Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
Article 24 in LCPJ
Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
Abstract
The proposed paper deals with some problems in translating literature
and especially in the representation of Ovid’s poem in Bulgarian language,
literature and culture. The Metamorphoses of Ovid with its relatively longlasting recurrence, including twelve translations in the period from the end of
19th century till the end of the 20th century, are in many ways representative
of the reception of ancient literature and the perception of ancient culture
in Bulgaria. The article makes clear that the translator of a literary text is not
concerned with establishing equivalence of natural languages but of artistic
procedures. And such procedures cannot be considered in isolation, but must
be located within the specific cultural and temporal context within which
they have been utilized. We shall summarize, in this presentation, our study
on the Bulgarian free translations of Ovid’s work. Some changes in literary
imagery due to translators’ specific purposes and translating strategies will be
observed. Translated texts will be considered as a peculiar instance of human
communication achieved through translators’ task and as a particular literary
product responding to audience’s expectations in the times they were created.
Translating Classics
As far as the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in modern times and societies
is concerned, we shall in this brief exposé present a specific kind of dialogue
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
between languages, civilizations and cultures that does not concern a synchronic
communication but rather a diachronic and inter-temporal one. “For some
scholars what matters about a classic text is its aesthetic quality only” (Martindale:
2008:84). A work that has been given classic status becomes involved in different
kinds of interpretation that generate new readings for a complex of reasons, no
need to render the work as modern and communicative, to accommodate it to
the different circumstances and requirements of the recipients’ culture. We shall
throughout this paper think about free translation in a positive and appreciative
way disregarding to a great extent the requirements for faithfulness and
fidelity towards the source text and its author, and questioning the traditional
hierarchical assumptions that rank the target text under the source text.
Free translations are, in a sense, aesthetic translations, predestined to bring
together form and content in order to produce a new thing of beauty. The
Bulgarian free translations of pieces of Ovid’s work involve the creation
of a new object of art by an act of aesthetic reproduction, which is not like a
purely instrumental form of copying. They will represent an illustration of the
way modern cultures perceive and apprehend our common European past.
The Bulgarian free translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
In the period from the end of 19th century till the present days three free (and
partial, covering three stories of the poem - Pyramus and Thisbe, Orpheus and
Eurydice, and Daedalus and Icarus) translations of Ovid’s poem in Bulgarian
could be traced. They are accomplished in the 1940s by one of the most
notable Bulgarian poets – Blaga Dimitrova, and by another translator, and yet
another woman – Milka Spasova, of whom we do know nothing apart from
her translation of Daedalus’ story from the Metamorphoses. Both of them
were schoolgirls at the time they took up with their translation task and aimed
at developing their own poetic experience through translating from Latin.
The free translations of Ovid’s tales represent original poetic “hyper-textual”
forms, a kind of “over-translations” defined by translators’ personal and
prominent poetics (Берман: 2007:38). Authentic Ovidian topics are recontextualized through a distinct pursuit of situating the source narratives in
a broader and more universal framework, putting on the stress so common
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
to all mankind motifs as suffering (Orpheus, Daedalus, Pyramus and Thisbe),
love (Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe) and art (Orpheus).
Among the common features of all the three free translations is the fact that
they are published in the same periodical – the journal “Prometheus”, whose
subject theme is Antiquity, under the same heading of “Youth’s page”. Young
translators have been granted with these pages in order to make their first
attempts not only at translating but rather at writing poetry. The only fact of
directing readers’ attention to the poets-translators and their literary inventions
already acts as a distraction from the original author, his intentions and
stylistics. Another current hallmark of the Bulgarian free translations proves
to be the determining role of translators’ personal poetic vision in leading the
literary reflection and the reproduction of the source text’s subject-matter.
Shifts in narrative structure
The different and heterogeneous aesthetic attitudes of both author and
translators set the pattern for divergent narrative and poetic techniques
characterizing the source and the target texts. In many passages, peculiar
Ovidian detailed descriptions have been substituted by economic imagery
and the concrete has been replaced by the abstract. Such instances of
specific diversity between the original and its translations could be observed
in the statement of the construction of the wings by Daedalus (Met. 8.189195), as well as in either avoiding or strongly reducing the direct speeches
of characters in Blaga Dimitrova’s translation of Pyramus and Thisbe (Met.
