readers. In this case English readers are not familiar with a particular kind of a bogeyman that is familiar to Lithuanian readers, as it goes back to pagan traditions when people believed a wide variety of supernatural creatures. This, however, is not the same in English, where the understanding of a bogeyman is different from the more specific ones held by Lithuanians. A second strategy is addition in which a translator preserves the source-text element and provides, an extra-textual (for example, a footnote) or an inter-textual explanation (one incorporated right after the word in the source text) (Davies 2003: 78-79). For example, if the Lithuanian text contains the word “kąstinis,” in the English text it may appear as “kąstinis, curd stirred up with garlic served with boiled potatoes or bread” (an inter-textual explanation). The third of Davies’ strategies is called omission: here the translator does not decode the meaning of the source-text word, but simply decides to leave it out (Davies 2003: 79-80). For instance, if a Lithuanian text states that a character “suvalgė salotas, sriubą ir vėdarus,” naming three items, it may be translated as “he ate salad and soup”, with the exotic culture-specific food item, “vėdarus,” (cleaned pig’s intestines stuffed with grated potatoes and then cooked in an oven) not translated. Here the translator has to decide whether the word is important to the whole meaning of the text or can be excluded without any significant loss in overall meaning. Omission in poetry, as in other kinds of literary texts, frequently appears in combination with the strategy of compensation. Thus Sandor Hervey, Ian Higgins and Michael Loughridge define compensation as The technique of making up for the translation loss of important source text features by approximating their effects in the target text through means other than those used in the source text – that is, making up for source text effects achieved by one means through using other means in the target text (1995: 229).
As Mona Baker comments, the translator’s main purpose is to achieve an effect on target-text readers similar or adequate to that of the source text (1992: 78). The translator may decide, for example, that the original alliteration cannot be reproduced, but that it could be provided elsewhere in the text. Furthermore, Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge distinguish two major types of compensation that can be found in free-verse poems, compensation in kind and compensation in place (1995: 27). Accordingly, they explain that “compensation in kind refers to making up for one type of textual effect in the source text by another type in the target text” (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 1995: 27-28). For example, translators cannot reproduce a source-text word with an
38 equivalent target text but choose to compensate by finding a synonymous word with a more implicit meaning (Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge 1995: 27-28). Another way could be to compensate the loss of connotative meanings by translating at least the literal meaning of a word. A second type of compensation that is commonly used in free-verse translations is compensation in place. Hervey, Higgins and Loughridge define this as “making up for the loss of a particular effect found at a given place in the source text by creating a corresponding effect at an earlier or later place in the target text” (1995: 29). An example of this type for poetry would be when alliteration, a central feature of a poem, cannot be precisely and equally intensively reproduced in the target text because the key words do not alliterate in the required ways. In such a case, the translator often tries at least partly to compensate for this loss by using alliteration in different places from where it occurs in the source text. Globalisation is another strategy noted by Davies: this is explained as “the process of replacing a source-text word with the more neutral or general one, in the sense that it is accessible to audiences from a wider range of cultural background” (Davies 2003: 83). For instance, the Lithuanian text may include the word “Nemunas,” the longest river in Lithuania, but it is translated just as “the river” in the English text. The opposite strategy to globalisation is localisation, “when a source-text word is replaced with a word that is firmly bound to a target culture and is natural to a target audience” (Davies 2003: 84), which means that the item is established and conventionalised in a target culture, and is a culture-specific item to the source text readers. For example, the phrase “šaltalankių arbata (tea made from sea buckthorn) appears in the Lithuanian text and is translated as “English breakfast tea” because this kind of tea is a part of British everyday reality. The strategy of transformation refers to a process when a source-text word is replaced with a target-text word “that caries a similar meaning, but it distorts the original meaning of the source text” (Davies 2003: 86-87). For example, when the Lithuanian phrase is “ji nuskynė bijūnų iš darželio” (she plucked peonies in the garden) and the translator translates a word “bijūnų / peonies” as “she plucked daisies in the garden”, here both words refer to a flower, but a peony is a mid- summer flower while a daisy is a flower of early spring, which in this case might distort the meaning of the whole text. The last of the seven strategies is the rather rare one of creation, which “allows a translator to become a kind of author, as well because one creates a culture-specific item that is absent in a source text” (Davies 2003: 88). For instance, if the Lithuanian text includes the phrase “jis valgė sausainius” (he ate biscuits) and it is translated as “he ate biscuits and rhubarb crumble”, the translator has created a culture-specific item “rhubarb crumble,” a traditional cake in England, which was not in the text. The use of this strategy can be explained, for example, by the translator’s
39 desire to domesticate the source text and so to bring it closer to the target-text readers’ own experience.
5.2 Applying Venuti’s Concepts of Domestication and Foreignisation to Translation Choices Made by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys
This analytical part consists of four sub-subsections, all of which concider translation choices made by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys while rendering Lithuanian free-verse poems. An attempt is made to apply Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignisation to the translators’ decisions in places, wherever it is possible. In cases when Venuti’s general approach cannot be applied for a specific translators’ choice, the older terms of ‘free’ and ‘faithful’ translation are used. According to Jean-Francois Joly, a free translation is “a looser, less slavish rendering of the source text, less bound to individual words and their sequencing” (2001: 87); while, on the contrary, faithful translation, in Venuti’s words, is achieved by “rendering correctly the meaning of the original and exhibiting the general spirit which pervades it” (2002: 78). Sub-section 5.2.1 focuses on issues in translating the titles of Lithuanian free-verse poems. Here the major issue becomes the translation of Lithuanian cultural references that appear in these titles. Sub-section 5.2.2 analyses how the translators manage to transfer line-breaks and layout without losing most of the effects created by the Lithuanian poets. Sub-section 5.2.3 identifies strategies that are used in translating alliteration, analysing specific examples. The last sub-section identifies kinds of repetition in the Lithuanian texts and discusses their translation problems.
5.2.1 Issues in the English Translation of the Titles of Lithuanian Free-Verse Poems
One of the first decisions that the translator has to make while working on a free-verse poem is the rendering of its title: this is often an important indication of the major theme in the poem. Thus, transmitting the explicit and suggested meanings of the title of a poem will lead its readers to a much more rewarding experience of the poem, for they will have some idea of what to expect from its contents. This sub-section analyses the translators’ decisions that are made in translating some of the Lithuanian free-verse poems selected for this thesis. Their translation choices will be discussed mainly within Lawrence Venuti’s concept of translation as domestication or foreignisation. A closer reading of the Lithuanian free-verse titles suggested that they can be grouped in two categories: titles that include proper nouns and those that do not contain any culture-specific items. The first group includes three free-verse poems by Sigitas Geda: “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse,” “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” and “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą.” “Angelas krintantis
40 Palangoj” and “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” have two English versions of their translation: the first poem was translated by both Jonas Zdanys (1995) and Kerry Shawn Keys (2002), while the second was translated by Zdanys (1995) and Laima Sruoginis (1997). All the titles of three of Geda’s poems contain proper nouns: Justiniškės, a middle-class residential neighbourhood in Vilnius; Palanga, the main seaside resort town in Lithuania; and marsiečiai, the hypothetical native inhabitants of the planet Mars. In English, proper nouns differ from common nouns in being written with a capital letter, but in Lithuanian the names of national groups are never written with capital letters: for example, in Geda’s title the word “marsiečiai” (Martians) is not capitalised. The words Justiniškės and Palanga are Lithuanian culture-bound terms because no other country has places with the same names. Even though English readers would understand that these are places in Lithuania, these names would not evoke the images of Palanga or Justiniškės that Lithuanian readers have, as many have been to these places or at least have heard of them or seen them on television. However, the word “marsiečiai” (Martians) is a universalism and a similar understanding of this word is shared by both Lithuanian and English readers. The translators’ decisions about how to translate these titles is somewhat different. First, Zdanys translates Geda’s title “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” as “An Angel Falling in Palanga,” while Keys chooses “Angel Falling in Palanga.” Here the only difference is that Keys decides to omit the article before the countable noun “angel,” which breaks a grammatical rule in English that a singular countable noun has to have an article. Yet Zdanys follows the English-language norm and puts the article “an” before the noun “angel.” Zdanys’ choice of translation, in Venuti’s terms, can be called domestication, because the translator is faithful to an English-grammar norm and puts an article where the English reader would normally expect it. On the other hand, Keys decides to ignore this rule and so stays closer to the Lithuanian language, which does not have articles. Thus his strategy can be called foreignisation, making Keys a more visible producer of the translation and following the Lithuanian-language structure precisely. Still, it can be argued that it is common in English to leave out an article in the title of a poem. to check for the tendency whether titles are written with an article or not in English poetry, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (1983)1 and The Norton Anthology of English Literature (1986)2 have been examined to provide evidence. For in many cases a singular countable noun is preceded by an article: William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper,” “The Fly,” “The Lamb,” “The Tiger” (Norton Anthology of English 1986) Dante Gabriel Rossetti like “The Sonnet,” “A Superscription,” ______1 Alexander W. Allison et al., eds. 1983. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company 2 M. H. Abrams, ed. 1986. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 5th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton and Company
41 “A Triad” (Norton Anthology of English 1986). However, there are many cases as, for example, D. H. Lawrence’s “Piano” and “Snake,” George Herbert “Prayer” or Josephine Miles’ “Student,” “Moon,” and “Bird” (Norton Anthology of Poetry 1983) and many others where titles with a singular countable noun do not include any articles. Clearly, English writers are allowed to choose whether to obey this grammar rule or not in the titles of poems. However, the use of an article is not the only issue of translation in discussing this poem; a more important one is that of the culture-specific item “Palanga.” Both Zdanys and Keys capitalise this word, marking it as a proper noun so that English readers will understand that this word refers to a location. However, the word itself will not arouse any associations similar to that of Lithuanian readers, who think of Palanga as the largest and most representative seaside resort of the Lithuanian Baltic seashore, evoking images like the pier, cafés on Basanavičius Street, crowded sandy beaches and the Amber Museum. Keys decides to simply preserve the proper noun, Palanga, without providing any explanation, while Zdanys considers the word important to the understanding of the content of the poem and provides a footnote, an external explicitation: “Lithuanian resort town on the Baltic Sea” (Zdanys 1997: 113). In his explanation Zdanys includes some major information about Palanga to satisfy his English readers’ curiosity and make their reading more meaningful. This use of explicitation is a form of domestication. On the contrary, Keys foreignises the title, since he preserves the name of the town, “Angel Falling in Palanga,” without any explanation leaving it as an exotic word for his target English audience. Another poem by Geda which also contains a proper noun is “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse,” translated by Keys as “Trash Truck in Justiniškės.” The translator follows the same strategy as he did with the translation of “Angel Falling in Palanga,” remaining faithful to Lithuanian-language structures and omitting the article before the singular countable noun “trash truck.” However, he does follow English rules when the locative case ending “Justiniškėse” becomes “in Justiniškės” the nominative case. Here Keys is obliged to make this adjustment, for English nouns do not have endings to signal a case as Lithuanian does. As with “Palanga,” he offers no explanation of where or what this place is. An interesting example of the translating of a title occurs with Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą”, translated by both Zdanys and Sruoginis. Zdanys chooses to translate the title in a very faithful manner as “An Answer to the Martians’ Inquiry,” while Sruoginis interprets it differently, “An Answer to a Martian Chronicler.” The first difference between the two translations is the choice of number: in the original the noun Martians is written in the plural, but in Sruoginis’ translation it becomes singular with an indefinite article. Unlike Sruoginis, Zdanys preserves the plural form of the noun and puts the definite article before it, “the Martians’.” Another important issue is their semantic choice in rendering the word “užklausimą” (inquiry), which Zdanys
42 translates as “inquiry” but Sruoginis as “chronicler.” According to Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1996) the word, inquiry, means “a seeking or request for truth, information, or knowledge” and the word, chronicler, here can have two meanings: “a chronological record of events; a history” or “a writer of a chronicle; a recorder of events in the order of time; an historian” Semantically, Zdanys’ translation is much closer to the meaning of the Lithuanian word. Sruoginis chooses to translate the title according to her interpretation of the contents of the poem, because Geda does give a chronological account of events. Thus, Sruoginis’ title becomes more specific than Geda’s own title and less faithful as a translation. The second group of titles does not include culture-specific elements, but still illustrates several interesting strategies of translation. The most common strategy in this group is foreignisation: for instance, Henrikas Nagys’ Latin title “Laterna Obscura”: “laterna” meaning ‘a lamp’ or ‘a torch’, “obscura” − ‘dim, dark, obscure’; ‘only faintly seen’ (Kazavinis 2007: 86, 146), is preserved by Zdanys as “Laterna Obscura.” Zdanys’ decision to leave the Latin as it is does not distort the primary effect of the title that was created by Nagys; therefore, the title has the same effect on both Lithuanian and English readers some of whom will understand Latin and some will not. In the same way, semantic differences in the Lithuanian and English vocabulary create a double meaning in Sigitas Parulskis’ poem “Šaltis” translated by Sruoginis as “Cold.” The latter word has the same orthographical form as a noun and as an adjective in English, but in the Lithuanian title the word, “cold,” is undoubtedly a noun. Therefore, the effect is somewhat different because English readers are not sure from reading the title what they can expect to find in the content of Parulskis’ poem. Furthermore, Zdanys in cooperation with Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury translate the title of Antanas A. Jonynas’s poem “Gaisras” as “Fire.” The issue here is that Lithuanian has two different words that refer to fire: the word ‘ugnis’ has the more neutral meaning of the English word “fire,” “a state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996), while the word ‘gaisras’ means a fire that is destroying something: “the destructive burning of a building, town, forest, etc.” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). Since the English has only one word for two different meanings, the title “Fire” loses the clearly negative notion of a destructive fire, which was intended by Jonynas. The last example of the translation of titles is “Lėlių siuvėja” by Nijolė Miliauskaitė, which Zdanys translates as “The Doll Maker” and Sruoginis as “Doll Maker.” The semantic meaning of the title “Lėlių siuvėja” is ‘a woman who sews dolls,’ so that Lithuanian readers would
43 immediately imagine a woman sitting and sewing a doll from some kind of cloth. However, both Zdanys and Sruoginis decide to use a more neutral word “maker,” for the Lithuanian specific and gender-marked word “siuvėja”; “maker” does not necessarily suggest a woman. Moreover, the English word “maker” does not imply the idea that the person is producing dolls from cloth and not from other materials like plastic, porcelain or wood, yet the Lithuanian word “siuvėja” clearly implies that the doll is made specifically from cloth. Therefore, Zdanys and Sruoginis’ titles are misleading or at least vague, since they do not communicate the same idea about the subject of the poem to English readers. Only after reading the whole poem will they understand the title correctly and have an image corresponding to the Lithuanian title, “Lėlių siuvėja.” This discussion of choices made while translating Lithuanian titles shows that Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis, Kerry Shawn Keys, and Zdanys in cooperation with Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury have used a variety of strategies, though the most common one is foreignisation with minor variations because of differences between the Lithuanian and English languages. Moreover, the understanding of culture-specific items from one culture to another depends on the extent of familiarity the target culture has with the source culture and its traditions. Although more and more concepts are shared and understood between different cultures, as illustrated by the universalism, Martians, there are still many Lithuanian culture-specific references which reflect conventions and traditions of this culture and have no true equivalent in the English world.
