ALTA38: Translating Poetic Fragments, 10/31/2015
Channel: Literary Translation
Date: 2015-11-22

Panelists representing ancient Greek, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish will consider case studies in the translation of poetic fragments—from the ancient and unintentionally fragmented, to aphorisms, to contemporary texts that resist wholeness and allow for multiple interpretations. How can we inhabit ambiguity to open up the possibility for meaning without muddling clarity? What techniques allow minimal words to reverberate with maximum potential? How can we transfer meaning from one language to another in a text whose very “illegibility is an inexhaustible necessity”? We will probe the craft of translation on a micro level, where every word must count for more than itself, a deep and concentrated exploration with valuable insights for prose and poetry translators alike.