Walter Owen
Encyclopedia
Walter Owen was a Scottish
translator transplanted to the Argentine
Pampas. His career is an excellent example of how the translator can open up a key aspect of a culture to readers in another language. Born in Glasgow
, he spent much of his boyhood in Montevideo
and as an adult returned to the River Plate
area to work as a stockbroker. He thus had the opportunity to become bicultural as well as bilingual, and applied his skill to the translation into English of the major epic poems
of the Southern part of South America. In so doing his objective was not simply esthetic, but cultural and even political in terms of bringing closer together the English-speaking peoples and those of Latin America
. As he put it, he hoped that his work "in its modest way may advance between peoples of different speech, the friendly interchange of thought and feeling which is the foundation of mutual esteem and the surest establishment for good fellowship. To have done so is the best reward of the translator."
What Owen did was to "English" (his verb for translate) the principal epics of the part of Latin America he knew best: José Hernández's Martín Fierro
, Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga's La Araucana
, and Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
's Tabaré, among others. In so doing he made available to the English-speaking world these neglected masterpieces of the Southern Cone. But as a translator he felt obliged to tell his readers (in extensive introductions or prefaces) how he crafted his works of translation. Thus, his legacy is a double one, of considerable value to both the reader of epic Latin American poetry as well as to the student of translation.
Owen avoided excessively literal translation
s, realizing that they would be of little interest to the reader trying to understand the gaucho
or Araucanian culture. He was willing to sacrifice what he called "verbal accuracy" (i.e., word for word rendition) in order to achieve clarity and ease of style. His ultimate goal was what we would call "equivalent impact": "it must produce upon the consciousness of the reader an equivalent total impression to that produced by the original work upon readers in whose vernacular it was written." He reiterates this philosophy in his preface to the translation of La Araucana: "Translations of poems which adhere faithfully to the original text yield small pleasure to the reader, and what value they have is for the student of philology or semantics.... I consider the translation of poetry into poetry a liberal art and not an exact science .... To coin a portmanteau-term for this sort of translation, it might be called a psychological transvernacularisation."
Aquí me pongo a cantar
Al compás de la vigüela
Que el hombre lo desvela,
Una pena estrordinaria
Como la ave solitaria
Con el cantar se consuela.
I sit me here to sing my song
To the beat of my old guitar
To the man whose life is a bitter cup,
With a song may yet his heart lift up,
As the lonely bird on a leafless tree
That sings 'neath the gloaming
star.
In the preface to the translation of La Araucana
, Owen invites the reader to share with him the intimate details of the process by which he takes the original poem of the Chile
an conquest, makes a first rough semi-literal translation, and then plays with each line, word, and syllable to achieve the translation which most closely conveys the spirit, meaning and rhythm
of the 16th Century Spanish original. This preface stands as one of the most complete explanations which a poet-translator has ever given of the intricacies of his work. He modestly says: "It will not be foreign to the purpose of these introductory remarks and will perhaps be of some entertainment to my readers if I illustrate the working of the system I have outlined, as applied to the opening stanza of Ercilla's epic. I will first give the original Spanish text of the stanza, then my first roughly literal translation, followed by a running commentary showing the development of the finished English version."
The Spanish original by Alonso de Ercilla, 1569:
No las damas, amor, no gentilezas,
De caballeros canto enamorados,
Ni las muestras, regalos y ternezas
De amorosos afectos y cuidados;
Mas el valor, los hechos, las proezas
De aquellos españoles esforzados,
Que a la cerviz de Arauco no domada
Pusieron duro yugo por la espada.
Owen's first "approximately literal translation" (early 1900s):
Not ladies, love, nor courtesies
Of amorous knight
s I sing,
Nor tokens, sweets, and favours
Of love's delights and cares;
But the valour, deeds, and exploits
Of those stalwart Spaniards,
That on Arauco's untamed neck
Placed by a sword
a rigorous yoke
.
Owen notes that this first cut carries the sense of the original, but that the "rhythm and ring and martial tramp of Ercilla are absent. The epic note is wanting; the bird of poetry has escaped our net of English words. No patching or mending of the new form will recapture the spirit of the original. What the translator has to do is to mentally digest this raw material, and once it is well assimilated, imagine himself Ercilla, seated quill in hand in old Madrid about the third quarter of the sixteenth century, with a clean sheet before him and his portfolio of manuscript notes at hand, ruminating the opening lines of his epic of the Arauco War
s."