5.2.2 Transferring Line-breaks and Layout from Lithuanian to English in the Translations
This sub-section focuses on a comparative analysis of the use of line-breaks in Lithuanian source and English target texts. An important aspect of this discussion is whether translators follow the source-language division of lines and, if not, how they compensate for this loss: for example, by creating a line-break in another place, but of the same kind. The second part of this discussion deals with the translators’ success or failure in transferring the original layout of the free-verse poems. In this case, the poems are examined visually to see whether translators maintain, approximately, the same line-lengths, corresponding stanzaic patterns, spacing and shape. If they choose to make certain variations, the effect on the reading of a poem is considered. As discussed in Sub-section 4.1, end-stopped and run-on lines are the two major categories of line-breaks. A careful reading of the Lithuanian free-verse poems suggests that the majority of line-breaks are end-stopped and in many cases translators retain these line-breaks without any variations. Still, there are interesting examples of line-breaks that indicate different decisions by the translators or their struggles to overcome differences between the two languages. In general, problems in transferring a line-break occur when translators try to retain the same basic line-length
44 as in the original poem and thus have to break the line in a different place than that of the source text. For example, the poem “Lėlių siuvėja” by Nijolė Miliauskaitė illustrates several interesting instances of line-breaks: since this poem has two translations, their comparison allows providing a more complex analysis (see Table 1). Certain words have been put in bold by the author of this thesis to make the comparison easier.
45
Table 1
“Lėlių siuvėja” (LT) “Doll Maker” (EN) “The Doll Maker” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: 119-120) (tr. Sruoginis 1997: 88) (tr. Zdanys 2002:171) […] […] […]
kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška each doll is always different; her expressions vary every doll is always different, the expression lyg būtų gyvos as if alive— on each face šukuosena, rūbai, viskas o viskas hairdos, clothing, everything, yes everything always different as if they were alive atitinka žmogaus padėtį, luomą suits a social position, a class hairstyles, clothes, everything and all suits a person's position, social class [...] […] […] pasodini prie veidrodžio Pjero - 5 you seat Piero before the mirror 5 liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu you seat Piero by the mirror— 5 rūbu, prie lango prieini, pasišnekėt su mėnuliu sad, pale, in shiny satin sad, pale, in a shining satin jam pasiskųst ir pasiguost: clothing, you move towards the window suit, walk to the window to talk to the moon to talk with the moon to complain to him, to find comfort: - kiekviena iš jų to complain, to seek comfort: nusineša ir mano 10 each one of them sielos dalį - each one of them 10 carries away 10 carries away a scrap a scrap of my soul of my soul
46 The first instance of a line-break to be discussed is line 2 in the Lithuanian text, “lyg būtų gyvos”: ends with a natural syntactic break and so is an end-stopped line. Here it is necessary to consider the length of this line in order to note differences in its translation: it contains only three words. In translation, Laima Sruoginis maintains this number of words and even the same kind of a line- break, “as if alive”; however, Zdanys chooses to break the first line differently and moves part of the first line, “always different,” into the second line, which then becomes much longer, “always different as if they were alive”. Further, Zdanys turns the first line into a run-on line: “every doll is always different, the expression on each face / always different as if they were alive” (ll. 1-2). His breaking the first line at the word “face” makes the line incomplete, though this is not the case in Miliauskaitė’s text. An instance of a run-on line is line 6 in the original, “liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu,” because it ends with an adjective that modifies a noun which appears only in the next line. It has been indicated that such a break is syntactically unnatural; thus, in Lithuanian the line, “liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu” sounds unfinished and forces the reader to proceed to the next line to get its complete meaning. Then, after reading line 7, it becomes clear that the last part of line 6 refers to the noun “rūbu”: “liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu / rūbu, prie lango prieini, pasišnekėt su mėnuliu.” Both translators are aware of this run-on line and retain it in their texts: Sruoginis writes “sad, pale, in shiny satin / clothing, you move towards the window,” while Zdanys makes it “sad, pale, in a shining satin / suit, walk to the window to talk to the moon.” Another example again indicates how breaking a line in a different place alters the number of lines within the stanza and the emphasis it gives to certain words. The second stanza of the Lithuanian text in Table 1 contains four lines, while Sruoginis’ translation has five. This occurs because she decides to break line 7 and make it two lines. The Lithuanian line “rūbu, prie lango prieini, pasišnekėt su mėnuliu” (l. 7) is end-stopped, which Zdanys translates as “suit, walk to the window to talk to the moon” (l. 7), also making it end-stopped. Sruoginis, on the other hand, breaks this line differently: she creates two end-stopped lines, “clothing, you move towards the window / to talk with the moon” (ll. 7-8). In this case, Sruoginis emphasises the word “window,” which appeared in the middle of the line in the original. Another instance of an interesting choice in transferring line-breaks is line 10 in Miliauskaitė’s poem. This line is an end-stopped because it ends with a natural syntactic break and does not violate any logical norm: “nusineša ir mano” (l. 10); though it can be argued that the end of this line can have a variety of interpretations and triggers the readers’ curiosity. This line has three words, with the emphasis on the final word, the pronoun “mano” (my). However, neither Sruoginis nor Zdanys manage to preserve the same number of words in the line, and none of them ends line 10 with a pronoun as in Miliauskaitė’s poem. Zdanys, though, makes the line even shorter
46 with an end-stopping, “carries away”: he transfers only the Lithuanian word “nusineša” (carries away) and moves the rest of the words to the following line. Sruoginis, on the contrary, breaks a possessive case and ends line 11 with the noun “a scrap,” while the second part of the phrase, “of my soul,” appears in the next line: “carries away a scrap / of my soul” (ll. 11-12). By this strategy Sruoginis apparently does not change the original end-stopped line, for the line sounds complete, but still this line acquires a new meaning after the next line is read. Although both translators choose different places to break the original lines and so emphasise different words than in the original, they retain Miliauskaitė’s overall purpose of making the reading of the final stanza more demanding, for the short lines slow down their reading. The way Miliauskaitė breaks the final stanza into lines signals its importance to the meaning of the whole poem. One more example of interesting line-breaks is found in Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” Table 2 shows instances of these line-breaks and how Jonas Zdanys chooses to transfer them into his English text. The concrete examples of line-breaks are put in bold by the author of this thesis in order to make the analysis more understandable.
Table 2
“Laterna Obscura” (LT) “Laterna Obscura” (EN) (Nagys 1960: 41-42, ll. 9-13) (Zdanys 1978:141, ll. 9-13) Mudu piešiame brolio veidą ant pirmojo sniego. We trace our brother's face in the first snow. Nuomariu serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią The guard's epileptic daughter crumbles dry duoną 10 bread 10 trupina kapo duobėn. Kaimietės vaškinį veidą into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the ir klostyto popieriaus priegalvį sniegas užpusto. peasant woman's Pro pūgą aidi kimi giesmė ir uždusę varpai. wax face and her plaited paper pillow. Through the snowstorm echo the hoarse hymn and breathless bells.
In this poem all the lines are end-stopped except the tenth which runs on to the eleventh: “Nuomariu serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią duoną / trupina kapo duobėn. Kaimietės vaškinį veidą” (ll. 10-11). Because Lithuanian word order allows an object to precede its verb, the first line does not contain a verb and ends with the object “duoną” (bread) in the accusative case; readers need to look at the next line to find the verb. Thus, only after reading the next line does the meaning of the first one become clear. However, in Zdanys’ translation, line ten conveys a complete idea: “The guard’s epileptic daughter crumbles dry bread / into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant woman’s” (ll. 10-11). The tenth line ends with the same noun “bread” as in the Lithuanian text, but the difference is that this translation includes the verb “crumbles” in the same line, too, which Nagys did not do. Zdanys has to follow normal English subject-verb-object order, and so loses the surprise readers get while reading the original text. Although this line is translated as end-stopped, Zdanys 47 compensates for this deviation by making the next line run-on: “into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant woman’s / wax face and her plaited paper pillow.” (ll. 11-12). In the original, line 11 is end-stopped, however, Zdanys ends the eleventh line with the noun “woman’s” in the possessive case, making the idea incomplete. Only after reading the next line do readers see that the woman has a “wax face.” This discussion has focused on those instances of line-breaks that differ in the way they are transferred from Lithuanian into English. Overall, both translators try to maintain line-breaks in the same places as in Lithuanian poems. If they cannot follow the original line-breaks, they often try to compensate for the loss in another place by making a line run-on or end-stopped, depending on the original. Similar strategies of transference appear in the translation of the general layout of a poem, where the major problem is how to retain the length of lines and visual form of the poem on the page. Three Lithuanian free-verse poems are taken as examples of these problems. The first is “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) by Sigitas Geda because it has an unusual form that has sight stanzas. All the lines of this poem are very short, from two to four words in a line; the majority of them are end-stopped, though they do not convey a complete idea. Table 3 presents Geda’s poem and its translation by Kerry Shawn Keys.
Table 3
“Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (LT) “Trash Truck in Justiniškės”(EN) (Geda 2002: 124) (Keys 2002: 125) šitą trumpą kovo akimirksnį in this brief monument in March vaikui daužant sniegą as a child with muddy feet už lango stamps snow purvinom kojom outside the window praskrendant varnai 5 a crow flies by 5 dabar jau galiu now I can manage jau pajėgiu now I am able ilgi ir dažni buvo mortification of the body kūno marinimai was frequent and long sunkios sielovartos 10 my soul’s conversion difficult 10 bet mano siela but my soul tikrai yra truly is together sykiu su karaliaus Dovydo with King David’s visatos liūdėjimai the universe’s sorrows liūdesiai šios visatos the sorrows of this universe 15 yra mano siela 15 are my soul dabar aš žinau now I know dabar galiu pasakyti now I can say it
As may be seen, the poem has a unique shape with a degree of regularity. Though the poem does not contain absolutely regular stanzas and there is no white space left between lines to indicate a new next stanza, still it does have visual stanzas because some groups of lines are indented: after
48 each two or three lines, the next three are indented. Accordingly, Kerry Shawn Keys transfers the layout of Geda’s poem precisely. Keys tries to retain the same number of words in a line, but here he has to obey certain rules of English grammar and to include pronouns, articles and prepositions which extend the lines of the translation. Nevertheless, he maintains the shape of the poem on the page. Another example of a poem that differs in its form from traditional poetic forms is Sigitas Parulskis’ poem “Šaltis” (“Cold”), which, like Geda’s “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) does not have any capitalization or punctuation. Table 4 shows how the original poem appears on the page and how Laima Sruoginis manages to maintain its form in her translation.
Table 4
“Šaltis” (LT) “Cold” (EN) (Parulskis 1994: 319) (Sruoginis 1997: 108) su motina mother kartu su motina with mother
žengiau į požemius we went underground į rūsį raugtų agurkų into the cellar for pickles
statinėj sudrumstusi vandenį 5 the water in the barrel was murky 5 pelėsiais apejusį skystį liquid covered with mold motina sakė mother said
ale šaltas vanduo but the water’s cold šaltas vanduo sakiau aš the water’s cold I repeated
ir iškur šitoks šaltis 10 and where does this cold come from 10 toks šaltis kad atima ranką so cold my arm loses feeling
gal iš tamsos maybe from the dark iš nakties ar iš žemės from night or from the earth
iš žemės from the earth
po žeme bus šalčiau 15 beneath the earth it will be even colder 15
Both the original and its translation contain 15 lines and eight stanzas, even though the division of lines into stanzas is not a traditional one. The poem has one stanza of three lines, five of two lines and two of one line each. These one-line stanzas are the final ones so that the layout affects the reading of the poem’s closing part, emphasising the unexpected reference to death. Moreover, the white spaces between the lines indicate not only the disjunction of images, but also silence that allows Parulskis to emphasise his ideas and at the same time to slow down the reading pace. Sruoginis manages to retain the visual appearance of this poem and similarly controls the reading by the target audience as in Parulskis’ poem. Nevertheless, her last line is twice as long as the original: “po žeme bus šalčiau” (four words) and “beneath the earth it will be even colder” (eight
49 words), in part because Sruoginis adds the emphatic ‘ever’, but also due to the different structure of the English language: the need for an article, “the earth,” and a subject “it will be.” A different translation choice for the layout can be noted in the translation of Antanas A. Jonynas’ poem “Gaisras” (“Fire”) by Jonas Zdanys, Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury. The form of the Lithuanian poem is very close to that of a traditional sonnet. Moreover, the poem uses some loose rhyme, which sometimes appears in free verse. The table below shows clearly how the translated poem visually differs from its original.
Table 5
“Gaisras” (LT) “Fire” (EN) (Jonynas 1997: 130) (Zdanys, Danielius, Czury 1997: 131)
Suplėšau drobę rėmus į dalis suskaldau I tear the canvas frames to pieces skutus ir šipulius metu į židinį shred splinter ar dar pajėgsiu pasiruošti tau kaip maldai – heave them into the fireplace tik atsivert ir nieko neprašyti just to be open to prepare myself for you 5 liepsna ateina siekiniams neišsakytiems 5 as in prayer lauke užkimęs vakaro kaukimas have I the strength pro tamsų langą primerktom akytėm įdėmiai žvelgia don’t ask nuolankus laukimas the flame breathes what’s not spoken while outside the throaty cries of dusk 10 ar dar pajėgsiu pasiruošti tau kaip maldai this darkening window nuraudę sienos ir raudoni baldai 10 not looking at anything aplink tarytum kraujo lytys švyti just staring as in prayer kokia beprotiška aistra užvaldo do I have the strength to prepare myself for you 15 vilties mažytę taurę sudaužyti – – the walls redden and furniture red tik atsivert ir nieko neprašyti like ice in my blood what terrible passion grips one small goblet of hope breaking it 20 just to feel open and ask for nothing
As Table 5 indicates, the original poem has 14 lines that are divided into four stanzas. The poem is similar to a sonnet not only in its form; its general theme is love since the poem is full of erotic implications such like “the flame breathes what’s not spoken” (l. 9), “the wall redden and furniture red” (l. 16) and “what terrible passion grips” (l. 18). Jonynas is not writing a traditional sonnet, but he still makes his poem allude to a traditional verse genre. However, Jonas Zdanys, Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury’s interpretation of Jonynas’ poetic form is different, since the translators decide to alter the original form. Thus, the translated poem contains 22 lines, which are not divided into stanzas of any kind. It also seems that translators made their own decisions on how to break lines and how long they should be because there is no identifiable pattern to explain their choices. On the whole, the translators create a free-verse poem that conveys a quite different visual message to its readers; therefore, their translation is also a kind 50 of creation, because they have re-organised the poem from their own perspectives, changing the pace of reading and the emphasis of words. In addition, the translation emphasises the act of destruction by omitting, contrary to usual English usage, the ‘and’ between two verbs “shred splinter” in the second line. Jonynas uses two verbs “suplėšau” and “sudraskau,” while the translators use three “tear,” “shred” and “splinter.” Moreover, the translators decide to omit the conjunction in the second line and leave a double space between “shred splinter,” which particularly emphasises these words. Moreover, the breaking of certain expressions into separate lines makes them sound more dramatic: “have I the strength / don’t ask” (ll. 7-8), “not looking at anything / just staring” (ll. 12-13), “breaking it / just to feel open / and ask for nothing” (ll. 20-22). Such line-breaks juxtapose images even more strongly than Jonynas does, which also affects the mood of the poem. This translation offers the most radical changes in layout out of all the free-verse poems discussed in this thesis. A different example of layout is in Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” translated by Zdanys as “An Answer to the Martians’ Inquiry” and Sruoginis as “An Answer to a Martian Chronicler.” The layout of this poem differs from the poems already discussed in that it is written in extremely short lines and requires vertical rather than horizontal reading. Table 6 provides the original poem along with its two translations.
