TRAD 6455-201, Spring 2022, 6th Assignment

Santiago Daponte Jiménez

This chapter devoted to translation of phonic, graphic, and prosodic issues is indebted once again to
the theories of Roman Jakobson. “Pragmatics,” conventions of communication not intended to convey
information, was classified by him as “expressive” (showing feelings of the speaker), “conative” (getting
the listener to do something), “phatic” (maintaining relation between speaker and listener),
“metalingual” (referring to language itself), and “poetic” (using the formal aspects of language alone).
Publication of these ideas can be found in his article “Linguistics and Poetics,” Style in Language, ed.
Thomas Sebeok, MIT P, 1960, pp. 350-77). Here are 3 different translations of a sonnet by Federicio
García Lorca made for a festival to celebrate the centenary of his birth, held in 1998 at the Newcastle
Playhouse in England. They were published in Fire, Blood and the Alphabet: One Hundred Years of Lorca,
eds. S. Doggart and M. Thompson (Durham Modern Language Series, 1999). Compare them as to meter,
graphic layout, imagery, phonic effects, sense, target audience. Say which one you like best and why.

Source Text

Llagas de amor

Esta luz, este fuego que devora.

Este paisaje gris que me rodea.
Este dolor por una sola idea.
Esta angustia de cielo, mundo y hora.

Este llanto de sangre que decora

lira sin pulso ya, lúbrica tea.
Este peso del mar que me golpea.
Este alacran que por mi pecho mora.

Son guirnaldas de amor, cama de herido,

donde sin sueño tu presencia
entre las ruinas de mi pecho hundido.

Y aunque busco la cumbre de prudencia

me da tu corazón valle tendido
con cicuta y passion de amarga ciencia.

Target text 1

“The Wounds of Love” (John Kerr)

This brilliant light and fire which devour.

This grey expanse by which I am surrounded.
This sorrow which on one idea is founded.
This agony of heaven, world and hour.

These tears of blood with which is dressed

a lyre silent still, a torch of lust.
This sea of which I feel the thrust.
This scorpion which in my heart makes its nest.

They are love’s garland, and the wound’s rest.

where, sleepless, I create you in a dream
amongst the ruins of my crushed-in breast.

and though I seek discretion’s height supreme

your heart now gives me this vast vale oppressed
by passion’s bitter skill, where hemlocks teem.

Target text 2

“The Wounds of Love” (Nicholas Round)

This light, and this consuming flame,

and this grey land on every side,
this grieving for a single thought,
this agony of earth and sky and time,
these tears of blood that fall like jewels on
my pulseless lyre, now made the torch of lust
this pounding of me in the heavy seas,
this scorpion that lurks about my breast,
are the rewards love brings: a bed where I
wounded and sleepless, dream that you are here,
among the fragments of my shattered loving
and though I struggle towards wisdom’s height,
your heart has spread a valley at my feet
-- hemlock and passion, bred of bitter knowing.

Target text 3

“You put a Bomb in My Heart” (Colin Teevan)

First a flash, then a fireball, which like a fashionable

new ism, swept all before it before,
Having only itself left to devour, did just that.
The sky, seeing the general distress,
Spat down tears of blood; the earth, for its part,
Through a million ruptured pipes, did its
Damnedest to piss the height of heaven and,
Needless to say, my Apollonian lyre
Was completely banjaxed in the blast.
It was a time for snakes and scorpions.
Gathered from the ruins of our attrition,
And, though I should, in truth, have had more cop
Than to fall for such sweet ammunition,
From the second you blew me all over this shop,
It’s been this kamikaze love, that’s given me my definition. (Haywood, pp. 111-12)

Comparison:

The three translations have different strengths: In terms of sense, the first one is best because it’s

the most literal while still being mostly idiomatic. The third has the most vivid imagery, but has

little in common with the source text. I think the first one has the best graphic layout just because

it’s structured like the source text: the second one isn’t divided and the third isn’t even a sonnet

(it has fifteen lines instead of fourteen). As for the meter, I think the first and second translations

are in iambic, but I have no idea about the third.

The first translation is probably intended for people who are already familiar with Federico

García Lorca. The second translation seems like a sort of middle ground between the two

extremes of literal translation (the first) and free translation (the third), intended to give first

timers an idea of Federico García Lorca’s writing style. The third is essentially a different poem,

right down to the title. I think Colin Teevan just wanted to make something good and memorable

that would reach a wide audience.

My personal favorite is john Kerr’s because it’s the most faithful. Colin Teevan’s translation is a

close second because you can tell he had fun writing it.