Weaving patterns – the function of form in creative German-English poetry translation
Abstract: Poetry is very challenging to translators and often even regarded to be untranslatable because the unity of form and content is after Robert Frost’s famous saying considered to be “lost in translation.” This problem has resulted in a highly...
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Abstract: Poetry is very challenging to translators and often even regarded to be untranslatable because the unity of form and content is after Robert Frost’s famous saying considered to be “lost in translation.” This problem has resulted in a highly controversial debate whether to give priority to form or content if both cannot be preserved. In the age of free verse, that often results in a neglect of poetic form. Whether preference is given to form or content, however, it is striking that the general assumption underlying the debate seems to be that form and content are two separable entities and that one can be preserved without the other. My dissertation, on the other hand, builds on the assumption that both form and content are part of the dynamic meaning construal of the translator. Rather than supporting untranslatability claims with this notion, I aim to show that the constraint of poetic form can foster the finding of innovative solutions. I analyse my own and other poetry translations together with their source texts on the basis of categories that were developed from a cross-fertilisation of (cognitive) linguistics, literary and translation studies in order to investigate the inherent potentials of sound, rhythmical and grammatical structures and their realisation in creative reading and translating. My approach is therefore a transdisciplinary combination of theory from different fields and practise. The analysis reveals a multitude of functions of form and formal patterning in the creative meaning construction of the translator and the transFORMations resulting in a translation that is not necessarily inferior to the source text
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