Jörg Thunecke

“Love the words, love the words”:1

Erich Frieds Nachdichtung von Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood (1954)

In early 1954 Erich Fried (1921–1988), an Austrian exile, who emigrated to England in 1938, was given the task by the London BBC to translate Dylan Thomas’ radio play Under Milk Wood, a reading of which had taken place in New York shortly before the Welsh poet (1914–1953) died in November 1953, and which was subsequently pub- lished simultaneously in both England and the USA in 1954. Fried, who was already an accomplished poet in his own right (Deutschland [1944] and Österreich [1945]), suc- ceeded in translating Under Milk Wood in a week’s time, after which the ‘Hörspiel’was broadcast in German first by the BBC in spring 1954 in the British Occupation Zone, and later that year by the NWDR in Hamburg. About the same time it was also pub- lished in German by the Drei Brücken Verlag (Wiesbaden). For Fried, who later became famous for his translation of most of Shakespeare’s plays, the ‘Nachdichtung’, as he called it, of Thomas’radio play was a first and established him as a major translator. In Unter dem Milchwald he quite adequately managed to convey the intricate lyrical quality of Thomas’ work, including the Welsh poet’s numerous sexual insinuations, closely maintaining his rhyme patterns and consonant / vowel sequences. Thus, on the whole, Fried was quite successful in conveying the meaning of Thomas’ work to his German listeners and readers. However, due to the immense pressure of time and insuf- ficient knowledge of certain aspects of Thomas’ language – above all his use of ‘Wenglish’and other Welsh cultural and geographical expressions – Fried’s translation of Under Milk Wood is far from flawless, as can be gleaned from a detailed analysis of his linguistic approach and a lengthy list of faulty renderings. Regardless of all pros and cons: Erich Fried’s translation of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood offers refreshing new insights into the great Welsh poet’s achievement in his ‘Play for Voices’.

There by the window in the old house Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, My days of labor closed, sitting out life’s decline, Day by day did I look in my memory, As one who gazes in an enchantress’ crystal globe, And I saw the figures of the past, As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream,

1 Walford Davies: Einleitung zur ‘Definitive Edition’ von Dylan Thomas: Under Milk Wood. London: Everyman 1996. S. XI–XLVIII. Hier: S. XLVI. 196

Move through the incredible sphere of time. […] Edgar Lee Masters: Spoon River Anthology (1915)2

Einer der ältesten und besten – jedoch wenig bekannten – Beiträge zur Überset- zungstheorie stammt von dem englischen Anglisten F. L. Lucas.3 Gleich ein- gangs weist dieser darauf hin, dass Übersetzer meist einen schlechten Ruf hätten: ‘translators are traitors’,4 so laute das gängige Urteil. Anschließend führt Lucas aus, dass “[t]ranslation is sometimes a craft, sometimes an art”:5 denn “all han- dling of words is difficult” und die Tätigkeit eines Übersetzers ähnelt oft einem “croquet-match in Alice [in Wonderland; JT] played with living hedgehogs and flamingoes”.6 Insbesondere hinsichtlich “the translation of works of art […] the traps and pitfalls multiply many-fold [sic].”7 Dementsprechend unterscheidet der Autor zwischen drei Arten von Übersetzung: ‘translation’, ‘paraphrase’ und ‘adaptation’,8 wobei die Hauptgefahren einer jeden Übersetzung “infidelity on the one hand, servility on the other”9 seien. Folglich sollten – so Lucas – für alle Übersetzungen folgende Kriterien gelten:

(1) “Translation should be true in meaning – no ideas added, none omitted – so that, ideally, it should be conceivable [Hervorh. im Original] for the translation, if retranslated, to give back the original text.” (2) “It should be true in rhythm, so far as the difference of languages admits.” (3) “A translation should try to be true to the tone, the character, of the original author […].” (4) “A translation should try to be true to the historic atmosphere, the spirit of a period.”10

2 Davies, ebd. S. XXX schreibt: “[…] Thomas greatly admired […] Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology (1915). […] Thomas himself chose the book as the subject for a radio feature.” Laut Ralph Maud (Dylan Thomas on Edgar Lee Masters. In: Harper’s Bazaar 30 [Juni 1963], 9, S. 68–69, 115. Hier: S. 115) hat Dylan Thomas bei einer posthumen Lesung der BBC am 23. Januar 1955 von Gedichten aus Masters Spoon River Anthology (New York: Macmillan 1915) dieses Gedicht (‘William H. Herndon’ [S. 198]) allerdings nicht verwendet. 3 F. L. Lucas: Translation. In: Ders.: The Greatest Problem and Other Essays. New York: Macmillan 1961. S. 45–77. 4 Ebd. S. 45: S. das italienische Wortspiel: ‘traduttori’ ϭ ‘traditori’. 5 Ebd. S. 47. 6 Ebd. 7 Ebd. 8 Ebd. S. 54. 9 Ebd. S. 76. 10 Ebd. S. 75.