Table 6
“Atsakymas į marsiečių “An Answer to the Martians’ “An Answer to a Martian užklausimą” (LT) Inquiry” (EN) Chronicler” (EN) (Geda 1988: 10) (Zdanys 1995: 99) (Sruoginis 1997: 71)
kairiarankių descendant sole dinastijos of the dynasty remaining palikuonis of the left-handed survivor Sigitas Sigitas of the Geda 5 Geda 5 left-handed 5 po 2000 metų after isolation dynasty trukusios lasting Sigitas izoliacijos 2000 years Geda dešiniarankių on the reservation after a 2000 rezervate 10 of the right-handed 10 year 10 nebuvo was no isolation daugiau longer on a reservation persekiojamas persecuted for the right-handed Lietuvoj in Lithuania was tiesa 15 though 15 no longer 15 po karo after the war persecuted mokykloje in school in Lithuania braižybos the drawing though mokytojas teacher after the war Kunickis 20 Kunickis 20 in school 20 jį mušdavo would hit him drafting su lenta with a board teacher per ištiestą on his bowed Kunickis galvą head would
51 beat him 25 with a board over his extended head
Visually, both translations seem to retain the vertical layout of Geda’s poem; however, Sruoginis’ translation is longer than Zdanys’ and the original poem’s. The source text contains 24 lines, with the same number of lines maintained by Zdanys, while Sruoginis extends the poem by making it 29 lines. One reason is that Sruoginis adds an idea that is not in the original − that Geda is the sole remaining survivor, which is an example of a free translation. Another issue is differences in word choice and line-breaks. The original poem has five lines out of 24 that are constructed of more than one word, while usually they have two words, but this aspect is not easily transferable into English. The problem arises immediately when translators have to use an article before a noun or a preposition to indicate relations, as in “po karo” (“after the war”) and “rezervate” (“on the reservation”). Here the lines become more extended, but Zdanys and Sruoginis manipulate line- breaks to preserve Geda’s unusual visual effect. For instance, Geda’s first line is one word “kairiarankių,” but translating it into English requires a preposition and an article next to an adjective; thus, Zdanys translates it as “of the left-handed” (l. 3) and extends a single-word line into a line of three words. In contrast to Zdanys’ strategy, Sruoginis decides to break the line in a way that disrupts English grammar norm, in which an article accompanies a noun or an adjective that modifies a noun: “of the / left-handed” (ll. 4-5); in this case the article “the” is separated from the word to which it belongs. Furthermore, Sruoginis tends to break lines in unusual places and even ignores some rules of English grammar; for example, the sixth line in Lithuanian, “po 2000 metų,” which Zdanys translates as “lasting / 2000 years” (ll. 7-8), is translated by Sruoginis as “after a 2000 / year” (ll. 9- 10). However, the proper English of the latter translation would be “after 2000 years.” Like Sruoginis, Zdanys also makes an interesting line-break in the eleventh line, where he breaks the Lithuanian lines “nebuvo / daugiau” (ll. 11-12). Here Zdanys chooses a more unconventional choice than Sruoginis, when he follows the combination of Lithuanian words: “was no/ longer” (ll. 11-12). Yet Sruoginis leaves the verb “was” and moves the word “no” to the next line: “was/ no longer,” which is easier to read. One more example of a different choice in translation appears in lines 21 and 22 in Sruoginis’ and lines 18 and 19 in Zdanys’ texts. Sruoginis omits the article before the modifier of the noun “teacher.” However, Zdanys obeys English grammar and uses an article, making line 18 longer than in the original: “the drawing / teacher.” Zdanys’ decision to use an article makes the
52 poem more English, while Sruoginis stays closer to the Lithuanian language and makes the poem sound more foreign. For the conclusion of the poem, Sruoginis extends the number of lines: instead of three Lithuanian lines “jį mušdavo / su lenta / per ištiestą” (ll. 21-23), she has five in her translation: “would / beat him / with a board / over his / extended” (ll. 23-28). Here, Sruoginis prefers to break lines in a different way than Zdanys so that the word “would” stands alone, where in Zdanys’ case this word is placed in a single line as “would hit him.” Moreover, Sruoginis moves the word “extended” into the next line, while Zdanys leaves the word “bowed” in the same line with the words “on his” (l. 23). Nevertheless, both translators follows Geda in making the last line single word “galva” / “head.” On the whole, it appears that Zdanys attempts to follow Geda’s line-breaks, the general layout (the number of lines in the poem) and semantic meaning closer than Sruoginis does. As these examples show, translators are aware of the importance of layout and try to transfer it into English, though the result may not always be so close to the original form. It seems that translators manage to imitate the most conspicuous formal cues, but at some points differences of Lithuanian and English languages leave no choice for translators, forcing them to deviate from the original-text forms. In other cases, translators choose to become creators, selecting a different layout to present the content of a poem.
5.2.3 Strategies in Translating Alliteration from Lithuanian to English
One of the commonly used sound devices in free-verse writing is alliteration, which can reinforce the lexical sense or, in most cases, create a specific kind of musicality within a poem. It should be noted that if a single poem sounds musical, it is only because of a particular sound structure that a poet creates in one line after another. Thus, since languages differ in their semantic and phonological resources, the act of translation unavoidably distorts the specific sounds in a poem. The present analysis is focused on two major strategies that are used in translating Lithuanian free- verse poems: imitation or preservation, and omission plus compensation. First, patterns of alliteration are identified in four Lithuanian poems written by Nijolė Miliauskaitė and Henrikas Nagys; then these instances are categorised according to the system suggested in Sub-section 4.3.2. Since this thesis is on issues in translating free verse, the examples identified are analysed with reference to their translations. Here the discussion considers whether translators compensate for losses of specific alliteration in the English text and, if they do, whether the overall impact of a sound device that is used in a Lithuanian poem is maintained or changed.
53 Nijolė Miliauskaitė is one of the poets discussed in this thesis who uses alliteration to a great extent; thus, two of her poems are taken as the most appropriate examples for analysing ways that translators find of rendering the alliteration. The focus is on certain lines from the poem “Lėlių siuvėja” (“Doll Maker” or “The Doll Maker”), translated by Laima Sruoginis and Jonas Zdanys. Table 1 provides lines in this poem in which the instances of alliteration are the most conspicuous. Patterns of alliteration that are discussed are put in bold in the tables.
Table 1
“Lėlių siuvėja” (LT) (Miliauskaitė1995: 120, ll. 19-22) kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška 11
pasodini prie veidrodžio Pjero - 19 liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu 20 rūbu, prie lango prieini, pasišnekėt su mėnuliu 21 jam pasiskųst ir pasiguost: 22
In general, Miliauskaitė uses a variety of kinds of alliteration, which makes her poem more melodious, but for the most part, alliteration is created to emphasise certain words that sometimes are deliberately placed side by side to achieve this sound pattern. For example, “kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška” (l. 11) contains not only phonological alliteration of a consonant letter ‘k’ in the words “kiekviena; kitokia; kita; išraiška,” but also the strongest semantic alliteration when the word “vis” appears two times in this line. Furthermore, this stanza also contains the alliteration of the consonant sounds ‘p’ and ‘b.’ For instance, the first line has three ‘p’ sounds that recur in the initial position of words, of which the first two follow each other, “pasodini prie.” Such consecutive alliteration of consonants is the strongest one of all the possible patterns. The same category of alliteration appears in the second line “blyškų, blizgančiu” when the consonant sound ‘b’ is repeated in initial syllables in words following each other. In addition, lines 21 and 22 contain strong alliteration, because initial sounds recur, though in this case in words that do not follow each other: “prie lango prieini”; “pasiskųst ir pasiguost.” Such an extensive use of plosives creates a specific rhythm in this stanza. Table 2 shows the two translations made by Jonas Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis of these lines.
54 Table 2
“Doll Maker” (EN) “The Doll Maker” (EN) (Sruoginis 1997: 88, ll. 11-14, 19-23) (Zdanys 2002: 171, ll. 11-14, 19-22)
each doll is always different; her every doll is always different, the expression on expressions vary 11 each face 11 as if alive— always different as if they were alive hairdos, clothing, everything, yes hairstyles, clothes, everything and all everything suits a person's position, social class 14 suits a social position, a class 14 […] […] you seat Piero by the mirror— 19 you seat Piero before the mirror 19 sad, pale, in shiny satin sad, pale, in a shining satin clothing, you move towards the window suit, walk to the window to talk to the moon to talk with the moon to complain to him, to find comfort: 23 to complain, to seek comfort: 23
It is immediately noticeable that not all the original patterns of alliteration are maintained: some of them are lost, but compensated elsewhere. For example, the original line, “kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška” (l. 11) which is full of alliterated sounds, is translated by Sruoginis as “each doll is always different; her expressions vary,” (l. 11) where she succeeds in preserving alliteration of a consonant sound, though in different words and less strongly than in the Lithuanian text. Although Sruoginis cannot preserve alliteration in the same lines or words, she compensates for this loss in the last line of the stanza: “suits a social position, a class” (l. 14), in which she creates a strong alliteration of the sound ‘s’ in the words “suits a social” and a weaker alliteration in the words “position, a class,” where the location of the ‘s’ varies within words. In comparison, Zdanys decides to change the alliteration which appears in the original by the lexical repetition of the phrase “always different,” which recurs in the second line; this could be called a strong semantic alliteration: “every doll is always different, the expression on each face / always different as if they were alive” (l. 11). Like Sruoginis, Zdanys produces alliteration in the last line of the stanza as well: “suits a person's position, social class,” though Miliauskaitė does not use any alliteration in this place in her poem. Nonetheless, Zdanys creates the strongest kind of alliteration in the words “a person's position” where the initial consonant sound ‘p’ recurs in the successive words. Moreover, he creates a weaker alliteration when he repeats the fricative sound ‘s’ in various positions of the words “social class.” Furthermore, Table 2 illustrates that Miliauskaitė creates a very strong pattern of alliteration in lines 19-22. However, neither Sruoginis nor Zdanys manage to preserve the same kind of alliteration in the same places; still, they do imitate her patterns of alliteration in at least one place when both translators choose to render Miliauskaitė’s line “jam pasiskųst ir pasiguost:” (l.
55 22) in similar ways; Sruoginis translates it as “to complain, to seek comfort:” (l. 23), while Zdanys writes “to complain to him, to find comfort:” (l. 22). Indeed, Sruoginis and Zdanys achieve alliteration of the first syllable in the two verbs as in the Lithuanian text, though their alliteration is weaker than in Miliauskaitė’s text, for the words “complain” and “comfort” do not immediately follow one another. The fact that both translators retain alliteration in the two verbs indicates that they are aware of this particular device used by Miliauskaitė. Zdanys and Sruoginis create other instances of alliteration, too, but these are not as strong as Miliauskaitė’s. For example, both translators supply some alliteration in translating the Lithuanian text, “liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu” (l. 20), but in different words, Sruoginis translates it as “sad, pale, in shiny satin” (l. 20) and Zdanys as “sad, pale, in a shining satin” (l. 20); here the first and the last words alliterate, but this is classed as a very weak alliteration of consonance and assonance. In general, Sruoginis and Zdanys’ efforts to maintain alliteration wherever possible indicate that they are aware that this particular feature is significant stylistically in Nijolės Miliauskaitė’s poem “Lėlių siuvėja.” Another of Miliauskaitė’s poems, “sėdėjo prie pat gatvės” (“Sitting Beside the Very Street”), also contains a great number of different types of alliteration. Table 3 illustrates some parts of the original text and its translation, where letters in bold indicate instances of alliteration.
Table 3
“sėdėjo prie pat gatvės” (LT) “Sitting Beside the Very Street” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: ll. 1-9) (Sruoginis 1997: ll. 1-8)
sėdėjo prie pat gatvės sitting beside the very street ant aplūžusio suolo apsilaupusiais dažais on a dilapidated bench, paint peeling
pro šalį ėjo žmonės, zujo vaikai people stroll past, children scurry verkė kūdikis vežimėly prie krautuvės an infant left in a carriage outside a shop wails
tokia nedidele mėlyna berete, kokias nešioja wearing3 a small blue beret, the kind tractor traktorininkai 5 drivers wear 5 storu lietpalčiu dar nuo neatmenamų laikų, a thick raincoat from who knows how long ago, guminiais high rubber boots batais aukštais aulais
sėdėjo ir valgė ledus su vafliais he sits, eating ice cream with wafers dar dvi porcijos pasidėtos šalia two more portions on the bench, beside him
______
3 Sruoginis’ translation is a little confusing; as the first reading it might be thought that it is the infant who wear the blue beret, not the person on the bench.
56
Here Miliauskaitė uses quite a variety of repetitions of sounds; for example, the first line contains the strongest kind of alliteration because the sound ‘p’ recurs in words that follow one another, “prie pat.” Examples with recurring assonance sounds are the lines: “ant aplūžusio suolo apsilaupusiais dažais” (l. 2); “pro šalį ėjo žmonės, zujo vaikai” (l. 3) and “batais aukštais aulais” (l. 7). In the first case the repetition of the vowel-sound ‘a’ is a strong one, while the recurrence of the vowel-sound ‘o’, whose pronunciation differs in words “pro,” “žmonės” and “ėjo,” “zujo” because the vowel ‘o’ is in a stressed syllable in the first and the second word and an unstressed one in the third and fourth is weaker. The strongest form of assonance alliteration can be seen in “aukštais aulais,” and of consonance in “dar dvi,” and “porcijos pasidėtos.” Such a strong alliteration of various types makes specific lines more melodious and, at the same time, is a binding force in the whole poem. Laima Sruoginis tries to provide alliteration in all the places they occur and even adds some of her own, which indeed evokes a strong sense of patterning and thus reinforces the main aesthetic effect of the original poem. In the first line Sruoginis creates a weak alliteration when the consonant sound ‘s’ recurs in various positions in the words, “sitting beside the very street” (l. 1), though in Lithuanian the two words “prie pat” (l. 1) are an example of the strongest kind of alliteration. What is more important here is that Sruoginis does not omit this phonological alliteration and retains a version of it within the same line. However, already in the second line she manages to compensate for the loss in the first line and also uses an example of the strongest kind of alliteration in the words “paint peeling,” where the initial sound ‘p’ is repeated in words that are next to one another. In addition, another instance of the strongest kind of alliteration appears in the fifth line in the words, “blue beret.” This type of alliteration does not occur in the original text, but it somewhat compensates for losses that are unavoidable in translating other phrases. A very useful strategy is used to transfer the strong vowel alliteration in the words “aukštais aulais” which Sruoginis translates as “high rubber boots” where she produces a weak consonance instead of the strongest assonance alliteration. The last line “dar dvi porcijos pasidėtos šalia” (l. 9) is translated by Sruoginis as “two more portions on the bench, beside him” (l. 8). Although the original text contains two instances of the strongest kind of a consonant alliteration, Sruoginis does manage to preserve both of these instances; however, she changes their category into the recurrence of the vowel sound ‘o.’ The next alliteration that appears in words “bench, beside” is of the same type as in Miliauskaitė’s words “porcijos pasidėtos.” One more instance of compensation occurs in line 7, “he sits, eating ice cream with wafers,” which is an example of the strongest kind of a consonant alliteration, not present in the original line, “sėdėjo ir valgė ledus su vafliais” (l. 8). In the Lithuanian text the consonant sound ‘v’
57 does recur in the initial position of words “valgė” and “vafliais,” but these words do not immediately follow one another. In general, it could be stated that Sruoginis is as faithful as possible to the original patterning in the poem and, when she cannot avoid omitting alliteration in certain places, she mostly compensates for this loss. In this way, to be sure, she changes the emphasis on certain words in the Lithuanian text. Henrikas Nagys is another Lithuanian poet who uses a great deal of alliteration. Sound effects in his poem “Laterna Obscura” are particularly noticeable, for it uses a considerable phonological and semantic alliteration. The focus here is on phonological alliteration rather than semantic, since this latter is the subject of the discussion on repetition in Sub-section 5.2.4. Table 4 illustrates the most noticeable instances of alliteration together with their translation by Jonas Zdanys, but only the more interesting ones are analysed.
