Translating Vampires?

This episode deals with translating poetry using the example of Baudelaire’s “The Vampire” - and ends with a preview of the next episode - an examination of the process of interpreting/signing a Shakespeare comedy into American Sign Language.

Who was the most famous translator of Poe?
Are all translations of the same poem identical?
How can you translate/sign 10 words using two words?

00:00 Introduction
00:25 Apology
01:35 Introduction to translation  
03:16 The most famous translator of Poe’s works
05:36 Translating poetry
06:30 “The Vampire” (four different translations)
15:11 Preview of following episode 
15:23 Classical rhetorical with JFK and John Barrymore
17:10 Parallelism in American Sign Language
20:30 Anaphora in American Sign Language
20:30 Sources

Transcript

0:00 INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - every Monday night at 12:00 Midnight. This is Episode Sixty Seven - Translating Vampires?

Hello - this is George Bartely, and welcome to a special two part edition of Celebrate Poe.

00:25 Apology

But first, I’d like to apologize for mentioning in the last episode that this episode was going to be about The Black Vampyre - the first vampire story written in the United States.  I had no idea that the story was so complex - it deals with some various serious issues, and I want to give it the attention it deserves.  For example, many scholars feel that the use of a vampire in the story - the sucking of life out of a victim - is a metaphor for slavery.  Wrap your head around that one!  And The Black Vampire - with its use of black insurrection - is very ahead of its time for the early ninteeth century.  So I am going to really delve in The Black Vampire for the episode coming out at midnight on August 2 - three weeks from today.

01:35 Introduction to translation 

For the next two weeks, Celebrate Poe deals with the subject of translation using some real world examples - a lot more interesting than it might sound!  Next week, I will be talking about the process of interpreting a play into American Sign Language - in this case a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Indianapolis Shakespeare Company at the Taggart Amphitheater on July 22, 23, and 24.  And then also on July 29, 30, and 31.  I will be the ASL interpreter for the Deaf on Thursday, July 29, I will talk about the process of interpreting a Shakespearean play using A Midsummer Night’s Dream - in this case Shakespeare’s spoken English into American Sign Language.

But this episode deals with an entirely different dynamic - interpreting poems - static words on a page.

TRANSITION MUSIC

I got kinda psyched up for this episode because it touches on three areas that you might think have nothing to do with each other.

1) The most famous translator or Poe’s works
2) Translating poetry
3) Vampires - yes, vampires
4)
03:16 The most famous translator of Poe’s works

Now most scholars will agree that the most influential and well-known translator of Poe’s works was Charles Baudelaire from France - a highly influential poet in his own right. In 1847, Baudelaire first became acquainted with the works of Poe.  He described reading the works as an almost mystic experience - and even claimed that Poe’s poems and tales had long existed in his own brain but had never taken shape. Baudelaire basically saw Poe as his American  counterpart. He then became largely occupied with translating Poe's works;  and his translations were widely praised. Baudelaire was not the first French translator of Poe, but his "scrupulous translations" were considered among the best.  This podcast plans to devote several episodes to Charles Baudelaire in the future - after all, Poe is wildely popular in France - largely due to Baudelaire’s translations.

As you may know, I get really excited when I look at the stats for the show - and let me say again, my podcast hosting company does not mine any personal information or anything creepy like that.   But I do get an excellent breakdown of where listeners for Celebrate Poe live - currently over 2200 downloads in 47 countries.  Not surprisingly, more listeners are from the United States that any other country.  But the country that has the second highest number of listeners is France.

TRANSITION

05:36 Translating poetry

Well, think of a work like Dante’s Inferno - or the Iliad, Odyssey, or any Greek or Roman literature - that work depends on a good translation - without a good translation, most of us would have no idea what the author is talking about..   And translation can be even harder when it comes to poetry. It is important for the translator to stay as close to the meaning and even structure of the poem as possible.  I could go on and on about the ins and outs of a good translation, but I think the best way to express what I am trying to say is by using a poem by none other than Charles Baudelaire.

This poem is from Fleurs du mal - or Flowers of Evil, and is called Le Vampire - yes - an intense poem by a serious writer about vampires - how cool!

Except for those of you in France, I think it is fair to assume that if I read the whole poem in French - even if I knew how  -, you might start loosing interest - and fast.  So I am going to put my husband on the spot.  He does knows French a lot better than me.  I am going to ask him to read the first four lines of the poem in French -  Let’s hope that he agrees.

