„ვეფხისტყაოსნის“ ინგლისური თარგმანების შედარებითი ანალიზი
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Date
2021-09-30
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უნივერსიტეტის გამომცემლობა
Abstract
The article gives a comparative analysis of three translations
of the poem by Shota Rustaveli into English by Marjory Wardrop (The
Man in the Panther’s Skin, A Romantic Epic by Shota Rustaveli, Oriental
Translation Fund, London, 1912), by Venera Urushadze (The Knight
in the Panther’s Skin, Tbilisi, Sabchota Sakartvelo, 1968) and by Lyn
Coffin (The Knight in the Panther Skin, Turkey, Poezia Press, 2015).
Marjory Wardrop created a prosaic, ‘word-for-word’ translation
of the poem, which is highly true to the original. The choice
of the prosaic form, as Oliver Wardrop explains in the preface, was
motivated by a great difference in the versifications of the target and
source languages.
Venera Urushadze’s translation is in hexameter. She also explains
her choice by the differences in the prosody of the languages,
which makes it impossible to recreate two and three-syllabled
rhymes in English and points out the dangers of an attempt to imitate
the verse-form of the poem.
Using a hexameter has its pros and cons. On the plus side,
hexameter for the English reader is associated with Homer’s poem
and places The Knight in the Panther’s Skin where it belongs, namely,
to the genre of great epics. Consequently, although the text is somewhat
heavy and loses much of the formal charm, the translation
managed to retain the nobility and epic magnificence of the original.
Lyn Coffin’s translation uses a rhymed sixteen-syllable verseline.
Needless to say that recreating the versification of the original
is an extremely hard endeavour and an achievement. However, what
should be taken into account is what is sacrificed for it and whether
replicating the verse-form of the original helps to create an aesthetic
equivalent of the original, which is the main target of any translation.
Sadly, the new poetic translation confirms Venera Urushadze’s
supposition that replicating the versification of the original would
inevitably result in an artificial form.
A comparison of how various stylistic peculiarities of the original
are recreated into English clearly revealed that although Marjory
Wardrop modestly terms her work as only a ‘word-for-word’ translation, the term does not do justice to its aesthetic quality, which
though prosaic renders the beauty of the original through the imagery
and aphorisms. Wardrop’s translation which is true to the text at
the same time is true to the aesthetics of the poem.
Although hexameter counts a four-century existence in English
poetry, it is still not organic to English versification. Thus, using
this meter in the translation which first appeared in English due to
Chapmen’s translation of Homer, created a text which has epic grandeur,
but at the same time is heavy and lacks charm and beauty of
the original.
Replicating a sixteen-syllable rhymed verse of the original
poem in English resulted in creating an artificial form which, together
with the usage of everyday language, made the poem look more
like a rhymed tale which lacks the philosophical depth and poetic
beauty of the original.
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Keywords
რუსთაველი, თარგმანი, უორდროპი, ურუშაძე, კოფინი, Rustaveli, translation, Wordrop, Urushadze, Coffin
Citation
მთარგმნელის საერთაშორისო დღისადმი მიძღვნილი VII სამეცნიერო კონფერენციის მასალები, 2021, გვ.: 57-63/ VII scientific conference proceedings dedicated to the international translator’s day, 2021, p.: 57-63