Table 4
“Laterna Obscura” (LT) “Laterna Obscura” (EN) (Nagys 1960: 41-42) (Zdanys 1978: 141) Mudu piešiame vaiko veidą ant pirmojo sniego. Together we trace the child's face in the first snow. Po laukinių aviečių šakom supa lėlę sesuo. Beneath wild raspberry branches my sister rocks her Lengvą sniegą paklojo nakčia darbininkai ant gruodo doll. ir dažo derva medinį tiltą per Bartuvą. Last night workmen spread light snow on the frozen Pirmagimis sniegas purus kaip sesers plaukai. 5 ground and now tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. The newborn snow is light as my sister's hair. 5
Per susigūžusį tuščią Žemaičių kaimą Through the cowering empty Samogitian town lekia kazokai, nuogais kalavijais kapodami the Cossacks ride, chopping the white mute baltą bežadę žiemos mėnesiena. moonlight with their naked swords.
Mudu piešiame brolio veidą ant pirmojo sniego. We trace our brother's face in the first snow. Nuomariu serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią duoną 10 The guard's epileptic daughter crumbles dry bread 10 trupina kapo duobėn. Kaimietės vaškinį veidą into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant ir klostyto popieriaus priegalvį sniegas užpusto. woman's Pro pūgą aidi kimi giesmė ir uždusę varpai. wax face and her plaited paper pillow. Through the snowstorm echo the hoarse hymn and breathless bells.
Per tylų, miegantį, baltą Žemaičių kaimą Through the soundless sleeping white Samogitian lekia kazokai, rimbais ilgais kapodami 15 town medžiuose žėrinčią žydrą žiemos mėnesieną. fly the Cossacks, chopping the blue winter moonlight 15 that shimmers in the trees with their long whips.
Niekas tavęs nebučiavo labanakčio. Niekas kartu neraudojo No one kissed you goodnight. No one wept with you mirusios motinos. Tėvo pakarto nelaidojo niekas. for your dead mother. No one came to bury your Tavo žemė buvo tuščia ir nuoga. Tavo žemė, kaip hanged father. žemdirbio delnas. Your land was empty and naked. Your earth, a Niekas tavęs karalystėn neleido - pilki apdarai plazdėjo 20 peasant's palm. kaip seniai pamirštų pakasynų vėliavos. Maro marškonys. No one let you into the kingdom – grey garments fluttered 20 like long-forgotten funeral flags. Plague linens.
58 Per skurdų Žemaičių kaimą lekia kazokai, Through the tattered Samogitian town fly the ant iečių ilgų nešdami sukapotą Cossacks, mėlyną žiemos mėnesieną. carrying the chopped blue winter moonlight on their long lances.
Skaistų sekmadienio rytmetį spindinčioj žemėj 25 On a bright Sunday morning in the radiant land 25 dažo derva darbininkai medinį tiltą per Bartuvą. workmen tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. Teka giliai po ledu neskubėdama upė į jūrą. Deep beneath the ice the river flows slowly to the Po aviečių šakom užpustyta miega sesers lėlė. sea. Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant mėlyno sniego. Under the raspberry branches sleeps my sister's snow-dusted doll. Together we trace my sleeping brother's face in the blue snow.
The alliteration highlighted in Nagys’ text indicates that he seeks to create a conspicuous pattern which would reinforce images that appear in this poem, but above all, would impart an overall melodic effect. Thus, a richly assonant effect is achieved in the second and the third lines: “Po laukinių aviečių šakom supa lėlę sesuo. / Lengvą sniegą paklojo nakčia darbininkai ant gruodo” by the patterned sequence of the vowel sound ‘a,’ which is an example of the strongest type of assonance alliteration in this line, for the vowel recurs in the initial stressed syllables of words “aviečių šakom,” except for the word “supa.” Another special case of the repetition of vowels is the line repeated three times in the poem with only slight variation, given importance by the fact that it is both the first and the very last line in the poem, “Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant mėlyno sniego” (l. 30). Here the Lithuanian diphthong ‘ie’ appears in the initial position of two successive words, as well as in the last word of the line. This sequence of the sound ‘ie’ creates a subtle network to emphasise these key words in this line. However, the most prominent use of alliteration as a sound device to achieve a patterning in the poem is the repetition of consonant sounds in lines like “Pirmagimis sniegas purus kaip sesers plaukai” (l. 5), “lekia kazokai, nuogais kalavijais kapodami” (l. 7), “Nuomariu serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią duoną” (l. 10), and “Skaistų sekmadienio rytmetį spindinčioj žemėj” (l. 25). The repetition of the plosive ‘p,’ in line 5 reinforces the image of the first snow, for the sound ‘p,’ when it is pronounced, gives readers the feeling of lightness and softness. As a contrast to a soothing tone, the recurrence of another hard plosive sound, ‘k,’ accompanies the images of the Cossacks riding with their swords and their action of chopping. Furthermore, the repetition of the consonant sound ‘s’ in lines 10 and 26 creates a strong pattern which binds words and phrases within these two lines. All these instances of alliteration appear in the initial positions of words and thus create a particularly strong euphonic effect. The sound ‘s’ in line 10 is repeated in a combination with a changing vowel-sounds, “serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią,” and since this alliteration appears in the stressed syllables, it produces a particular internal recurrence. The repetition of the same sound
59 ‘s’ in line 25 is used more as a means of emphasising meaning that are denoted by the words like a bright morning and the shining or radiant land (“Skaistų sekmadienio rytmetį spindinčioj žemėj”). A stronger kind of alliteration is used by Nagys in lines 16 and 26: “medžiuose žėrinčią žydrą žiemos mėnesieną.” and “dažo derva darbininkai medinį tiltą per Bartuvą.” In the first example, the Lithuanian sound ‘ž’ recurs three times as the strongest kind of alliteration, for the consonant is repeated in the initial position of three successive words. This strongly-patterned sequence emphasises the key picture in line 16. Similarly, the strongest kind of phonological alliteration appears in the second example, in which the consonant sound ‘d’ is repeated in words that follow one another, “dažo derva darbininkai” to create a kind of rhythm and so link these words within the line. As in all translations, it is challenging to find any English words that are both semantically and phonologically equivalent to Lithuanian ones. Thus, retaining the same-sound alliteration in the same place is unlikely in Zdanys’ translation of Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” Nonetheless, after reading the translation, it appears that Zdanys also creates a number of instances where he manages to find words that convey the equivalent semantic meaning and at the same time produce very similar phonological alliteration. For example, the Lithuanian line “Lengvą sniegą paklojo nakčia darbininkai ant gruodo” (Nagys l. 3) is translated as “Last night workmen spread light snow on the frozen ground” (tr. Zdanys l. 3). Here Zdanys manages to preserve alliteration in the same line, though he changes the vowel repetition into one of consonants in words like “spread” and “snow.” Even more, Zdanys achieves internal rhyme within the words “night” and “light.” In addition, a weaker type of repetition of the assonance ‘o,’ in words like “snow” and “frozen,” also attributes to the whole sound patterning of the line. Although Zdanys does not preserve the strong alliteration in line 7 which appears in the Lithuanian text, “lekia kazokai, nuogais kalavijais kapodami,” he still tries to compensate for this loss by at least maintaining a part of it in the same line, though in other words: “the Cossacks ride, chopping the white mute moonlight” (tr. Zdanys l. 7). Here the alliteration of different words also appears because of the changes in word order and a different division of the line. Nevertheless, the strongest form of repetition, here of the consonant sound ‘m,’ contributes to the semantic meaning of the words “mute” and “moonlight,” for this sound is pronounced with a closed mouth and is voiceless, which can be related to silence. Another very clear use of alliteration by Zdanys can be noted in these translated lines: “wax face and her plaited paper pillow” (l. 12) (“ir klostyto popieriaus priegalvį sniegas užpusto” (Nagys l. 12)) and “Through the soundless sleeping white Samogitian town” (l. 13), (“Per tylų, miegantį, baltą Žemaičių kaimą” (Nagys l. 14)). The first example indicates Zdanys’ excellent choice of words to imitate the original alliteration, for he not only succeeds in preserving the same-
60 sound alliteration in the equivalent words, but also makes it even stronger when he alliterates three words that follow one another: “plaited paper pillow,” while in the Lithuanian text there are three alliterated sounds but only two words “popieriaus priegalvį.” Line 13 contains a strong type of alliteration of the consonant ‘s’ in words “soundless sleeping, Samogitian” (tr. Zdanys). However, the same line in the Lithuanian text does not have any strong pattern of sounds “Per tylų, miegantį, baltą Žemaičių kaimą” (Nagys l. 14). Thus, Zdanys’ alliteration here can be taken as compensation for the loss of the strongest type of repetition in, for example, the sixteenth line in the same stanza: “medžiuose žėrinčią žydrą žiemos mėnesieną” (Nagys), for Zdanys did not manage to find words that are semantically equivalent and start with the same sound, the words in bold are the translated semantic equivalents of the Lithuanian words that alliterate: “fly the Cossacks, chopping the blue winter moonlight” (l. 14) / “that shimmers in the trees with their long whips” (l. 15). In contrast to this omission, Zdanys manages to preserve alliteration in line 21: “like long-forgotten funeral flags. Plague linens,” the same as in Nagys’ text: “kaip seniai pamirštų pakasynų vėliavos. Maro marškonys” (l. 21). Here Nagys alliterates two words in the first half of the line, “pamirštų pakasynų,” and the other two in the next half, “Maro marškonys;” both instances are the strongest kind of alliteration, where the whole initial syllable is repeated. In comparison, Zdanys follows this Lithuanian pattern and produces the same kind of alliteration in the matching words, “long-forgotten funeral flags.” Finally, though Zdanys cannot manage the important assonance alliteration in the last line of Nagys’ poem, “Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant mėlyno sniego,” he does compensate for this in the line before, “Under the raspberry branches sleeps my sister's snow-dusted doll” (l. 28). Here a strong case of alliteration of the consonant ‘s’ appears in the words “sleeps my sister's snow-”, while the plosive ‘d’ recurs in the words “-dusted doll” that allow the translator to link words more strongly within the line. In conclusion, this comparative analysis of alliteration and its translation indicates that Jonas Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis very rarely completely omit a sound pattern that is created in the original poem without compensating for its loss in other places. The translators try to maintain the alliteration as much as possible in their texts in order, for example, to impart a similar musical effect or to achieve the same sound associations that are evoked by the original text. Although Zdanys and Sruoginis do not sacrifice meaning for sound effects, they do their best to create such effects wherever possible. Necessarily, their systems of alliteration often emphasise different words than in the Lithuanian text though still maintaining the overall auditory effect on English readers.
61 5.2.4 Translators’ Strategies in Dealing with Repetition
One of the most common stylistic means used by free-verse poets to unify or emphasise sounds, words, phrases and images in a poem is repetition. Moreover, repetition functions also as a device to create a rhythmic pattern or a degree of regularity, as well as to pace the reading of a text. Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s categorisation of repetition, which was discussed in Sub-section 4.2, has been chosen as a very helpful system in analysing the use of this device in the original Lithuanian poems and the English translation. This sub-section is based on the analysis of lexical repetition in Lithuanian texts, in which examples of repetition are first categorised and then their major functions are identified within a poem. After discussing the Lithuanian source text, a comparative analysis is provided looking at the translations done by Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys of four Lithuanian poems, Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s “Lėlių siuvėja,” Sigitas Parulskis’ “Šaltis,” Sigitas Geda’s “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” and Henrikas Nagys’ “Laterna Obscura.” This sub-section also aims at supporting or refuting Rasoul al-Khafaji’s argument that “avoiding lexical repetition seems to be a common translational norm” (2006: 39) in literary texts. A good example of the extensive use of repetition is Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poem “Lėlių siuvėja” that mainly includes the parallel recurrence of words. Table 1 shows three stanzas of Miliauskaitė’s poem with highlighted instances of repetition, along with translations made by Sruoginis and Zdanys.
62
Table 1
“Lėlių siuvėja” (LT) “Doll Maker” (EN) “The Doll Maker” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: 119-120, ll. 1-10) (tr. Sruoginis 1997: 88, ll. 1-10) (tr. Zdanys 2002:171, ll. 1-10)
skiautė prie skiautės, atraiža prie atraižos shred by shred, pattern by pattern scrap by scrap, piece by piece diena po dienos day after day day after day
kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška each doll is always different; her expressions vary every doll is always different, the expression lyg būtų gyvos as if alive— on each face šukuosena, rūbai, viskas o viskas 5 hairdos, clothing, everything, yes everything 5 always different as if they were alive atitinka žmogaus padėtį, luomą suits a social position, a class hairstyles, clothes, everything and all 5 suits a person’s position, social class tik ar bus kam reikalingos only, does anyone need her? ar kas įduos will anyone deliver her but will they be needed by anyone į ištiestas rankas, ar suplaks into out-stretched hands, will anyone’s heart will someone pass them smarkiau širdis, iš džiaugsmo 10 beat faster, from joy 10 into outstretched arms, will a heart
beat faster with joy 10
63 Here the first instance of same-unit lexical repetition is found in the lines, “skiautė prie skiautės, atraiža prie atraižos / diena po dienos” (ll. 1-2), in which the words “skiautė,” “atraiža” and “diena” all appear twice and are connected by prepositions “prie,” “prie” and “po,” respectively. This kind of structure is called parallelism, as the repeated words are placed side by side and so balance each other. Moreover, through this structure, Miliauskaitė creates a monotonous repetitive rhythm that not only contributes to the overall mood of the poem, but allows her to provide a vivid image of the main character, a woman spending many hours over a long period of time slowly sewing dolls. Both Sruoginis and Zdanys follow Miliauskaitė’s pattern of phrasing and translate these two Lithuanian lines in very similar ways: Sruoginis writes “shred by shred, pattern by pattern / day after day,” while Zdanys translates them as “scrap by scrap, piece by piece / day after day” (ll. 1-2). The difference between these translations is in the choice of words, since Sruoginis translates the Lithuanian word “skiautė” as a “shred,” while Zdanys as a “scrap.” The two English words are near synonyms with connotational differences. However, the word “atraiža,” which refers to a piece of fabric or cloth, becomes a “pattern” in Sruoginis’ translation and a “piece” in Zdanys’. Here Sruoginis is freer in her translation, for ‘a pattern’ means “a decorative design, as for china, wall paper, textile fabrics, etc.” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). On the contrary, Zdanys is more faithful by translating “atraiža” as a “piece” which is “a separate or limited portion or quantity of something; a shred” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). Nevertheless, both translators maintain repetition of the same kind and in the same places. Another instance of same-unit simple repetition is the line “kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido išraiška” (l. 3), in which the structure of the phrase “vis kitokia” is repeated with a minor variation, “vis kita.” Here Miliauskaitė emphasises the word “kita” (another) and so makes the individuality of each doll even stronger. The translations of this line differ because Sruoginis changes the same-unit simple repetition into a different-unit derived repetition, “each doll is always different; her expressions vary” (l. 3), so that while the word “different” is an adjective, “vary” is a verb, but the two words have synonymous meaning. Shifting the word class from adjective to verb makes her form of repetition less emphatic. As for Zdanys, he retains the same-unit simple repetition without any variations, though he does not manage to fit it into one line: “every doll is always different, the expression on each face / always different as if they were alive” (ll. 3-4). Comparing Sruoginis and Zdanys’ strategies here, Zdanys’ choice to retain same-unit simple repetition is a more faithful translation of the Lithuanian text, for it produces exactly the same effect: it intensifies the idea. One more instance of repetition is line 5, “šukuosena, rūbai, viskas o viskas,” where the recurrence of the word “viskas” intensifies the emotion expressed in the line. Sruoginis translates it as
64 “hairdos, clothing, everything, yes everything,” repeating the same form of the unit “everything.” Thus Sruoginis manages to maintain same-unit simple repetition in the same line. On the other had, though Zdanys retains repetition in the same place, too, he changes it to derived synonymy: “hairstyles, clothes, everything and all” (l. 5). The pronoun “everything” means “everything or particular of an aggregate or total; all” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996), while the adjective “all” means “the whole of (used in referring to quantity, extent, or duration)” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). Here Zdanys’ synonymous repetition is less emotional than Sruoginis’ same-unit simple repetition. Lines seven to nine include one more regular pattern, “tik ar bus kam reikalingos / ar kas įduos / į ištiestas rankas, ar suplaks” (ll. 7-9): the structure of “ar kam” re-appears as “ar kas” with a changed case, dative into nominative. Moreover, the particle “ar” occurs three times which suggests the progression of the thought in these lines. Sruoginis is aware of this repetition, since she translates the lines as “only, does anyone need her? / will anyone deliver her / into out-stretched hands, will anyone’s heart” (ll. 7-9). However, Zdanys makes a different choice, staying closer to the original formally and semantically: “but will they be needed by anyone / will someone pass them/ into outstretched arms, will a heart” (ll. 7-9). Zdanys, contrary to Sruoginis, retains both forms of repetition: the future auxiliary “will” stands for the Lithuanian particle “ar,” while the word “anyone” re-appears in the form of the synonym “someone.” Overall, neither Sruoginis nor Zdanys omits any repetition found in the source text and, in some cases, they even sacrifice the semantic equivalence of words to maintain a pattern of repetition. Another interesting text for the analysis of repetition is Sigitas Parulskis’ poem “Šaltis,” translated by Laima Sruoginis, “Cold.” In Table 2 instances of repetition are put in bold by the author of this thesis. The repetition becomes a unifying device in this poem by which Parulskis draws the readers’ attention to his key images.