Well, here he is - Scott -

Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,
Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;
Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau
De démons, vins, folle et parée,

I know that might not be perfect, but I hope that gives you a general idea of what it might sound like.

I promise you that the rest of this podcast will be in English.  I think you can learn a lot about the translation process by looking at several different French to English translations - and it is a lot easier to wrap your head around a stanza one at a time instead of trying to read several stanzas and then compare them.

Oh yes, to keep all this straight - with all the going back and forth between translations - I had to make a table of the four translations, and that’s what I am working from.

Starting with a translation of the first verse by William Aggeler -

You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

And Roy Campbell
You, who like a dagger ploughed
Into my heart with deadly thrill:
You who, stronger than a crowd
Of demons, mad, and dressed to kill,

And George Dillon
Thou who abruptly as a knife
Didst come into my heart; thou who,
A demon horde into my life,
Didst enter, wildly dancing, through

And a translation by  Jacques LeClercq
Thou, sharper than a dagger thrust
Sinking into my plaintive heart,
Thou, frenzied and arrayed in lust,
Strong as a demon host whose art

Now back to William Aggeler for the second verse
To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
— Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound
Like the convict to his chain,

And Roy Campbell
Of my dejected soul have made
Your bed, your lodging, and domain:
To whom I'm linked (Unseemly jade!)
As is a convict to his chain,

And George Dillion
The doorways of my sense unlatched
To make my spirit thy domain —
Harlot to whom I am attached
As convicts to the ball and chain,

And Jacques LeClercq
Possessed my humbled soul at last,
Made it thy bed and thy domain,
Strumpet, to whom I am bound fast
As is the convict to his chain,

Now for the last four stanzas of the original, I am going to go back and read the respective translations of that stanza by William Aggeler, Roy Campbell, George Dillon, and Jacques LeClerq in turn

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
— Accurst, accurst be you!

Or as the gamester to his dice,
Or as the drunkard to his dram,
Or as the carrion to its lice —
I curse you. Would my curse could damn!

As gamblers to the wheel's bright spell,
As drunkards to their raging thirst,
As corpses to their worms — accurst
Be thou! Oh, be thou damned to hell!

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
— Accurst, accurst be you!

And 4 translations of the next verse

I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.

BTW - I know the word poniard was new to me - it means a small, slender dagger.   Some of the other translations in this group will use blade or sword.

To continue with the next three translations of the verse

I have besought the sudden blade
To win for me my freedom back.
Perfidious poison I have prayed
To help my cowardice. Alack!

I have entreated the swift sword
To strike, that I at once be freed;
The poisoned phial I have implored
To plot with me a ruthless deed.

BTW - A phial is defined as a container for poison.

I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.

And 4 translations of the next to last stanza

Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
'You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,

Both poison and the sword disdained
My cowardice, and seemed to say
"You are not fit to be unchained
From your damned servitude. Away,

Alas! the phial and the blade
Do cry aloud and laugh at me:
'Thou art not worthy of our aid;
Thou art not worthy to be free.

But sword and poison in my need
Heaped scorn upon my craven mood,
Saying: "Unworthy to be freed,
From thine accursed servitude,

And now 4 translations of the final stanza -

Fool! — if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!’

You imbecile! since if from her empire
We were to liberate the slave,
You'd raise the carrion of your vampire,
By your own kisses, from the grave.”

'Though one of us should be the tool
To save thee from thy wretched fate,
Thy kisses would resuscitate
The body of thy vampire, fool!’

O fool, if through our efforts, Fate
Absolved thee from thy sorry plight,
Thy kisses would resuscitate
Thy vampire's corpse for thy delight."

Thanks for staying with me.  I hope that you have seen that all 4 translations express basically the same idea - I’m sorry to say I don’t speak French, so I can’t go into a lot more than that. All four translations were quite different - but also right in their own ways - Each translation has a different emphasis with various shades of meaning.   And that is one of the characteristics of great literature.

TRANSITION

15:11 Preview from following episode

For the rest of this episode - until I get to the sources section - I would like to include a brief section from the next episode of this podcast -

15:23 Classical rhetorical with JFK and John Barrymore

Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare both studied classical rhetoric when they attended school in England as young boys.  One rhetorical technique Poe and Shakespeare undoubtedly learned was parallelism.
Even speakers today use classical rhetorical devices to communicate with their audiences.  Just to use one example, during President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, he famously said,

JFK VOICE: Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

Parallelism is expressing and balancing two ideas - something that can be very pleasing to the ears.

