Oy, Svein, what questions! Very hard to
answer. I agree with almost everything
Michael Juster says. In general, I don't
think you have to stick to the rhyme
scheme of the original, but of course if
you're translating Petrarch's sonnets, of
course you must try to do them in Petrarchan
sonnets. And as Michael says, to translate
a sonnet into free verse is (usually)
ridiculous. (There are exceptions to
everything, except for God's generalizations.)
But in general, getting the rhyme scheme is
a matter of sheer luck; it's pure velvet if
it happens, but it rarely does. I'm very
happy about two or three Borges sonnets in
which all my rhymes were perfect and followed
his scheme, but most of the time I had to
accept variations. Almost all of Borges'
poems in quatrains are rhymed abba and
I try to stick to that, but most of the time
I'll get the abba in, say, twenty
quatrains but have to settle for abab
in two or three. But that's preferable to
changing Borges' meaning. No, you don't
imitate the original meter unless you have
the same meter in your own language (and
it's used in much the same way)---you look
for a reasonable equivalent. For example,
Borges' meters, like all Spanish meters, are
syllabic; but Spanish is accented, even if
not so strongly as English, and most of Borges'
hendecasyllables have about five beats---so,
iambic pentameter is a very good equivalent.
But on occasion, for the hell of it and to
get a particular effect, I did his syllabic
lines in English syllabic lines. And once
I translated a hendecasyllabic poem into
iambic tetrameter---Spanish uses a lot more
syllables to say a thing than English does,
so pentameter, even though it sounds more
natural for hendecasyllables, requires a good
deal of careful skillful padding. (Probably
I should have tried one in English hendeca-
syllabics, like Frost's "For Once, Then,
Something"---maybe I'll go back to one and
see how it turns out.) As for reordering
elements, it depends, it depends. Sometimes
you can do it without altogether violating
the plot of the original, but usually you
can't. Easier of course to reorder small
elements, though even there you have to
watch your step. It goes without saying
that you want to be as faithful as you can
be, but if close fidelity results in the
loss of most of what makes the original as
beautiful as it is, then I say the hell with
it. The most important thing is to make the
reader understand why you had to translate
that particular poem or poet---you have to
communicate something of the excitement and
vitality of the original or you're wasting
your time. As for general advice to a young
translator just setting out? Don't do it,
unless you love misery and frustration. I
happen to love it. And every once in a while
you have the illusion that you have written
a beautiful poem that mirrors almost exactly
the beautiful original, and it's delicious,
like all illusions (while they last).
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