"I don't think it can be translated. Perhaps the words can be translated. Certainly Shakespeare cannot be translated. The glimpses of the moon' means exactly the glimpses of the moon'. All, however, is not lost. It has been said that Shakespeare cannot be translated into any other language, Borges added. But Shakespeare cannot be translated into English, either, since he wrote what [Robert Louis] Stevenson called that amazing dialect, the Shakespeare-ese'."
"This might not be entirely true, as the translator Daniel Hahn points out in this superbly diverting book. Recalling a hip-hop production of Romeo and Juliet he once saw, he persuades us instantly that the phrase Do you kiss your teeth at me, fam?' proved to be a perfect translation of Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?' And if into English, then why not into Portuguese, or French, or Maori?"
"Hahn's project is to argue that Shakespeare with every word changed can still be great, and can remain Shakespeare, and to that end he reproduces chunks of Dutch, Russian, Welsh, Thai, Arabic, Japanese, and a dozen other languages, betting that by simply counting syllables or observing alliteration in a language one doesn't understand (as he cheerfully admits, he doesn't understand Danish), one can learn something about the quality of a translation."
"What really illuminates the book are Hahn's conversations with his fellow translators, who can explain their choices dir"
Shakespeare’s lines are often treated as untranslatable, even when words can be rendered into other languages. The phrase “the glimpses of the moon” is presented as meaning exactly what it says, while Shakespeare’s distinctive “Shakespeare-ese” is described as an amazing dialect. A counterpoint argues that Shakespeare can be translated into English and beyond by changing every word while keeping the work recognizable. Examples include a hip-hop style rendering of “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” as “Do you kiss your teeth at me, fam?” The approach extends to many languages, using syllable counting and alliteration patterns to evaluate translation quality. Annotated passages from Twelfth Night show how different translators’ decisions shape meaning and sound.
#literary-translation #shakespeare #language-and-dialect #comparative-literature #translation-theory
Read at www.theguardian.com
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