Greetings from your Top Secret Distinguished Guest!
The long-delayed Main Event of the 2015 Eratosphere Translation Bake-off begins tomorrow. Let's get this party started!
This year's theme is SONGS, set by our Translation Board Moderator, Martin Rocek. Martin often workshops English versions of Czech songs, usually by Karol Kryl (1944-1994), at Eratosphere's Translation Board, and he has long been interested in the special challenges posed by translating sung poems.
Differences between the Secondary and Main Events
In case you missed them, this year's Secondary Events (in which competitors all translated the same songs with the aid of the provided English cribs) began on 30 September, which is the feast day of St. Jerome, patron of translators. The winners were Roger Slater for
Challenge #1, Julie Steiner for
Challenge #2, and Roger Slater and Brian Allgar tied for first place honors in
Challenge #3.
By popular demand, the deadline for this year's Main Event (which required competitors to translate songs of their own choice) was extended to the end of October. As your Distinguished Guest judge for this double-blind event, I've now spent a week evaluating the submissions, and am ready to post my finalists for discussion.
Because the Main Event tunes were all different (unlike the Secondary Event tunes), a Top Secret Yodeler volunteered to sing all the Main Event entries
a cappella. Besides being entertaining, this was a big help to me in determining how gracefully the translations were singable to the originals' tunes.
Main Event Housekeeping Details
Although I had the option of selecting up to twelve finalists for the main event, I immediately decided to limit my picks to ten, in order to reduce the wear and tear on the audience. A lively exchange of views is more likely if we don't stretch people too thin, and listening to each song in two languages will take more time than past Bake-offs have.
However, once I had narrowed things down to my top eleven, I couldn't bear to part with any of the remaining entries. So, eleven finalists it shall be.
I shall post the first three finalists for discussion on Saturday (7 November), followed by two finalists each day Sunday through Wednesday (11 November). A voting thread will be opened Thursday (12 November) and will remain open until noon (Pacific Standard Time) on Wednesday, 18 November, to allow ample time for impassioned bickering in the entry threads themselves. Once the polls are closed and the ballots are tallied, the three winners of the popular vote and the three winners chosen by me as TSDG will be announced.
I'm happy to report that there are so many strong contenders among this year's finalists that I do not expect much overlap between the two top threes--this will really be a matter of taste.
For the Main Event, one prize per translation will be awarded to the Top Secret DG’s top three picks and to the popular vote’s top three picks. (I.e., even if someone’s translation is in both top threes, that person will win only one prize, not two.) As in the Secondary Event, each prize will consist of the winner’s choice of a book from the
Able Muse Press catalog, courtesy of
Able Muse /
Able Muse Press.
General Notes on the TSDG's Selections
After careful evaluation of all sixteen entries, including comparison of the Top Secret Yodeler's sung performances of them to sung performances of the originals, I used the following criteria to determine my top eleven:
1.) Faithfulness. I define this not as "accuracy", but rather as "the translator's ability to convey the original's tone as well as its content". Slavish adherence to the literal meaning does not always preserve the spirit of the piece. That said, liberties taken with the literal meaning must be justified by fidelity to the original's flavor.
2.) Sonic Properties. By this I am not referring to the beauty of the melody, but rather to the grace with which the contestant's English approximates the rhyme, meter/timing, or other significant audible characteristics of the original (such as sections of deliberately tongue-twising alliteration). Again, note-for-note accuracy or rigid adherence to a complicated rhyme scheme does not necessarily result in a translation that is faithful to the spirit of the piece. On the other hand, deviations from significant aspects of the original must be justified by more than just the translator's convenience.
3.) Difficulty. Or perhaps I should call this Ambition instead. A simple piece containing few poetic qualities such as rhyme or unexpected imagery may be very easy to translate, but it is likely to be rather unsatisfying as a poem for the same reasons. None of this year's entries were ploddingly pedestrian, but clever solutions to difficult problems always have more of a wow factor than a solid but safe-feeling effort. Some translators were savvier than others about choosing source material challenging enough to showcase their own talents and abilities.
Things That Did Not Influence the TSDG's Decisions
1.) I neither awarded nor docked points for the optional inclusion of translators' notes, as described in the guidelines. To quote:
Quote:
|
A very brief note about the original author and/or composer, the context or cultural significance of the song, or any other information you think may be interesting or helpful.
|
I drastically trimmed and rearranged most of these, for the benefit of our busy audience.
2.) Subject matter, mood, and language of origin were not factors in my designation of the eleven finalists. Accordingly, I expect to hear complaints that there is not as much diversity in these regards as there might have been.
Over half of the eleven finalists were from the same language. Also, with few exceptions, the finalists are mournful, minor-key pieces rather than rousing, cheerful ones. For best results I recommend consumption in small doses, perhaps taken with therapeutic chocolate or ice cream.
A Final Note
Non-finalists who would like to see the Top Secret DG's comments on their songs (and hear the Top Secret Yodeler's performances of them) may request these from Alex Pepple at the conclusion of the event.
Buon appetito!
The Top Secret Distinguished Guest
2015 Eratosphere Translation Bake-off Main Event
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