Table 2
“Šaltis” (LT) “Cold” (EN) (Parulskis 1994: 319) (tr. Sruoginis 1997: 108) su motina mother kartu su motina with mother
žengiau į požemius we went underground į rūsį raugtų agurkų into the cellar for pickles
statinėj sudrumstusi vandenį 5 the water in the barrel was murky 5 pelėsiais apejusį skystį liquid covered with mold motina sakė mother said
65 ale šaltas vanduo but the water’s cold šaltas vanduo sakiau aš the water’s cold I repeated
ir iškur šitoks šaltis 10 and where does this cold come from 10 toks šaltis kad atima ranką so cold my arm loses feeling
gal iš tamsos maybe from the dark iš nakties ar iš žemės from night or from the earth
iš žemės from the earth
po žeme bus šalčiau 15 beneath the earth it will be even colder 15
Certain words re-appear several times throughout the whole poem, unifying its overall meaning. These are “šaltis,” repeated five times, “motina”, repeated three times, and “vanduo”, “tamsa,” and “žemė,” each of which appear twice with some inflectional variations. Most of these repetitions are simple same-unit recurrences: for example, “su motina / kartu su motina” (ll. 1-2), “ale šaltas vanduo / šaltas vanduo sakiau aš” (ll. 8-9), and “iš nakties ar iš žemės” / “iš žemės” (ll. 13-14). In all these cases, the same word is repeated immediately in the next line within the same stanza. Such a pattern not only creates a degree of regularity, but emphasises principal words. Moreover, the poem includes a dialogue between a mother and a child, with the use of repetition typical of natural speech. Sruoginis retains all the instances of repetition in the same lines as in the Lithuanian poem; “mother / with mother” (ll. 1-2), “but the water’s cold / the water’s cold I repeated” (ll. 8-9), and “from night or from the earth” / “from the earth” (ll. 13-14). She manages to transfer each instance of repetition into English easily without changing its category and place. Parulskis’ use of parallel repetition is also seen in these lines: “ir iškur šitoks šaltis / toks šaltis kad atima ranką” (ll. 10-11) Here he repeats the same word “šaltis”, but changes the intensifier “šitoks” into “toks” to make the emphasis even stronger. Sruoginis follows this structure: “and where does this cold come from / so cold my arm loses feeling” (ll. 10-11). The determiner “this” is changed and appears as the adverb “so” which, though different in its form, serves the same affirmative function. A little further in the poem, lines 13 and 14 provide an example of different-unit repetition, where the word “tamsos” (darkness) becomes “nakties” (from the night): “gal iš tamsos / iš nakties ar iš žemės.” Darkness is the essential feature of the night, so that this repetition may be considered as synonymy. Accordingly, Sruoginis translates the line as “maybe from the dark / from night or from the earth” (ll. 13-14) and also preserves a kind of synonymy which in this case is used for the purpose of cohesion. Repetition can be used not only to unify images, but also to juxtapose ideas. Lines fourteen and fifteen, which are in two different stanzas, show an example of this: “iš žemės” / “po žeme bus šalčiau.” Here the ideas are juxtaposed by repeating the words “iš” (inside the earth) and
66 “po” (under the earth) which convey, in this context, similar ideas about ‘cold coming from’. The repetition contrasts the ideas of life and death, which make the conclusion of what seemed a simple memory of a child’s experience suddenly more profound and shocking. Sruoginis follows Parulskis’ structure by translating the last two stanzas as “from the earth” / “beneath the earth it will be even colder.” Here the contrast is expressed through the parallel structure using the words “from” and “beneath,” and repeating the word “the earth”. In general, then, Sruoginis tries to be faithful to the original text and renders all the instances of repetition by preserving their categories and functions. Sigitas Geda’s poem “Angelas krintantis Palangoj,” translated by Jonas Zdanys as “An Angel Falling in Palanga” and by Kerry Shawn Keys as “Angel Falling in Palanga” is also a good example of the extensive use of repetition for creating rhythm, emphasising key images and unifying ideas. Table 3 presents a major part of the poem and the corresponding English translations. Geda’s repetitions are put in bold in order to provide a general picture of the great number that are used in this poem. The key word in the title is “an angel,” which normally would be expected to re-appear at least several times in the poem. However, this word is repeated only twice in the whole poem, but readers are constantly reminded of the presence of the angel by another category of repetition that is called metonymy. Geda describes the angel indirectly by referring to features such as his voice, clothing and wings. Zdanys and Keys are aware of this type of repetition and manage to retain the recurrences of the relevant words in the same places as in the original. Geda also uses a good deal of same-unit simple repetition, repeating words and phrases in very close proximity: “Jo balso / Jo balso – iš balų.” (ll. 8-9), “Lyg lūžtų pasauliai, / Lyg lūžtų erdvė – iš platinos” (ll. 11-12), “Ir sparnas, ir sparnas,” (l. 20), and “Daugiau jau nebus, / Daugiau nieko nebus” (ll. 30-31). All these instances of repetition are preserved in the translations, though with certain variations.
67 Table 3
“Angelas krintantis Palangoj” (LT) “An Angel Falling in Palanga” (EN) “Angel Falling in Palanga” (EN) (Geda 2002: 60-62) (tr. Zdanys 1995: 111-112) (tr. Keys 2002: 61-63) Tai krintančio angelo balsas, It was the voice of a falling angel, It’s the voice of a falling angel, Iš purpuro balų, From purple bogs, From the purple – of marshes, Skvernai debesų, debesų Skirts of clouds, of clouds, Folds of clouds, clouds, Debesylų − gauruoti. Shaggy clouds, Cloudberries – shaggy.
Tamsus jo drabužis, 5 His clothing is dark, 5 Dark clothing. 5 Žiedadulkių gausmas, The droning of blossom dust, Drone of pollen. Sparnuočiai ūmai išbaidyti Birds vehemently frightened away The winged-ones suddenly scared away Jo balso By his voice By his voice, Jo balso – iš balų. By his voice — from the bogs. His voice – from the marshes.”
– Ir trenksmas, 10 — — And the noise, 10 – And the roar, 10 Lyg lūžtų pasauliai, As if worlds were breaking, As if worlds were breaking, Lyg lūžtų erdvė – iš platinos, As if space were breaking — from platinum, As if space were breaking – from platinum, Akmens, iš aukso Stone, from gold Stone, from gold Jo tamsūs sparnai His dark wings His dark wings Šitą erdvę užkloję, 15 Cover this space, 15 Covering this space, 15 Šviesus kalavijas The bright sword Shining sword Ir lūžtančio sparno And pieces And fragments Skeveldros − Of the breaking wing — — Of a wing breaking − Tai angelo sapnas – pasaulis, It’s the angel’s dream − the world, Ir sparnas, ir sparnas, 20 The angel’s dream — the world, And the wing, and the wing, 20 Šviesus kalavijas – iš sapno. And the wing, and the wing, 20 Shining sword – from the dream. Iš pieno, iš plieno, The bright sword — from the dream. From milk, from metal, Medaus ir netilstančio From honey and the everlasting Marių gaudimo From milk, from steel, Drone of the seas [...] Honey and the endless […] Droning of the seas Daugiau jau nebus, 30 […] Nothing more no longer, 30 Daugiau nieko nebus, It will no longer be. 30 Nothing more, [...] There will no longer be anything, […] […]
68 For instance, Keys stays closer to the Lithuanian text by translating lines eight and nine as “By his voice, / His voice – from the marshes,” for he repeats the words exactly as Geda does: “jo balso”/ “his voice” without the preposition “by”. On the contrary, Zdanys is less faithful, since he adds the repetition “by” which is not in the source text: “By his voice / By his voice — from the bogs.” Further, both Zdanys and Keys render Lithuanian lines 11 and 12 in exactly the same way, “As if worlds were breaking, / As if space were breaking — from platinum,” repeating the phrase “as if were breaking” / “lyg lūžtų”. However, differences in English tense and word order make this repetition longer, for the words “worlds” and “space” interrupt the original sequence “Lyg lūžtų pasauliai, / Lyg lūžtų erdvė – iš platinos,” (ll. 11-12). Similarly, Zdanys and Keys translate line 20 as “And the wing, and the wing,” which is a faithful repetition of the Lithuanian line, “Ir sparnas, ir sparnas.” Different choices are made by the two translators in translating lines 30 and 31, where Zdanys renders them as “It will no longer be. / There will no longer be anything,” while Keys writes “Nothing more no longer, / Nothing more.” Geda repeats only the words “daugiau nebus” which in English would be “will no longer be”; this matches Zdanys’ translation. On the other hand, Keys chooses another way of translating these lines, omitting the repetition of the negative form of the verb “nebus” / “will not be” and putting the phrase “nothing more” in the initial position in lines 30 and 31. Interesting instances of repetition include the lines “Jo tamsūs sparnai” / “Šviesus kalavijas” (ll. 14, 16) and “Iš pieno, iš plieno,” (l. 22). They include examples of repetition through opposites, for the word “tamsūs” (dark) is a binary opposition to the word “šviesus” (light), while “pieno” (milk) can be seen to a certain extent as an antonym to the word “plieno” (steel): one is liquid and the other is a metal. In the Lithuanian original, the latter opposition is very strong, for the words also alliterate and rhyme “pieno” / “plieno”. An attempt is made by Zdanys to follow this pattern, as he translates lines 14 and 16: “His dark wings” […] “The bright sword”, where he manages to achieve the strong opposition of the words “dark” and “bright.” Keys makes a similar decision, “His dark wings” […] “Shining sword,” also using a clear opposition. Nevertheless, Keys manages to compensate this loss in translating the twentieth line as “From milk, from metal.” Here he does retain the opposition of words “milk” and “metal,” even though he sacrifices the precise semantic meaning of the Lithuanian word “steel”, a specific kind of metal, by changing it into “metal,” a general or superordinate word. Yet in this way he manages to preserve the strongest form of alliteration that appears in the original by repeating the initial sound ‘m’ in the words “milk” and “metal.” In the same case, Zdanys decides to maintain the strong opposition, “From milk, from steel,” and so loses the alliteration; “plienas” or ‘steel’ is a particularly strong kind of metal, while Keys’ reference to ‘metal’ in general does not necessarily mean steel; thus, English readers of his translation lose the precise connotation in Geda’s poem. So
69 far as repetition is concerned, however, both Zdanys and Keys’ translations maintain all the instances of Geda’s repetition, even though Keys is less semantically faithful than Zdanys, who also succeeds to create stronger lexical repetitions. Nevertheless, both translators at some points make certain variations, as differences between Lithuanian and English make it often impossible to duplicate Geda’s word order and syntax. The last poem in this discussion is “Laterna Obscura” by Henrikas Nagys, translated by Jonas Zdanys. Here Nagys uses repetition mainly to create cohesion and emphasise the key images in his poem. Table 4 includes instances of major repetitions that are put in bold in order to be more easily identifiable.
Table 4
“LATERNA OBSCURA” (LT) “LATERNA OBSCURA” (EN) (Nagys 1960: 41-42) (tr. Zdanys 1978: 141)
Mudu piešiame vaiko veidą ant pirmojo Together we trace the child’s face in the first snow. sniego. Beneath wild raspberry branches my sister rocks her Po laukinių aviečių šakom supa lėlę sesuo. doll. Lengvą sniegą paklojo nakčia darbininkai ant Last night workmen spread light snow on the frozen gruodo ground ir dažo derva medinį tiltą per Bartuvą. and now tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. Pirmagimis sniegas purus, kaip sesers The newborn snow is light as my sister’s hair. 5 plaukai. 5
Per susigūžusį tuščią Žemaičių kaimą Through the cowering empty Samogitian town lekia kazokai, nuogais kalavijai kapodami the Cossacks ride, chopping the white mute moonlight baltą bežadę žiemos mėnesieną. with their naked swords.
Mudu piešiame brolio veidą ant pirmojo We trace our brother’s face in the first snow. sniego. The guard’s epileptic daughter crumbles dry bread 10 Nuo marių serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią Into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant duoną 10 woman’s trupina kapo duobėn. Kaimietės vaškinį veidą wax face and her plaited paper pillow. ir klostyto popieriaus priegalvį sniegas Through the snowstorm echo the hoarse hymn and the užpusto. breathless bells. Pro pūgą aidi kimi giesmė ir uždusę varpai.
Per tylų, miegantį, baltą Žemaičių kaimą Through the soundless sleeping white Samogitian lekia kazokai, rimbais ilgais kapodami 15 town medžiuose žėrinčią žydrą žiemos mėnesieną. fly the Cossacks, chopping the blue winter moonlight 15 that shimmers in the trees with their long whips.
70
Niekas tavęs nebučiavo labanakčio. Niekas kartu neraudojo No one kissed you goodnight. No one wept with you mirusios motinos. Tėvo pakarto nelaidojo For your dead mother. No one came to bury your niekas. hanged father Tavo žemė buvo tuščia ir nuoga. Tavo žemė, Your land was empty and naked. Your earth, kaip žemdirbio delnas. a peasant’s palm. Niekas tavęs karalystėn neleido — pilki apdarai No one let you into the kingdom – grey garments plazdėjo, 20 fluttered 20 Kaip seniai pamirštų pakasynų vėliavos. Maro Like long-forgotten funeral flags. Plague linens. marškonys.
Per skurdų Žemaičių kaimą lekia kazokai, Through the tattered Samogitian town fly the ant iečių nešdami sukapotą Cossacks, mėlyną žiemos mėnesieną. carrying the chopped blue winter moonlight on their long lances.
Skaistų sekmadienio rytmetį spindinčioj On a bright Saturday morning in the radiant land 25 žemėj 25 workmen tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. Dažo derva darbininkai medinį tiltą per Deep beneath the ice the river flows slowly to the sea. Bartuvą. Under the raspberry branches sleeps my sister’s Teka giliai po ledu neskubėdama upė į jūrą. snow-dusted doll. Po aviečių šakom užpustyta miega sesers lėlė. Together we trace my sleeping brother’s face in the Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant blue snow. mėlyno sniego.