4.142-8) and Orpheus and Eurydice (Met. 10.17-39) tales. Similar shifts occur in
the re-creation of the metamorphosis topic in Pyramus and Thisbe story. The
depiction has been rendered economic and curtailed compared to Ovidian
detailed and visual over-explicitness (Met. 4.185). The effect of such changes
on readers’ reception is much more descriptions and much less theatricality.
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
Shifts in subject-matter and narrative focus
Characteristic of the free translations are shifts of subject-matter and focus
reflecting the closer look of the poet-translator and the more distanced one
of the original author towards the plot. Some motifs have been put on the
foreground, while others have been given minor importance. In Pyramus and
Thisbe’s story the actualization of the romantic and tragic aspects of the plot
goes along with the laying aside of characters’ scenic and theatrical acts, of
humorous, piquant and grotesque details and minutiae, as seen in the case
with the omission of the famous pipe simile (Met. 4.121-2) at the moment of
Pyramus’ suicide when Ovid compares his streaming blood wound with the
cracking of a pipe and water streaming, or personages’ appeal to the wall, which
happened to separate them, as if it was a person acting in the plot (Met. 4.73-80).
Comparable shifts in translation come about in the text of Milka Spasova
reproducing Daedalus and Icarus’ tale. She has omitted words plays (e.g. the
play with the word father (pater) who was actually not a father already because
of having already lost his son (Met. 8.231) and has foregrounded the relationship
between parents and children on the account of the hybris and homo faber
topics. Mythologems have been left as peripheral and of secondary importance.
All these changes seem natural given the fact that they have aroused because
of the striving for privileging and aestheticizing the great universal themes
of love and suffering. On the other side, they are opposed to Ovid’s attempt
to displace and remote readers’ attention from the pathos of the situation,
but in the same time they represent a sign of translators’ wish to draw target
audience’s reception more deeply into characters’ emotive experience.
Shifts in the imagery of the figures in the plot
Some translation shifts are referring to figures and agents in the storyline. Target
texts are displaying divergent treatments of characters. In Blaga Dimitrova’s
translation of Orpheus and Eurydice’s story much more attention is paid to the
figure of Eurydice, thus making her an equal protagonist to Orpheus. Some
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
aspects in the portraying of both heroes have been emphasized while others
have been given minor importance. Orpheus’ emotional status and suffering
have been actualized and carried to excess compared to the depiction by the
original author. His archetypical role of poet and singer has been repeatedly
put on the center as well (e.g. he has been given the name of poet 4 times
and singer 5 times versus 2 occurrences of the word vates in the Latin text).
Similar is the rendering of the figures of Pyramus and Thisbe in the Bulgarian
translation, where their emotional characterization in the story landmarks has
been extended. In the same framework of changes the translator of Daedalus
and Icarus’ story focuses readers’ attention to the figure of Daedalus the father
and Icarus the son, thus bringing to the fore the relationships between father
and son and in a broader and universal perspective the relations between
parents and children. Daedalus has been given the name father 4 times versus
the occurrence of the word pater 3 times in the original text, and so is the
naming of Icarus – he has been referred to with the word natus 3 times in the
Latin text and with the word “child” 5 times in the Bulgarian translation. All the
above-mentioned translation shifts are bringing a strong impact on the overall
poetic tonality by intensifying the characters’ dolorous experience. Bulgarian
free translations are in general remarkable for their strongly expressive
lexical register which has been accommodated to the receiving culture.
Shifts in landscape depictions
The enhanced emotional depictions of characters match the extended and
amplified descriptions of landscape. The Bulgarian translation of the story of
Pyramus and Thisbe is representative of such types of translation shifts. According
toSt. Hinds “there is a characteristic tension in the landscapes of the Metamorphoses
between the beautiful settings and the sufferings which befall most of the
characters who inhabit or enter it” (Hinds: 2005: 130). On the contrary, there is a
peculiar matching and association in the landscapes of the translation between
the settings and the protagonists’ sufferings. The semantic field of “Ovidian
locus amoenus” is thereby displaced and modified and consequently an enriched
landscape is coming to the fore, drawing a parallel and dynamic background of
events and characters’ feelings, which are combined with pathos and sympathy.
