Translating can be challenging – some words simply don’t have a direct equivalent in another language. Translating prose (a novel or short story) is even more challenging, as the translator needs to also convey affect – literature is more than a sum of its parts, remember. But learning how to translate poetry must be the ultimate challenge for a translator.
With poetry, it’s not just about translating the text in question, conveying the meaningIn the context of this post, meaning refers to the word-by-word meaning; what the narrative talks about.. It’s not even about merely conveying affect, as with prose. Instead, to translate poetry you need to worry about several things at once: meaning, affect, meter, and possibly rhyme.
If you put all these elements together, you might wonder how on earth can poetry be translated at all!
As someone who has translated poetry, I can tell you it’s possible. But yes, it’s super hard to do properly. In today’s post I’ll share with you some tips that will help you translate poetry effectively, intelligently, and – above all – respecting the original author.