A closer look at the poem shows that the key images are ‘snow,’ ‘sister’s doll,’ ‘brother’ and ‘winter.’ In particular, the poem is full of references to winter, for although the word itself is repeated only three times, there are other words that are associated with it: “sniegas,” “balta,” “pūga,” “užpusto,” “ledu” “spindinčioj žemėj” and “užpustyta” (when it is very cold, light snow usually glistens). This kind of repetition is called metonymy. Zdanys manages to retain all the instances of these repetitive references to winter: “snow,” “white,” “snowstorm,” “snow drifts over,” “ice,” “radiant land” and “snow-dusted,” relatively. Such metonymous repetition creates a very specific landscape of the poet’s homeland. Line 19 offers an instance of same-unit repetition: “Tavo žemė buvo tuščia ir nuoga. Tavo žemė, kaip žemdirbio delnas.” Here the phrase “Tavo žemė” appears in the strong initial position of each sentence, which intensifies the significance of “a person’s native land” and contributes to the overall image of the land so strongly used in this poem. Accordingly, Zdanys stays faithful to Nagys’ thematic construction and preserves the repetition in the same initial position although he uses a synonym: “Your land was empty and naked. Your earth, a peasant’s palm.” In addition, Nagys uses very strong repetition when the first line of the poem, with some variations, occurs two more times within the poem: “Mudu piešiame vaiko veidą ant pirmojo sniego” (l. 1), “Mudu piešiame brolio veidą ant pirmojo sniego” (l. 9) and “Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant mėlyno sniego” (l. 28, the last line). The differences in these lines are
71 put in bold; thus, “vaiko” / “child’s” becomes “brolio” / “brother’s” and then “miegančio brolio” / “sleeping brother’s,” while “pirmojo sniego” / “the first snow” becomes “mėlyno sniego” / “blue snow.” Since this opening line re-appears as the last line, it frames the poem and gives it a clear closure in a circular fashion. Another example of very strong repetition appears in the fifth stanza; its function is to intensify the thought: “Niekas tavęs nebučiavo labanakčio. Niekas kartu neraudojo / mirusios motinos. Tėvo pakarto nelaidojo niekas.” / “Niekas tavęs karalystėn neleido — pilki apdarai plazdėjo,” (ll. 17-18, 20). Here the occurrence of the word “niekas” (no one) four times, and three times as first in the sentence, strengthens the idea of the person being completely alone and abandoned. Zdanys achieves a faithful same-unit repetition and even makes it stronger than in the original, for the phrase “no one” now recurs in the initial position of each line: “No one kissed you goodnight. No one wept with you / For your dead mother. No one came to bury your hanged father” / “No one let you into the kingdom – grey garments fluttered” (ll. 17-18, 20). A difference appears in line 18 where the word “niekas” (“no one”) comes at the end of the line in the Lithuanian text, but at the beginning in the English text. Here Zdanys has to follow English word order, subject- verb-object, since “no one” is the subject of the sentence. This detailed analysis of instances of repetition shows that the Lithuanian free-verse poets use same-unit repetition the most extensively in comparison to other kinds of repetition. However, synonymy, opposition and metonymy are also commonly used categories of repetition in these poems. The translators are aware of all the instances of repetition and try to preserve them in the same places. However, in certain cases, Jonas Zdanys, Kerry Shawn Keys and Laima Sruoginis have to deal with semantic and grammatical differences of Lithuanian and English, which cause some variations in their transference of repetition. Nevertheless, all these translators achieve similar functions of repetitions and maintain the overall effect of recurrences. All of the translators try not to omit important repetitions and, if this happens, as in Keys’ case, then he compensates for the loss in another place in the poem. Thus, Rasoul al-Khafaji’s assertion that translators tend to avoid lexical repetition in literary texts is not true in Zdanys, Keys and Sruoginis’ translations of the Lithuanian free-verse texts. One may speculate that avoiding repetition is less likely in these translation of poetry than prose, since the repetitions are often essential to the structure, meaning and sound system of a poem, as in all four of these texts.
6. CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS IN SOME FREE-VERSE POEMS: CATEGORIES AND TRANSLATION ISSUES
Since literary translation involves two different languages and cultures, in this case, Lithuanian and English, the translators have to decide to what extent they will transfer Lithuanian culture in order
72 to communicate similar or at least comprehensible cultural messages to English readers. Although some cultural references are specific to Lithuanian culture, others belong to Western culture in general. This section consists of two sub-sections: the first one categorises culture-specific items that are identified in selected Lithuanian free-verse poems, while the second provides an analysis of the translation strategies used for specific cultural references.
6.1 Categorising Culture-Specific Items in Lithuanian Free-Verse Poems
This section defines and categorises culture-specific items in the Lithuanian free-verse poems selected for the analysis. It starts with a brief discussion of how language is used as a means of communicating cultural messages. Then a definition of the term “culture-specific item” and its categorisation, with examples from poems, is provided. In general, language is commonly perceived as a medium of culture but, at the same time, it can be called a product of culture as well. Therefore, a text written in a specific language is coded with cultural meanings that are overt and hidden messages about traditions, values and the everyday life of a particular culture. Three similar definitions provide an explanation of what is referred to as culture-specific items. First, Maria Tymoczko treats them as “metonymic evocations of the culture as the whole, including its material culture, history, customs and values (1999: 45). In a more detailed way, Peter Newmark points out that “cultural words are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression; [thus], there will be a translation problem due to the cultural ‘gap’ or ‘distance’ between [different language cultures]” (1992: 94). Eirlys E. Davies define culture-specific items in a fairly similar way by noting that these are “customs and norms of a culture [that are] acceptable to its members, [but] when transferred to [another culture can] pose a translation problem due to the nonexistence or to the different value of the given item in [that] culture” (2002: 68). Meanwhile, Javier Franco Aixela focuses on the translation issues raised by culture-specific items: Those textually actualized items whose function and connotations in a source text involve a translation problem in their transference to a target text, whenever this problem is a product of the nonexistence of the referred item or of its different intertextual status in the cultural system of the readers of the target text. (1996: 58)
According to Newmark, cultural entities are “bound to a particular culture” (1992: 94) because they represent a specific way of life and the social and historical development that is characteristic to a concrete historical community (1992: 94-97). He further explains that culture- specific items are words “loaded with unique cultural information that may be alien to any other culture except for a culture in which the entity exists” (Newmark 1992: 94); moreover, many culture-specific items have “a narrow sense” (Newmark 1992: 94), which is foreign to readers from 73 other cultures. However, a number of cultural words are less exotic than others: Newmark calls these “universals, cultural entities that are shared by many cultures in the Western world” (1992: 94) and therefore pose few problems for readers from other cultures. Lithuanian free-verse poems contain some culture-specific items that, using Davies’ terms, create “naturalness” and “familiarity” (2003: 69) to Lithuanian readers and “exoticism or strangeness” (2003: 69) to, for example, English readers. However, culture-specific items that are very Lithuanian are not that common in the poems under discussion in this thesis. Those that appear can be grouped in three broad categories: culture-specific items belonging to Western culture; Lithuanian geographical names; and other Lithuanian culture-specific items. A number of words in the Lithuanian free-verse poems that are chosen for this thesis are culture-specific items that come from the Western cultural tradition. Since cultures do not exist in a vacuum without influencing one another, many aspects of life have been transferred from Western culture into another, depending on how close these cultures have been during different historical periods. One of the broadest aspects unifying many linguistic cultures is religion. For instance, both cultures, Lithuanian and English, belong to the same Western Christian religion (Roman Christianity until the 16th century) (Penguin Dictionary of Religions 1984). However, “the 16th century reformation and counterreformation split the Western Church into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism” (Penguin Dictionary of Religions 1984). Lithuania remained with what became known as Roman Catholicism, while the United States, for example, became more Protestant. Examples of Christian culture-specific items appear in the poems “auksinį plauką” (“I found a golden hair”) by Nijolė Miliauskaitė and “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) by Sigitas Geda. The first poem contains the culture-specific word “Kalėdos” (Christmas) while the second has the proper name “Dovydo” (King David). According to The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, the word Christmas originated from Old English and means the “Christian festival that is celebrated on December 25, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ” (1998). A more detailed explanation of this vocabulary is provided in Sub-section 6.2 together with a comparative analysis. The reference to King David is taken from the Old Testament of the Bible in which he is presented as a shepherd who becomes a king of Israel. According to The New Encyclopaedia Britanica, his life and victories are depicted in three biblical sources: the Psalms, the Book of Samuel and the Book of Chronicles (1998). Another example of a culture-specific item that comes from Western tradition appears in Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poem “Lėlių siuvėja” (“Doll Maker”). Here the proper name “Pjero” (Piero or Pierrot), which comes specifically from the Italian and French comic theatrical tradition, is used to describe a doll in a specific costume. The Lithuanian word “Pjero” is taken from Italian “Piero” (American Heritage Dictionary 1992) and phonologically adapted to the Lithuanian language.
74
According to this source, “Pierrot” (in French) is “a male character in certain French pantomime, having a whitened face and wearing a loose white fancy costume” (American Heritage Dictionary 1992). The name originated in Italian comedy where Piero is a character in many tales and has connotations of inferiority and humour (American Heritage Dictionary 1992). His appearance is depicted in the poem; thus, the reference is easily understandable to any source-text reader who is an educated person. The translation of this word is discussed in Sub-section 6.2. Another category of culture-specific items, however, would not be familiar to non- Lithuanian readers; these are Lithuanian geographical names, mainly references to rivers, towns, and regions. The examples of rivers are “Rausvė” from Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poem “auksinį plauką” (“I found a golden hair”) and “Bartuva” in Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” There is one reference to the resort town of Lithuanian, Palanga, in Sigitas Geda’s poem “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” (“Angel Falling in Palanga”). Furthermore, Nagys mentions “Žemaičių kaimą” (Samogitian town) which reminds Lithuanian readers of a specific region. The title of Geda’s poem “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) contains the proper noun “Justiniškės” which refers to a residential part of the city of Vilnius and implies the author’s closeness with his Lithuanian readers. Although these references would be unfamiliar to English readers, at least the context makes it clear that they are rivers and place names. All these culture-specific items and their translation choices are analysed in Sub-section 6.2. More problematic culture-specific items belong to the last category which includes such realias that are highly specific to Lithuanian culture. Indeed, it is not surprising that usually European cultures would not have the same image of an entity and would not share equal or similar traditions. Some of the selected free-verse poets use cultural items which are unique to Lithuanian cultural tradition and history so that they have no equivalent in English-speaking culture or in its language, either. An example of such a case appears in Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” (“An Answer to a Martian Chronicler”) which contains Lithuanian names and surnames such like “Sigitas Geda” and “Kunickis” (Geda 1988: 10). In the first example the poet refers to himself, which signals to all readers that the poem has autobiographical elements. The surname “Kunickis” would be recognised by Lithuanian readers only as being Lithuanian and to the extent to which he is depicted in the poem as Geda’s drawing teacher. This same poem also refers to some cultural features of earlier times in Lithuania: “jį mušdavo / su lenta / per ištiestą / galvą” (“would hit him / with a board / on his bowed / head”) (Geda ll. 21-24, tr. Zdanys ll. 21-24). Physical punishment of pupils was common both in English and Lithuanian schools in the first half of the 20th century, but in English-speaking countries it would have involved hitting a child’s hand or bottom, not a head4. Another problematic instance is ______
4 The author of this thesis thanks Dr. Milda Danytė for this information. 75 the Lithuanian word “lenta” which translation may be misleading to English readers (“a board”). In this context the Lithuanian word can refer to a piece of wood or to a blackboard in schools. Since the poem depicts the 1940s, it is likely that Geda refers to a slate which was extensively used as a small individual blackboard on which students wrote with chalk: this was especially practised in Lithuanian countryside at that time. The translation choice of this word is discussion in more details in Sub-section 6.2. Good examples of Lithuanian culture-bound references can be seen in Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura” in which he uses a number of references to archaic customs that arouse similar emotions in Lithuanian and English readers. The poem depicts earlier times which, even for the Lithuanian reader could be difficult to visualise because cultural traditions change together with generations, and even within a generation; therefore, such cultural realia as “klostyto popieriaus priegalvį” (“plaited paper pillow”) in a coffin, “pakasynų vėliavos” (“funeral flags”) and “Maro marškonys” (“Plague linens”) (Geda 1960: 41-42, tr. Zdanys 1996) are archaic terms that are not used in contemporary Lithuanian society. For this reason, it could be stated that in these cases both the source-text and the target-text readers will imagine a similar picture of a reality which seems very distant from their own experience. Finally, all these instances of culture-specific items are important to discuss within translation analysis, since Jonas Zdanys, Laima Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys have to make certain choices in translating both simple and more problematic cases of culture-bound references. Thus, Sub-section 6.2 is aimed at the discussion of the translation issues that arise while transferring these culture-specific items.
