poetry is what gets Lost in Translation says the poet Robert Frost poetry is what is found
in Translation says the poet Octavio Paz poetry is not actually what I'm here to Define I can't tell
you which of these quotes is Right necessarily but I do think the use of the word translation
is very interesting here and very telling because in a way all art is an act of translation and if
you listen to what these two poets are saying that means art is not just a process of finding
but also a process of losing as well letting go Which is far more beautiful than you might expect
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in a recent video we spent some time trying to understand Haiku which required us to try our
hand at a little translation of our own an Old Pond a frog jumps in the sound of water
this was our attempt at relating the poem furu Ikea by the master haikuist matsul Basho
in English I'm surely going to butcher the pronunciation of this but the original reads
Noto
there is a lot of depth to this original version of the poem that we simply were not able to
capture and we are not the first to try either this is one of the most translated poems ever
with over 30 different academically recognized translations and many thousands of less official
onesho writes furu meaning old ancient venerable meaning pool or Pond and yeah I can barely say
what this means in the language I'm speaking right now it's untranslatable an exclamation of surprise
or interest almost like a sigh of admiration in our version we replaced it with nemdash
it was the best emotional effect we felt that we could find but it's absolutely not the same
you begin to see the problem it's a poem that seems like it should be so easy to translate
on the surface but communicate so much in the Nuance of its native language that we have to
question what kind of motion did the frog take to enter the water a leap a dive a plunge we have to
wonder what the timber of the sound created by the water was a splash a plop a kerplunk these might
seem like frivolous things to worry about it looks like an uncomplicated three-line poem about a frog
plopping into a pool on the surface it looks like the translator's job couldn't possibly get easier
but you'd be surprised listen to all these different directions other translators have taken
we get old Pond frog jumped in sound of water Pond there still and old a frog has jumped from the
shore the splash can be heard breaking the Silence of an ancient Pond a frog jumped into the water
a deep resonance the Old Pond a frog jumped in kerplunk Old Pond leap Splash a frog
dark Old Pond a frog plunks in Pond frog plop someone even turned it into a limerick there once
was a curious frog Who Sat by a pond on a log and to see what resulted in the pond catapulted with
a water noise heard round the bog these aren't Anonymous attempts by nobodies posting on Reddit
or whatever by the way these translations all come from literary professionals world renowned
in their fields with their own Wikipedia pages and everything which makes you wonder why are these
translations so different and more importantly which of them get it right I think the answer to
both of these questions is complicated because maybe there is no right way to translate it
as author Terry teachout says no translation could possibly be perfect every production and every
performance is a different path up the mountain and nobody ever makes it all the way to the summit
translation is a process of a thousand choices how much Freedom can a good translator take do
they remain faithful to the literal meaning of the original or the intention of the poet how
do they even decide what the poet intended are they allowed to change what they said in order
to preserve the way that they said it do they bend the text to serve Their audience do they
follow their own aesthetic taste do they strive to preserve the poem's physical structure the
spirit of its meaning or the Elegance of its language how can they translate both the way
the vowels roll and the way the consonants crack using words that mean the same thing
in a totally different language even the way the words look visually on the page is a consideration
Bashers translators have spilled a million pounds of ink over the years trying to answer these
questions in different ways a frog plopped into a pond there some might say but bashar's poem is
not that it's a doorway a creative expression each word carefully chosen that leads the reader on a
journey of experience and Discovery and returns them at the end to the beginning with a feeling
of profound meditative Beauty and this unnamable core of the poem is the most difficult element
for any translation to protect it's strange isn't it it seems that the deeper the subtler the more
nuanced and profoundly beautiful the message in its original form the harder it is to express well
why is it that often the better the art the more it resists translation as 19th century
Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth says the best translations cannot convey to us the strength and
exquisite delicacy of thought in its native Garb and he to whom such books are shut flounders about
in outer Darkness often it seems that the more brightly a thought shines in its original form
the more a translator's hand dulls it translation is a strange art it's a generative creative force
it renews the past brings distant places close and allows thoughts and emotions to travel across the
barriers of separate minds but it's also the only art form that seems almost expected to create a
product that is automatically thawed unequal and inferior to the original translation has
creative power yet also an inevitable destructive power especially when applied to the best ideas