A similar way of expressing parallelism can be expressed in American Sign Language - it might take some work to figure it out - but can be very pleasing to the eyes.

This can probably be expressed by using what is perhaps the most famous line in all of Shakespeare - “to be or not to be, that is the question” in Act 3, Scene 1.

Here is that line in an original recording by John Barrymore - one of the greatest actors of all time.   Some of you might know him better as Drew Barrymore’s grandfather.

John Barrymore’s voice “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

I think that line is especially moving in this situation because this was at a time in his life when John Barrymore was facing his own mortality.

17:10 Classical rhetoric in American Sign Language

That line is made up of 10 words - and to top it all, none of them are really American Sign Language - ASL has no state of being verbs, and the other concepts can be expressed though non manual motions - first analyze the statement - Hamlet is weighing two  alternatives - life - or to be and - death - or not to be - then he shows that deciding between life and death is the question or dilemma - a signer can therefore sign life with one hand on one side and death with one hand on the other - showing that they are alternatives - then the signer can look out at the audience with lowered eyebrows - in ASL that means this is a which statement - a choice between two alternatives - and the signer can make it even clearer by looking back and forth between the right and left hands to emphaize the decision between life and death - of course, it would probably be physically impossible for an ASL interpreter to figure out the best way to sign what he or she believes Shakespeare meant in “to be or not to be” on the spot - it takes a lot of planning and figuring out how it all fits together.  And instead of signing 10 words - none of which are technically American Sign Language - the interpreter is signing 3 concepts - much easier to see and a lot easier on the interpreter’s hands!

And as an added bonus - the deaf audience sees (instead of hears) the parallelism of life and death - deciding between two choices.

It amazes me that Shakespeare was able to write plays with hundreds of lines full of meaning in what must have been a short time.

Of course, it the interpreter has a different interpretation of the line “to be or not to be” - such as to reach your potential verus live a humdrum life - the signs would be quite different - but I don’t think that is what Shakespeare meant.  My interpretation is that Shakespeare - in the character of Hamlet - is considering an existential choice - life or death.

20:30 Anaphora in American Sign Language

To use another example of the many cases of classical rhetorical in Shakespeare, all you have to do is look at his use of anaphoria - oh, and before you say - what in the heck is anaphora?   Well, anaphora, is defined as the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.  Anaphora can be expressed in American Sign Language though an emphasis on the words or group of words being repeated.  For example, the interpreter can emphasize the sign for “this” in “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise.” in The Life and Death of King Richard the Second Act 2 Scene 1.

Transition

Sources for this episode include Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, Translating Poetry by Daniel Weissbort, Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style by Brett Zimmerman, Signing Shakespeare by George Bartley, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt.

Why not visit my podcast web site at celebratepoe.buzzsprout.com - click on the episode you want to learn more about to see its show notes and a transcript.

Future Episodes
As mentioned before, the next episode will look at translating or interpreting into American Sign Language a Shakespearean play - A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.  In contrast to the printed word - where the author usually works in solitude - a play depends on a team effort.  And the Indianapolis Shakespeare Company is a great group of actors.
In the future, Celebrate Poe will be taking a deep dive back into the life and writings of Poe, starting with some of the influences on his writing.  There are so many subjects involved in trying to understand Edgar Allan Poe, and his complex works, but I feel that a solid understanding of his greatness rests on mainly two aspects - his creativity - and by creativity, I am including his inspirations and imagination.  And I believe the second main reason for his greatness is his use of language - his understanding of words and how to use them - especially in producing an effect.

Before this podcast deals with Edgar Poe’s education in England, I want to concentrate on vampire and even werewolf stories that may have served as a major influence on the writer.

Then Celebrate Poe will specifically cover Poe’s years as a child in England - especially his education .  I am finding some exciting stuff  regarding the information that he learned - especially in the form of classical rhetoric - to become one of America’s greatest writers.

Discussing classical rhetoric might seem a bit dry when you first look at it, but I have a feeling that you will find it fascinating, and understand Edgar Poe in an exciting new way.

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe - a deep dive into the life, times, and works of America’s Shakespeare - Edgar Allan Poe.

24:17  OUTRO