6.2 Translation Issues in Rendering Lithuanian Culture-Specific Items
It is interesting to see how translators treat the culture-specific items that have been idicated in Sub- section 6.1 and then to identify translation tendencies in their rendering of Lithuanian culture- specific items. Accordingly, Eirlys E. Davies’ seven translation procedures and Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of domestication and foreignisation are applied to this discussion. Undoubtedly, the least problematic translation of cultural references is that of universals, in this case, as those that come from Western culture. The first such culture-specific items are taken from Christian religious knowledge: “Kalėdos” (Christmas) and “Dovydo” (David’s). These culture-specific items appear in the poems “auksinį plauką…” (“I found a golden hair”) by Nijolė Miliauskaitė and “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) by Sigitas Geda. Jonas Zdanys translates the Lithuanian word “Kalėdos” as “Christmas Day”: “on his back, on Christmas Day” (l. 8) (“aukštielninkas, per pačias Kalėdas” (l. 8)). Here Zdanys chooses to translate the word
76 with an English equivalent; however, he makes two words out of the single Lithuanian word by adding the noun “Day.” In English both terms are common, but the expression “on Christmas Day” makes it clear that it is not “Christmas Eve” which is a more important celebration than “Christmas Day” for Lithuanians, unlike most English-speaking people. Nevertheless, Zdanys renders this cultural reference without any difficulties, because English-speaking people have very similar general associations for Christmas as Lithuanians have. Another unproblematic instance of a culture-specific item is the proper name “Dovydo,” which Carry Shawn Keys translates as “David’s” (“with King David’s” / “sykiu su karaliaus Dovydo” (l. 13)). Since this religious name comes from the Bible, it is likely that educated English readers will know who it refers to. Even so, it may be that this name will not arouse any specific religious connotations to many Lithuanian and English readers, only that the person is a king, as is stated in the poem, for religious knowledge is getting weaker in both cultures. Since the name has an equivalent translation in English, Keys simply adds a possessive case (’s) to the name, “David’s,” instead of the Lithuanian ending ‘o,’ “Dovydo.” The only difference in Key’s translation of the phrase “karaliaus Dovydo” is that, according to English rules, he has to capitalise the word “King.” One more example of a culture-specific item that comes from the Western tradition is the proper noun “Pjero” appearing in Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poem “Lėlių siuvėja” (“Doll Maker”). Here Laima Sruoginis and Jonas Zdanys translate “Pjero” (“pasodini prie veidrodžio Pjero -” (l. 19)) as “Piero”, (“you seat Piero before the mirror” (tr. Zdanys l. 19) / “you seat Piero by the mirror—” (tr. Sruoginis l. 19)). The name is simply translated into English, using the original Italian form. Both Lithuanian and English readers with good cultural knowledge will have very similar images of Piero, who is a well-known comic character from Italian and French theatrical tradition. Moreover, the context of the original poem provides sufficient information for readers who might not know Piero. Miliauskaitė makes it clear that this is a doll with a sad and pale face, major features of the Piero character. Thus both Zdanys and Sruoginis follow Miliauskaitė’s text and do not add a footnote or other explanation of the proper name. In comparison to references from Western culture, specific geographical names are more demanding to translate, for they are culturally marked references to towns, rivers, and the like. The most common references that are found in the Lithuanian free-verse poems are places-name. Such examples as Sigitas Geda’s poems “Angelas krintantis Palangoj” (“Angel Falling in Palanga”) and “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (“Trash Truck in Justiniškės”) contain two culture-specific items, “Palanga” and “Justiniškėse.” Both these words refer to very specific Lithuanian places that are unlikely to be known by English readers; only the context of the poems shows them that these are some kind of place-names. The first proper noun, “Palanga,” is preserved in the title by both Zdanys
77 and Keys: “An Angel Falling in Panaga” (tr. Zdanys) and “Angel Falling in Palanga” (tr. Keys). A detailed discussion of this translation has been provided in Sub-section 5.2.1 on the translation of titles. Here, however, it is worth mentioning that Zdanys, in contrast to Keys, provides English readers with an external explicitation (“addition,” in Davies’s terms) of the place name “Palanga” by adding a footnote: “Palanga: Lithuanian resort town on the Baltic Sea” (Zdanys 1995: 113). In this way Zdanys domesticates the title, because his explanation of the word “Palanga” makes it less exotic and more expressive for English readers. On the other hand, Keys foreignises the English title, for he does not give any additional clarification of where “Palanga” is or what kind of town it is. Similarly, the place name “Justiniškėse” is also preserved by Keys in the title without any additional explanation; here again Keys foreignises the English title. Furthermore, another instance of a place name is the reference to “Žemaičių kaimą” (Samogitian town) in Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” Though Zdanys translates this place name with an English equivalent, still “Samogitian” probably does not arouse any associations for English readers. In addition to place names, there are two references to rivers, the “Rausvė” in Nijolė Miliauskaitė’s poem “auksinį plauką” (“I found a golden hair”) and the “Bartuva” in Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” Both these proper nouns are preserved by Zdanys, only the ending ‘ą’ is changed into ‘a’ in the “Bartuva” (“Bartuvą”). English readers would immediately understand that the “Rausvė” is a river because of the context: “he rested here once upon a time / near the Rausvė” (ll. 6-7) (“tai čia kitados jis ilsėjos / prie Rausvės” (ll. 6-7)). The same strategy is used by Zdanys in his translation of “Laterna Obscura,” in which he preserves the river name “Bartuva”: “workmen tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva” (l. 26), (“dažo derva darbininkai medinį tiltą per Bartuvą” (l. 26)). Here the word “bridge” lets readers know that “Bartuva” means a river. Zdanys’ decision to not provide any additional information indicates his belief that these names are not especially significant and that the readers’ general understanding of them should be enough within the overall meaning of the poems. One more category of problematic culture-specific items is personal names. In the poems being discussed, there are only two examples of names, “Sigitas Geda” and “Kunickis,” both in Sigitas Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” (“An Answer to a Martian Chronicler”). Zdanys and Sruoginis preserve the full name, “Sigitas Geda” and the surname, “Kunickis,” which can be viewed as examples of foreignisation, since neither translator provides any explanation for these cultural references. Nevertheless, English readers will comprehend that these are the references to particular people. For instance, Lithuanian and English readers will see that the “Sigitas Geda” in the text is the author of the poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą,” which they are reading. However, many Lithuanian readers will be familiar with Geda more specifically:
78 they might have seen him on television or read about him in some newspaper or magazine, as he was a major literary figure. For English readers, the name does not evoke anything. The surname “Kunickis,” on the other hand, will have the same impact on both Lithuanian and English readers, for they will know from the context that it refers to Sigitas Geda’s drawing teacher when he was a child. Translators could have chosen to provide a footnote with pertinent information about Geda, but chose a more foreignised translation. Other instances of cultural references are archaic words which, even to Lithuanian readers, can be difficult to understand. The three most interesting examples of such cultural realia appear in Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura”: “klostyto popieriaus priegalvį,” “pakasynų vėliavos” and “Maro marškonys” (Geda 1960: 41-42). All these phrases contain vocabulary that refers to people’s everyday reality at a particular historical period in Lithuania. However, this reality has changed together with the vocabulary, for Lithuanians no longer need these words in their everyday language. Here Zdanys tries to be faithful and retain this archaic vocabulary by translating “klostyto popieriaus priegalvį” as “plaited paper pillow” (l. 12). The word “plaited” has the meaning of “pleated” (“klostyto”) but the translation of the Lithuanian word “priegalvį” loses its archaic connotation because a “pillow” is an everyday word in English (“pagalvė” in Lithuanian), while “priegalvį” is now rarely used and has specific connotations of the past. Similarly, the translation of the phrase “pakasynų vėliavos” as “funeral flags” also loses connotations of archaism, because “pakasynų” in Lithuanian is an old-fashioned word for ‘funeral’ (Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas 2000), while “funeral” in English is the ordinary contemporary word. Moreover, “pakasynų” has a very strong effect in the context of other words and helps to create an older, more formal style of writing. Finally, Zdanys translates “Maro marškonys” as “Plague linens,” where the Lithuanian archaic word “marškonys” refers to a linen garment or simply to a linen cloth (Bajoraitis 1959: 410-412). This word is no longer used in the common spoken language and appears usually only in literature. In the Western tradition “linens” are “clothing, bedding, made of linen cloth” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). Although the word “marškonys” sounds strange, but not incomprehensible, to Lithuanian readers, its translation “linens” loses this effect, for English readers will not recognise it as being remote from ordinary use. Accordingly, Zdanys’ vocabulary becomes less stylistically expressive, though he is faithful semantically to the original. Unlike these archaisms, the last example has an archaic meaning but a common form. Sigitas Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” (“An Answer to a Martian Chronicler”) includes the culture-specific item “lenta” (a board), which here refers to a very specific period when young pupils wrote on a small tablet with a wooden frame, for paper was too expensive: the word in English is “slate.” The problem here is that the Lithuanian word “lenta” has several meanings, but it
79 clearly refers to a slate in the context of the poem. However, both Zdanys and Sruoginis translate the Lithuanian word “lenta” with the word “board,” which generally means as a dictionary explains, “a piece of wood sawed thin and of considerable length, and breadth compared with the thickness; a plank” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary 1996). The only similarity between a slate and a board is that they have a flat and rigid surface. Thus, Zdanys translates lines 21-24, “jį mušdavo su lenta per ištiestą galvą” as “would hit him / with a board / on his bowed / head” (ll. 21-24) and Sruoginis as “would / beat him / with a board / over his / extended / head” (ll. 24-29). It is unlikely that English readers will immediately realise that “a board” here really means a slate. However, such a misleading word choice can be treated as a faithful translation, for Geda also uses the general word “lenta” (a board) in an odd way, to refer to a specific object used by pupils to write on. These examples indicate that translators make different decisions while dealing with culture-specific items, though they try to be consistent in their choices throughout a poem. Although references that belong to Western culture and place names pose few translation problems, this is not the case with words that are archaic in form and meaning. Still, Jonas Zdanys’ decision to translate the meaning of words and to exclude the connotation of their outdated usage, affects the overall tone and style of Henrikas Nagys’ poem “Laterna Obscura.” The most common tendency in dealing with culture-specific items among these translators is domestication, for they usually either slightly adapt the preserved item phonologically or provide some additional explanation. It has been noted that, if a culture-specific item is not very important to the understanding of the overall meaning or its meaning is easily deduced from the context, then translators provide no explanation for English readers. Here the translation of poetry differs from that of literary prose, since translators cannot easily use internal explicitation to render culture-specific items, for this would seriously disrupt the flow of a poem.
7. CONCLUSION
This discussion of free verse as a non-standard poetic form has indicated several ways in which it differs from metrical or rhymed verse. Though free-verse poets do not use traditional patterns to create regularity and musicality in their poems, they do apply other linguistic and sound devices that, in some cases, appear just as stylistically complex as the traditional ones. Therefore, translating free verse requires knowledge about its characteristic features, for translators have to be careful not to overlook less prominent, but very important patterns in the original poem. Since the thesis aims at discussing only syntactic, formal and cultural aspects, semantic meaning is not highlighted except when discussing the translation of titles and culture-specific items. The comparative analysis of the Lithuanian originals and their translations has been carried out on the basis of Lawrence Venuti’s approach to literary translation: two general translation procedures, foreignisation and 80 domestication, are considered when commenting on the specific decisions that are made in rendering Lithuanian texts into English. However, in some cases Venuti’s concepts do not always seem appropriate or complete, so that the older notion of a “faithful” translation is useful. In addition, some of Eirlys E. Davies’ specific strategies have been chosen in order to indicate more concrete strategies that are used by some translators, mainly in rendering culture-specific items or translating the titles of the original poems. The present research has found four formal and syntactic features to be the most typical in the selected Lithuanian free-verse poems: these commonly used devices by Henrikas Nagys, Sigitas Geda, Nijolė Miliauskaitė, Antanas A. Jonynas and Sigitas Parulskis are layout, alliteration and repetition, while unusual line-breaks are less prominent. So far as layout is concerned, Geda’s, Miliauskaitė’s and Parulskis’ poems are good examples that show how these poets manipulate form to control the reading pace and create additional emphasis. Another important aspect of layout is the arrangement of a poem on a page. The majority of these Lithuanian poems have irregular forms that provide different visual effects. However, many of the poems are organised in stanzas regular or irregular ones, while others, such as Geda’s poem “Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse,” have sight stanzas and one Geda’s poem “Atsakymas į marsiečių užklausimą” has no stanzaic pattern. The analysis of the English translations has shown that, in many ways, translators try to retain the original layout on the page. Still, one poem has been translated in a way that has altered or even distorted the original layout: this is Antanas A. Jonynas’ poem “Gaisras” as translated by Zdanys in co-operation with Antanas Danielius and Craig Czury. In this way, they have lost Jonynas’ sonnet form by distorting his stanzaic pattern. The discussion on line-breaks has shown that in these poems the Lithuanian poets tend to use end-stopped lines more often than run-on ones, which indicates that normal syntactic chains are preferred. Certain interesting line-breaks have been noted in Miliauskaitė’s poem, “Lėlių siuvėja” which both Zdanys and Laima Sruoginis try to maintain, though sometimes they have to follow English grammar and change the order of elements in two or more lines. As has also been indicated, one of the most extensively used formal devices by these Lithuanian free-verse poets is alliteration. Among the kinds of alliteration, it appears that the strongest type, when an initial sound or syllable is repeated in the same line, is the most favoured among these poets. Generally, alliteration, assonance or consonance serve mainly for emphasis or to create a rhythmic pattern. Many instances of alliteration are maintained by the translators discussed, even though in different words or lines. If translators cannot reproduce the same kind of alliteration, they often manage to change it into a weaker one, while further on in the text, they compensate for this loss by creating a stronger type of alliteration where it may not exist in the source text. The
81 most important is that these translators do their best to produce the same over-all effect that is created by the use of alliteration in a specific text. Repetition is another extensively used device that is found in these Lithuanian free-verse poems. Applying Kinga Klaudy and Krisztina Karoly’s categorisation of repetition, it has been noted that the use of same-unit repetition is the kind of repetition preferred by these poets, as it allows them to emphasise key images, intensify emotions or unify a whole poem. Other categories of repetition are the use of opposites and metonymy that help to juxtapose or to unify images, respectively. The use of synonymous repetition also allows emphasising key ideas. The analysis of these translations has shown that all the translators manage to maintain essential repetitions, though with certain variations. Here, as with alliteration, Zdanys, Sruoginis and Kerry Shawn Keys tend to compensate for any omitted repetition by creating their own with different words and at different places in the poem. The final part of the thesis has focused on cultural references. Though the Lithuanian poets analysed use a variety of cultural references, these are not very numerous, and, in many cases, not absolutely vital to a general understanding of the poem. In most instances, the translators preserve culture-specific items with minor phonological adjustments. However, if they think that a culture- specific item is important to comprehend a poem, then, for instance, Zdanys uses a footnote. The least demanding translation is that of Western cultural references, for all the translators apply the same strategy of simply changing the Lithuanian term with the existing equivalent in English. On the contrary, a more challenging translation is that of archaic words; for instance, Henrikas Nagys uses a number of these words to create a specific archaic atmosphere in his poem “Laterna Obscura.” Here Zdanys cannot avoid losing connotations arising from words of rare usage. The general concern of this thesis has been to see how translators succeed in dealing with syntactic, formal and cultural problems while translating certain Lithuanian free-verse poems. As it turns out, the translators seek to be faithful in transferring meaning more than form, but, in most cases, they compensate for formal losses by using other poetic devices to achieve similar effects. Overall, translators are clearly aware of existing stylistic features in the source texts and manage to reproduce them, even though they inevitably change, for instance, phonological features specific to the Lithuanian language. All the translators seek to transfer, as far as possible, the same aesthetic values that are found in original poems. Moreover, translators often find their own ways to compensate for inevitable losses, allowing them to achieve comparable aesthetic or emotional effects. Taking into account all the translations that have been discussed, it could be stated that Zdanys and Keys provide very faithful translations, for they keep close to both semantic meanings and layout, while Sruoginis is somewhat freer in her translations and, in some cases, sacrifices
82 semantic equivalence for stylistic devices such as retaining a similar length of lines, the same kind of repetition or alliteration in the same words. However, this does not mean that Sruoginis’ choices are completely inappropriate; on the contrary, if she decides that particular syntactic or formal features have priority for a Lithuanian poet, then the changes she makes are motivated by her desire to equally highlight such features. Although the translation of poetry is the most complicated sphere of literary translation, the present study has shown that it is by no means impossible. It is interesting to see how all the translators discussed in this thesis come up with their own ways to produce faithful translations. They clearly understand the Lithuanian poems and look very closely at their contents; even more, they are aware not only of particular stylistic means, but also of the overall style of a poem. To conclude, the analysis undertaken for this study has brought out other issues that could be addressed in the translation of Lithuanian poems. It has been noted that certain semantic discrepancies can affect the understanding of a poem, while the choice of different vocabulary can change tone and alter metaphorical expressions. The present thesis has preferred to look mostly at the transference of some syntactic and formal characteristics of free verse from Lithuanian to English, leaving these other translation issues for future research.
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APPENDIX 1: The Lithuanian Originals and Their English Translations of the Poems Discussed in the Thesis
“Laterna Obscura” (LT) “Laterna Obscura” (EN) (Nagys 1960: 41-42) (Zdanys 1978: 141)
Mudu piešiame vaiko veidą ant pirmojo sniego. Together we trace the child's face in the first snow. Po laukinių aviečių šakom supa lėlę sesuo. Beneath wild raspberry branches my sister rocks her Lengvą sniegą paklojo nakčia darbininkai ant gruodo doll. ir dažo derva medinį tiltą per Bartuvą. Last night workmen spread light snow on the frozen Pirmagimis sniegas purus kaip sesers plaukai. 5 ground and now tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. The newborn snow is light as my sister's hair. 5
Per susigūžusį tuščią Žemaičių kaimą Through the cowering empty Samogitian town lekia kazokai, nuogais kalavijais kapodami the Cossacks ride, chopping the white mute baltą bežadę žiemos mėnesiena. moonlight with their naked swords.
