Different approaches to translation w riter

Work of art Reader

- Sport stories can be considered narrative, pure & simple if we are interested in events. But the translator should know that not a single event might be overlooked. To find a clue we should pay attention to a slightest detail.

- Fiction may be regarded as an exhibition of character.

- We can approach a work of literature as an exhibition of manners. In this regard it’s a panorama of contemporary life. E.g. Walter Scott is a great master in the sphere of describing manners of this or that time.

- A piece of fiction may be seen from the point of view of certain philosophy of life (image of people guided by it).

- We may approach a work of fiction with an intense desire to watch the author’s every turn of phrase, his personal style. It’s a difficult task to translate different writers & poets & preserve their individual style, because one soon gets accustomed to it. It’s not easy to switch over to the other.

All these interests are not on the same level, because all the authors are different. To translate a work of fiction or poetry the translator should always know what the main approach is. The strong point of the author should be made vivid. Even the biography can give us the necessary information.

A work of art is not independent from the author. Works of fiction & poetry have life of their own. Even in the process of creation it may behave unpredictably. E.g. Pushkin was very much surprised by the behavior of Tatiana.

Reader presents a great challenge for the translator. He is a judge of quality. The reader is every individual, who identifies himself with what is written in this or that book. Sometimes the writer shapes his work according to the taste & worldview of the reader, & sometimes the writer does whatever he can to improve the taste & worldview of the reader. But it’s always the reader who determines the value of the book. Every translator should approach the issue of reader from 2 interrelated angles:

1. The contemporary reader.

2. The modern reader (if the book belongs to the previous ages).

The translator should see the difference between them & their appreciation of the work of fiction.

ANALYSIS COMES FIRST.

The translator should investigate the purpose of the writer, determine his main qualities & compare the work of this writer with the works of his contemporaries & writers who followed him. It’s done to see the degree of writer’s originality. Then the translator should analyze the background, because every writer is a representative of some period of time, which to some extends shapes his outlook. Then the translator should analyze the influence of the reader, writer’s imagination & the way it works (it brings an ideal). So the translator can analyze his works from the point of view of social being & human being. This is preliminary analysis. Then comes the analysis of the book itself to decide what should be preserved & what disposed off, to see what gains & losses are & how the translator can compensate for them.

Then the translator should analyze a work of art from the psychological prospective (to understand the effect it was meant to produce upon the reader.

Then the translator should analyze the work of art as a thing of Beauty every writer comes to treat a world as beauty, which can be manifested in the language he uses. The translator should determine the significance of every word. Here the aesthetic aspect overlaps linguistic.