What do the four people above have to do with thinking through language?
In short (from left to right), Edward Fitzgerald, Seamus Heaney, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Burton are responsible for translating some of the world's most important and most renowned literary works into English. Fitzgerald translated Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, Heaney translated Beowulf, Poe translated the poetry of Baudelaire, and Burton translated 1001 Arabian Nights.
All these authors faced the same challenge:
To preserve the literary, semantic, and symbolic meanings of the literature that they translated. The task of
being able to preserve as much meaning as possible when projecting from one language to another is one reason why language plays
such an integral role in changing our perceptions of the world and reality. Reading a poem in the original Italian will leave a different mark than reading that same poem in English. Sometimes, words in a foreign language cannot be taken for the literal word when translating to a different language. This can cause the meaning of the poem to change, and therefore the purpose the author had left for the poem or novel.
In short (from left to right), Edward Fitzgerald, Seamus Heaney, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Burton are responsible for translating some of the world's most important and most renowned literary works into English. Fitzgerald translated Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, Heaney translated Beowulf, Poe translated the poetry of Baudelaire, and Burton translated 1001 Arabian Nights.
All these authors faced the same challenge:
To preserve the literary, semantic, and symbolic meanings of the literature that they translated. The task of
being able to preserve as much meaning as possible when projecting from one language to another is one reason why language plays
such an integral role in changing our perceptions of the world and reality. Reading a poem in the original Italian will leave a different mark than reading that same poem in English. Sometimes, words in a foreign language cannot be taken for the literal word when translating to a different language. This can cause the meaning of the poem to change, and therefore the purpose the author had left for the poem or novel.
Walter Benjamin and TranslationIn his The Task of the Translator, Walter Benjamin states "The task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect upon the language into
which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original" (Zohn). 3 As Benjamin states, a translator must be able to understand a work of literature in its original language, comprehend its symbolic and literal meanings, and then produce the same effects in the translation language as would appear in the original language. For this reason, it is evident that language plays a part in perception, because two different translations of one work will yield two different understandings when read by the same person. Similarly, two people who speak two different languages will view reality in two radically different scopes. |
Two Different Translations of Petrarch's Sonnet 189 (3)
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As observed, the two different translations of Petrarch's sonnet produced two different interpretations. Armi's version is much more harsh, more unforgiving. Wyatt's version gives off a different, lighter, but still dark, tone. Due to this discrepancy, it can be seen that cognition is in fact affected by translations, and, therefore, language.
References
3. Benjamin, Walter. "The Task of the Translator." Totuus Radio. Trans. Harry Zohn. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
3. Benjamin, Walter. "The Task of the Translator." Totuus Radio. Trans. Harry Zohn. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.