Mudu piešiame brolio veidą ant pirmojo sniego. We trace our brother's face in the first snow. Nuomariu serganti sargo duktė sužiedėjusią duoną 10 The guard's epileptic daughter crumbles dry bread 10 trupina kapo duobėn. Kaimietės vaškinį veidą into the coffin hole. Snow drifts over the peasant ir klostyto popieriaus priegalvį sniegas užpusto. woman's Pro pūgą aidi kimi giesmė ir uždusę varpai. wax face and her plaited paper pillow. Through the snowstorm echo the hoarse hymn and breathless bells.
Per tylų, miegantį, baltą Žemaičių kaimą Through the soundless sleeping white Samogitian lekia kazokai, rimbais ilgais kapodami 15 town medžiuose žėrinčią žydrą žiemos mėnesieną. fly the Cossacks, chopping the blue winter moonlight 15 that shimmers in the trees with their long whips.
Niekas tavęs nebučiavo labanakčio. Niekas kartu neraudojo No one kissed you goodnight. No one wept with you mirusios motinos. Tėvo pakarto nelaidojo niekas. for your dead mother. No one came to bury your Tavo žemė buvo tuščia ir nuoga. Tavo žemė, kaip hanged father. žemdirbio delnas. Your land was empty and naked. Your earth, a Niekas tavęs karalystėn neleido - pilki apdarai plazdėjo 20 peasant's palm. kaip seniai pamirštų pakasynų vėliavos. Maro marškonys. No one let you into the kingdom – grey garments fluttered 20 like long-forgotten funeral flags. Plague linens.
Per skurdų Žemaičių kaimą lekia kazokai, Through the tattered Samogitian town fly the ant iečių ilgų nešdami sukapotą Cossacks, mėlyną žiemos mėnesieną. carrying the chopped blue winter moonlight on their long lances.
Skaistų sekmadienio rytmetį spindinčioj žemėj 25 On a bright Sunday morning in the radiant land 25 dažo derva darbininkai medinį tiltą per Bartuvą. workmen tar the wooden bridge over the Bartuva. Teka giliai po ledu neskubėdama upė į jūrą. Deep beneath the ice the river flows slowly to the Po aviečių šakom užpustyta miega sesers lėlė. sea. Mudu piešiame miegančio brolio veidą ant mėlyno sniego. Under the raspberry branches sleeps my sister's snow-dusted doll. Together we trace my sleeping brother's face in the blue snow.
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“sėdėjo prie pat gatvės…” (LT) “Sitting Beside the Very Street” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: 98) (trans. Sruoginis 1997: 89) sėdėjo prie pat gatvės sitting beside the very street ant aplūžusio suolo apsilaupusiais dažais on a dilapidated bench, paint peeling pro šalį ėjo žmonės, zujo vaikai people stroll past, children scurry verkė kūdikis vežimėly prie krautuvės an infant left in a carriage outside a shop wails tokia nedidelė mėlyna berete, kokias nešioja traktorininkai 5 wearing a small blue beret, the kind tractor storu lietpalčiu dar nuo neatmenamų laikų, drivers wear 5 guminiais a thick raincoat from who knows how long ago, batais aukštais aulais high rubber boots sėdėjo ir valgė ledus su vafliais he sits, eating ice cream with wafers dar dvi porcijos pasidėtos šalia two more potions on the bench, beside him senas, apšepusiais skruostais 10 old, unkempt cheeks, vienas pats sau alone, by himself, 10 autobusams sustojant prie ktautuvės buses stopping before the shops sėdėjo ir valgė ramiai ledus he sits and calmly eats ice cream buvo karšta gegužės pabaiga it’s hot, the end of May magiškas 15 around him ratas aplink jį, besiplečiantis a magic circle spreads 15 tylos ir vienatvės rata quiet and solitude
“auksinį plauką…” (LT) “I found a golden hair…” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: 70) (Zdanys 2002: 169) auksinį plauką I found a golden hair radau ant sniego on the snow pakėliau ilgą ilgą I picked it up a long long auksinį plauką, angelo golden hair, an angel’s pamestą plauką 5 lost hair 5 tai čia kitados jis ilsėjosi he rested here once upon a time prie Rausvės near the Rausvė aukštielninkas, per pačias Kalėdas on his back, on Christmas day po galva pasidėjęs ranką his arm beneath his head
čia jį staiga pamačiau 10 I saw him here without warning 10 nusileidus nuo kalno rogutėm when I slid down the hill on my sled
85
“Lėlių siuvėja” (LT) “Doll Maker” (EN) “The Doll Maker” (EN) (Miliauskaitė 1995: 119-120) (trans. Sruoginis 1997: 88) (trans. Zdanys 2002: 171) neryškus profilis a murky profile an indistinct profile lange, ant gelsvos užuolaidos, nušviestas in the window; lamp light glares against in the window, on the yellow curtain, lit by a lempos yellowish curtains lamp tarpais sujuda, pasisuka jerks forward, swings round moves from time to time, turns vėl palinksta bends again bends down again nebylus šešėlis, niekam nepažystamas 5 dumb shadow, stranger to all 5 a mute shadow, familiar to no one 5 Tu lig vidurnakčio sėdi, siūdama lėles you sit beyond midnight, sewing dolls you sit until midnight, sewing dolls Žiūrėk, tavo draugas, artimiausias bičiulis - look, your friend, your confidant – the moon look, your friend, your closest confidant the mėnuo is rising moon pakyla is rising shred by shred, pattern by pattern skiautė prie skiautės, atraiža prie atraižos day by day scrap by scrap, piece by piece diena po dienos 10 day by day 10 each doll is always different; her expressions kiekviena lėlė vis kitokia, vis kita veido vary every doll is always different, the expression on išraiška as if alive— each face lyg būtų gyvos hairdos, clothing, everything, yes, everything always different as if they were alive šukuosena, rūbai, viskas o viskas suits a social position, a class hairstyles, clothes, everything and all atitinka žmogaus padėtį, luomą suits a person’s position, social class only, does anyone need her? 15 tik ar bus kam reikalingos 15 will anyone deliver her but will they be needed by anyone 15 ar kas įduos into out-stretched hands, will anyone’s heart will someone pass them į ištiestas rankas, ar suplaks beat faster, from joy into outstretched arms, will a heart smarkiau širdis, iš džiaugsmo beat faster with joy you seat Piero by the mirror— pasodini prie veidrodžio Pjero – sad, pale, in shiny satin 20 you seat Piero before the mirror liūdną, blyškų, blizgančiu atlasiniu 20 clothing, you move towards the window sad, pale, in a shining satin 20 rūbu, prie lango prieini, pasišnekėt su to talk with the moon suit, walk to the window to talk to the moon mėluliu to complain, to seek comfort: to complain to him, to find comfort: jam pasiskųst ir pasiguost: - each one of them each one of them - kiekviena iš jų carries away a scrap 25 carries away nusineša ir mano of my soul a scrap of my soul 25 sielos dalį 25
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“Šiukšliavežė Justiniškėse” (LT) “Trash Truck in Justiniškės”(EN) (Geda 2002: 124) (Keys 2002: 125) šitą trumpą kovo akimirksnį in this brief monument in March vaikui daužant sniegą as a child with muddy feet už lango stamps snow purvinom kojom outside the window praskrendant varnai 5 a crow flies by 5 dabar jau galiu now I can manage jau pajėgiu now I am able ilgi ir dažni buvo mortification of the body kūno marinimai was frequent and long sunkios sielovartos 10 my soul’s conversion difficult 10 bet mano siela but my soul tikrai yra truly is together sykiu su karaliau Dovydo with King David’s visatos liūdėjimai the universe’s sorrows liūdesiai šios visatos the sorrows of this universe 15 yra mano siela 15 are my soul dabar aš žinau now I know dabar galiu pasakyti now I can say it
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“Atsakymas į marsiečių “An Answer to the Martians’ “An Answer to a Martian užklausimą” (LT) Inquiry” (EN) Chronicler” (EN) (Geda 1988: 10) (Zdanys 1995: 99) (Sruoginis 1997: 71) kairiarankių descendant sole dinastijos of the dynasty remaining palikuonis of the left-handed survivor Sigitas Sigitas of the Geda 5 Geda 5 left-handed 5 po 2000 metų after isolation dynasty trukusios lasting Sigitas izoliacijos 2000 years Geda dešiniarankių on the reservation after a 2000 rezervate 10 of the right-handed 10 year 10 nebuvo was no isolation daugiau longer on a reservation persekiojimas persecuted for the right-handed Lietuvoj in Lithuania was tiesa 15 though 15 no longer 15 po karo after the war persecuted mokykloje in school in Lithuania braižybos the drawing though mokytojas teacher after the war Kunickis 20 Kunickis 20 in school 20 jį mušdavo would hit him drafting su lenta with a board teacher per ištiestą on his bowed Kunickis galvą head would beat him 25 with a board
over his extended head
88
“Angelas krintantis Palangoj” (LT) “An Angel Falling in Palanga” (EN) “Angel Falling in Palanga” (EN) (Geda 2002: 60-62) (tr. Zdanys 1995: 111-112) (tr. Keys 2002: 61-63) Tai krintančio angelo balsas, It was the voice of a falling angel, It’s the voice of a falling angel, Iš purpuro balų, From purple bogs, From the purple – of marshes, Skvernai debesų, debesų Skirts of clouds, of clouds, Folds of clouds, clouds, Debesylų − gauruoti. Shaggy clouds, Cloudberries – shaggy.
Tamsus jo drabužis, 5 His clothing is dark, 5 Dark clothing. 5 Žiedadulkių gausmas, The droning of blossom dust, Drone of pollen. Sparnuočiai ūmai išbaidyti Birds vehemently frightened away The winged-ones suddenly scared away Jo balso By his voice By his voice, Jo balso – iš balų. By his voice — from the bogs. His voice – from the marshes.”
– Ir trenksmas, 10 — — And the noise, 10 – And the roar, 10 Lyg lūžtų pasauliai, As if worlds were breaking, As if worlds were breaking, Lyg lūžtų erdvė – iš platinos, As if space were breaking — from platinum, As if space were breaking – from platinum, Akmens, iš aukso Stone, from gold Stone, from gold Jo tamsūs sparnai His dark wings His dark wings Šitą erdvę užkloję, 15 Cover this space, 15 Covering this space, 15 Šviesus kalavijas The bright sword Shining sword Ir lūžtančio sparno And pieces And fragments Skeveldros − Of the breaking wing — — Of a wing breaking − Tai angelo sapnas – pasaulis, It’s the angel’s dream − the world, Ir sparnas, ir sparnas, 20 The angel’s dream — the world, And the wing, and the wing, 20 Šviesus kalavijas – iš sapno. And the wing, and the wing, 20 Shining sword – from the dream. Iš pieno, iš plieno, The bright sword — from the dream. From milk, from metal, Medaus ir netilstančio From honey and the everlasting Marių gaudimo From milk, from steel, Drone of the seas Su bėgančiom, plaukiančiom, Honey and the endless With running, swimming, Rėkiančiom marių žuvim, Droning of the seas Screaming fish, Gyvulėliais, su aibėm With running, swimming, With little animals, with billions of Kvailų vabalų ir dar skraidančių Shouting ocean fish, Stupid bugs, and seeds
89
Sėklų padangėj. Small creatures, with heaps Still flying in the sky. Of mad insects and seeds Daugiau jau nebus, 30 Still flying in the sky. Nothing more no longer, 30 Daugiau nieko nebus, Nothing more, Tiktai šitas kritimas, It will no longer be. 30 Only this falling, Srogimas, lūžimas, There will no longer be anything, Exploding, breaking Ir garsas – Only this falling, And the sound – Explosion, breaking, Virš vienintelio mūsų pasaulio. 35 And noise — — Above our only world. 35
Above our only world. 35
90
“GAISRAS” (LT) “FIRE” (EN) (Jonynas 1997: 130) (Zdanys, Danielius, Czury 1997: 131)
Suplėšau drobę rėmus į dalis suskaldau I tear the canvas frames to pieces skutus ir šipulius metu į židinį shred splinter ar dar pajėgsiu pasiruošti tau kaip maldai – heave them into the fireplace tik atsivert ir nieko neprašyti just to be open to prepare myself for you 5 liepsna ateina siekiniams neišsakytiems 5 as in prayer lauke užkimęs vakaro kaukimas have I the strength pro tamsų langą primerktom akytėm įdėmiai don’t ask žvelgia nuolankus laukimas the flame breathes what’s not spoken while outside the throaty cries of dusk 10 ar dar pajėgsiu pasiruošti tau kaip maldai this darkening window nuraudę sienos ir raudoni baldai 10 not looking at anything aplink tarytum kraujo lytys švyti just staring as in prayer kokia beprotiška aistra užvaldo do I have the strength to prepare myself vilties mažytę taurę sudaužyti – – for you 15 tik atsivert ir nieko neprašyti the walls redden and furniture red like ice in my blood what terrible passion grips one small goblet of hope breaking it 20 just to feel open and ask for nothing
“Šaltis” (LT) “Cold” (EN) (Parulskis 1994: 319) (Sruoginis 1997: 108) su motina mother kartu su motina with mother
žengiau į požemius we went underground į rūsį raugtų agurkų into the cellar for pickles statinėj sudrumstusi vandenį 5 the water in the barrel was murky 5 pelėsiais apejusį skystį liquid covered with mold motina sakė mother said ale šaltas vanduo but the water’s cold šaltas vanduo sakiau aš the water’s cold I repeated ir iškur šitoks šaltis 10 and where does this cold come from 10 toks šaltis kad atima ranką so cold my arm loses feeling gal iš tamsos maybe from the dark iš nakties ar iš žemės from night or from the earth iš žemės from the earth po žeme bus šalčiau 15 beneath the earth it will be even colder 15
91 APPENDIX 2: Photographs of the Poets and Translators
POETS:
Figure 1: Henrikas Nagys
Source: “Henrikas Nagys.” 2008. manoknyga.lt. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.manoknyga.lt/rasytojas/henrikas-nagys.html.
Figure 2. Sigitas Geda
Source: “Lithuania - Guests of Honour at the International Turin Book Fair 2007: Sigitas Geda.” 2007. Lietuva / Lithuania. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.lituania2007.eu/?g=virsutinis_ meniu&l=en&n=sigitas_geda&p=informacinis&m=476.
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Figure 3. Nijolė Miliauskaitė
Source: “Nijolė Miliauskaitė – Bložienė.” 2007. Rašytojai. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.rasytojai.lt/writers.en.php?id=475&sritis=rasytojai.
Figure 4: Antanas A. Jonynas
Source: “Antanas A. Jonynas.” 2007. Rašytojai. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.rasytojai.lt/ writers.php?id=116&jaunieji=0&sritis=rasytojai.
93
Figure 5: Sigitas Parulskis
Source: “Sigitas Parulskis: ‘Spjoviau aš ant tų įvaizdžių!’” 2008. zmones24.lt. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.zmones24.lt/sigitas-parulskis-spjoviau-as-ant-tu-ivaizdziu--2646.html.
TRANSLATORS:
Figure 1: Kerry Shawn Keys
Source: “Participants: Kerry Shawn Keys.” 2009. Stanza. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.stanzapoetry.org/2009/participant.php?participant=114.
94
Figure 2: Jonas Zdanys
Source: “Madų šou pasibaigus...” 2008. Bičiulystė. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.biciulyste.com/news-detail,news_ type~kalendorius,news~4487f81a0f1564c3b839569b994f5bbf.html.
Figure 3: Laima Sruoginis
Source: Laima Vincė. 2008. Accessed 14 April 2009. http://www.laimavince.com/index.html.
95 LIST OF REFERENCES
Primary Sources
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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 1992. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Bajoraitis, R. 1959. “Marška, Marškonas.” In Lietuvių enciklopedija. Vol. 19. Boston: Lietuvių enciklopedijos leidykla.
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