Beautiful Versus Faithful Translations
“Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.”
The quote above is from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, author of Babi Yar and known critic of the Soviet government. While this quotation is undeniably misogynistic, it does present an interesting point of view and reality of translations.
While translators generally focus on producing a translation that is faithful to the original, what does one do when translating poetry, when portraying a feeling, a mood, is more important than meaning? How much creative freedom is granted to the translator?
Poetry is so nuanced, so particular, that it could be likened to recreating a piano sonata on a bass drum. The result may be interesting and may have a certain style to it, but it will never produce the same feeling as the original.