as German poet karon Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel said what is lost in the good or excellent
translation is precisely the best because of this translation can be difficult thankless work the
translator is an artist who serves many Masters none of whom are ever fully pleased the ideas
the author of the audience the translator's own artistic tastes form spirit and beauty
what do we preserve what do we throw away in this process to save some we must change and
sacrifice others translation is like a woman quip Soviet poet Evgeni of the shenko if it is
beautiful it is not faithful if it is faithful it is most certainly not beautiful sexist but on the
subject of translation surprisingly poignant translation is at best and echo says English
novelist George Barrow translation is the art a failure says Italian medievalist Umberto Echo but
you know maybe this isn't just about translation the art of failure is a really resonant phrase to
me because I think it has a lot of application to Art in general as author Ken loses Every Act of
communication is a miracle of translation and as I said at the start all art is in a way an
act of translation and as such we can and maybe should expect something to be lost in the process
in moving a complex idea from language to language from non-verbal mental experiences
to words from an erupting emotion into music from a composer's vision to a performer's violin from
a painter's Mind's Eye to the easel from a writer's mind to the mind of their reader
something is almost always lost it's the tax of creation when you hold a spark of inspiration
as an immaterial Vision in your head it is as a poem in its native language and its native
time a thought in its native Garb uncorrupted irrefutable untranslated and untranslatable
but in order to realize it in order to express an idea a thought an emotion or an experience in any
medium we must give it form words paint clay we must take it from the ideal realm of untranslated
perfection and subject it to the constraints of a material reality where forces like friction
and entropy are at play we must be willing to make it a translation of itself less than itself
if communication is an act of translation then to communicate we must be willing to sacrifice
which is difficult because potential is free and Limitless and reality is by comparison a
confinement the poet Evas bonafoy said a poem is less than poetry in the same sense a song is
less than music a novel is less than literature a theory is less than physics a postulate is
less than math in order to give an idea an Earthly voice we must allow it to be imperfect smaller and
different than itself poetry must shrink into a poem music must shrink into a symphony possibility
must shrink into reality the frustration of the translator is the same as the frustration of the
creative Beauty faithfulness Spirit form when we create or recreate a piece of art we want to keep
it all we want to be loyal to our ideas and our glowing vision of their potential Perfection to
translate every ounce of the power and impact of our own mental experience in its native Garb onto
the page or onto the canvas or into the clay or into the music but translation is Recreation and
destruction as much as we wish there was I don't think there's quite any way around that part of
the process have you ever been frozen in front of a blank page who hasn't sometimes I think it's
less a fear of creating and More in unwillingness to sacrifice to destroy your ideal vision of a
thing's potential to translate it shrink it down into reality your precious essay your novel your
poem your picture your music your sculpture your dance sometimes you don't even know what you want
to make yet only that it won't be as good as it might have been you know deep inside that
creative expression requires sacrifice yet for some reason you cannot accept the dissatisfaction
I think some of the ideas that are most worth expressing are hardest to put into a material
form because like a good poem they are the ones that have the most to lose in Translation but they
are also the ones who have the potential to become the most beautiful blooms the same is not true for
poems written and pictures drawn in the language of perfection which is ultimately silent and
invisible poetry is what gets Lost in Translation poetry is what gets found in translation
in order to find we must lose in order to create We Must Destroy in order to translate friction
is necessary the process of loss the frustration of what is not expressed and the Silence of what
fails to be made understandable is part of the miraculous Machinery that gives us the ability to
communicate to translate to turn what we feel into what we say but we'd like to say into what we have
said every language is a world literary critic George Steiner once said without translation we
would inhabit parishes bordering on silence only in the imperfection of translation can
art and thought truly manifest there is a small problem with that though even if you know that the
pristine fabric of your vision is going to be cut up in the process end up destroyed and reinvented
in ways you never anticipated translated from thought to reality that doesn't really tell you
where to start does it how do you even get that initial material to translate well coming up with
really powerful ideas is not easy but I do know about one thing that will make a huge difference
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tell us the impact it's had on you as a writer I cannot wait to hear the success stories anyway
that's all for this one thanks for watching and keep making stuff up I'll see you next week bye
foreign