The preface is not something I had spent much time
considering in my literary studies until now. In spite of a few notable
exceptions (think Wordsworth’s Lyrical
Ballads), prefaces to literary works tend to go relatively unnoticed. The
important thing is ‘the words on the page’ – and pages prior to page 1 don’t
count. “WE CANNOT KNOW THE AUTHOR’S INTENTIONS,” we shout, drowning out the
author’s (timid or otherwise) declaration of “What I meant to say was this…”
It is true that authors do not have exclusive ownership of
the meaning of their work, nor are they always best placed to comment on it. A
magnificent novel might be preceded by a pretentious or less-than-insightful
preface, like a once-aloof film star posting inanities on Twitter. Perhaps for
good reason, then, prefaces to literary works are relatively rare today.
However, there is a school of thought that says translations should be an
exception to this rule.
Why, then, might a translator write a preface? It may be
partly to do with the fact that we ask questions of translators that we don’t
tend to ask of authors: why did you choose
this text? Why doesn’t your translation of this poem rhyme? Translating poetry
is impossible, isn’t it? A preface can be a way of pre-empting some of
those questions; and it is hardly surprising if they sometimes come across as
somewhat defensive.
We could also look at it in a more positive way: prefaces
are a way for translators to explain their approach. They allow us a glimpse of
the translation process. Most significantly, though, they make the translator
visible. They remind the reader that the text is a translation – something
which is all too easy to forget, particularly when reading fiction, where all
efforts have usually been made to disguise the text’s translated nature.
Translators speak to the reader in the texts they translate,
but it is only in a preface that they can speak entirely in their own voice. Prefaces
can sometimes be political: for example, they have often been used by feminist
translators to explain why a text by a woman writer has been neglected, or why
they have adopted a ‘hijacking’ strategy, where a text that was not originally
feminist is ‘appropriated’ in translation through alterations such as the
introduction of gender-inclusive language.
Opponents of the translator’s preface argue that a
translated text should ‘stand alone’, should speak for itself. However, this is
not as straightforward as it sounds. No translation stands alone; it always
bears the trace of its source. Any text is a palimpsest of influences and
allusions, and is completed by a reader in a particular cultural context. It
does not exist out of context. A non-translated text, however, is interpreted
directly by the reader. In the case of a translation, the source text is
interpreted by the translator, who then inevitably brings this interpretation
to bear on his or her translation; reading translation is a more intertextual
experience than reading a non-translated text.
Why, then, pretend that the need to explain is a weakness?
We too often expect reading a translation to be like reading any other text; as
a result, we do not want to hear the voice of the translator. Hearing that
voice in a preface forces us to acknowledge the translator’s presence in the
text itself; it reminds us that what we are reading is not a fixed, finite
object, but is slippery, multi-layered, polyphonic.
This post first appeared on the Literary Translation at UEA blog on 19th December 2013.
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