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
Conclusion: translators’ state of mind and transformations in target texts
The transformations in the act of translating, the heterogeneous techniques
that build up the narrative, the deviant lexical structure and register are
all conditioned and resulting from translators’ conscious choice and (his/
her) decision for giving primacy to universal human values which might
be preserved in the process of transfer. The decision-making process
and therefore the process of translation itself are realized under the
influence and authority of the extra-textual innate characteristics of the
receiving culture and the addressees that translations were aimed at.
Substantial and of primary importance for the free translations is the focus on the
recipients’ audience and the orientation towards the target culture and language
trademarks which might define them to an extent as “ethnocentric” translations
(according to Берман: 2007:26). That is the particular framework in which we
should reconsider and reinterpret the contrasting and distinct communicative
aspects of the narrative and the shifts in linguistic form and imagery.
Bibliography
Lianeri, A., Zajko, V. eds. (2008). Translation and the Classics. Identity as Change
in the History of Culture. Oxford University Press, New York.
Martindale, Ch. (2008). Dryden’s Ovid: Aesthetic Translation and the Idea of the
Classic, in: Lianeri, A., Zajko, V. eds. (2008). Translation and the Classics. Identity
as Change in the History of Culture. Oxford University Press, New York.
Hardie Ph. ed. (2005). A Cambridge Companion to Ovid, Cambridge University
Press, New York.
Hinds, St. (2005). Landscape with Figures: Aesthetic of Place in the Metamorphoses
and itsTradition, in: Ph. Hardie (ed.), A Cambridge Companion to Ovid, Cambridge
University Press, New York.
Ovidius, Metamorphoses, ed. W. S. Anderson, Lipsiae - BSB B. G. Teubner
Verlagsgesellschaft, 1988.
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Sirakova, Yoana 2010: Translation Shifts in the Transfer of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” in
Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture
Берман, А. (2007). Преводът и буквата или страноприемница за далечното,
София – Панорама плюс. (La traduction et la lettre ou l’auberge du lointain)
Овидий, Орфей и Евридика, прев. Бл. Димитрова, сп. Прометей, год. 5, кн.
3, 1940.
Овидий, Пирам и Тисба, прев. Бл. Димитрова, сп. Прометей, год.5, кн.1,
1940.
Овидий, Дедал и Икар, прев. М. Спасова, сп. Прометей, год. 5, кн. 3, 1940.
The total number of words is 1985
© LCPJ Publishing 2010 by Yoana Sirakova
Dr. Yoana Sirakova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned her MA in Classical
Philology in 1991 at Sofia University. Since then she is a lecturer in Latin language
and literature at the Department of Classics at Sofia University. In the meantime
she has worked also as researcher in the Linguistic Modeling Laboratory at the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on several international projects dealing with
computer-assisted translation. Since 1998 she has given lectures on history and
theories of translation and seminars on translations of Latin texts in Bulgarian.
Her PhD in Classics and Translation Studies has focused on Bulgarian translations
of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Her research interest and publications have centered
around translation studies and Classics and in particular on translation reception
of Roman literature in Bulgaria. She was leading and has taken part in several
projects concerning the modern reception of ancient literature - Translational
Reception of European Literatures in Bulgaria during the 19th and 20th centuries;
Romulus Bulgaricus – a bilingual digital collection of Latin texts and their Bulgarian
translations (www.romulus-bg.net); Bulgarian Digital Encyclopedia of the Ancient
World; Contextualizing Classics. Renewal of Teaching Practices and Concepts,
HESP Program for Excellence in Teaching (www.proclassics.org); Documentation
and Research of the Reception of Ancient Drama in Bulgaria: Translation, Stage
Presentation, Arts, Education, Cultural Policies (www.romulus-bg.net/arion/).
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