Owen proceeds to do just that for six pages of his preface, showing the reader in great detail how he arrives at his final version:
Sing, Muse
: but not of Venus
and her chuck,
And amorous jousts in dainty lists of love,
Favours and forfeits won in Beauty's siege
By soft assaults of chamber gallantry;
But of the valiant deeds and worthy fame
Of those who far on surge-ensundered shores,
Bent the proud neck of Araucania's race
To Spain's stern yoke, by war's arbitrament.
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
translator transplanted to the Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
Pampas. His career is an excellent example of how the translator can open up a key aspect of a culture to readers in another language. Born in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, he spent much of his boyhood in Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
and as an adult returned to the River Plate
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
area to work as a stockbroker. He thus had the opportunity to become bicultural as well as bilingual, and applied his skill to the translation into English of the major epic poems
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
of the Southern part of South America. In so doing his objective was not simply esthetic, but cultural and even political in terms of bringing closer together the English-speaking peoples and those of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. As he put it, he hoped that his work "in its modest way may advance between peoples of different speech, the friendly interchange of thought and feeling which is the foundation of mutual esteem and the surest establishment for good fellowship. To have done so is the best reward of the translator."
Translations
Martín Fierro
Martín Fierro is a 2,316 line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, El Gaucho Martín Fierro and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro . The poem is, in part, a protest against the modernist tendencies of Argentine president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento...
, Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga's La Araucana
La Araucana
La Araucana is an epic poem in Spanish about the Spanish conquest of Chile, by Alonso de Ercilla; it is also known in English as The Araucaniad...
, and Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
Juan Zorrilla de San Martín was a Uruguayan epic poet - he is referred as "National Poet of Uruguay" -and political figure . He is featured on the 20-peso note.-Well-known poems:...
's Tabaré, among others. In so doing he made available to the English-speaking world these neglected masterpieces of the Southern Cone. But as a translator he felt obliged to tell his readers (in extensive introductions or prefaces) how he crafted his works of translation. Thus, his legacy is a double one, of considerable value to both the reader of epic Latin American poetry as well as to the student of translation.
Owen avoided excessively literal translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
s, realizing that they would be of little interest to the reader trying to understand the gaucho
Gaucho
Gaucho is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos, or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile, and Southern Brazil...
or Araucanian culture. He was willing to sacrifice what he called "verbal accuracy" (i.e., word for word rendition) in order to achieve clarity and ease of style. His ultimate goal was what we would call "equivalent impact": "it must produce upon the consciousness of the reader an equivalent total impression to that produced by the original work upon readers in whose vernacular it was written." He reiterates this philosophy in his preface to the translation of La Araucana: "Translations of poems which adhere faithfully to the original text yield small pleasure to the reader, and what value they have is for the student of philology or semantics.... I consider the translation of poetry into poetry a liberal art and not an exact science .... To coin a portmanteau-term for this sort of translation, it might be called a psychological transvernacularisation."
Texts
Here is his "transvernacularisation" of the opening stanza:Aquí me pongo a cantar
Al compás de la vigüela
Que el hombre lo desvela,
Una pena estrordinaria
Como la ave solitaria
Con el cantar se consuela.
I sit me here to sing my song
To the beat of my old guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
To the man whose life is a bitter cup,
With a song may yet his heart lift up,
As the lonely bird on a leafless tree
That sings 'neath the gloaming
Twilight
Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...
star.
In the preface to the translation of La Araucana
La Araucana
La Araucana is an epic poem in Spanish about the Spanish conquest of Chile, by Alonso de Ercilla; it is also known in English as The Araucaniad...
, Owen invites the reader to share with him the intimate details of the process by which he takes the original poem of the Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an conquest, makes a first rough semi-literal translation, and then plays with each line, word, and syllable to achieve the translation which most closely conveys the spirit, meaning and rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
of the 16th Century Spanish original. This preface stands as one of the most complete explanations which a poet-translator has ever given of the intricacies of his work. He modestly says: "It will not be foreign to the purpose of these introductory remarks and will perhaps be of some entertainment to my readers if I illustrate the working of the system I have outlined, as applied to the opening stanza of Ercilla's epic. I will first give the original Spanish text of the stanza, then my first roughly literal translation, followed by a running commentary showing the development of the finished English version."
The Spanish original by Alonso de Ercilla, 1569:
No las damas, amor, no gentilezas,
De caballeros canto enamorados,
Ni las muestras, regalos y ternezas
De amorosos afectos y cuidados;
Mas el valor, los hechos, las proezas
De aquellos españoles esforzados,
Que a la cerviz de Arauco no domada
Pusieron duro yugo por la espada.
Owen's first "approximately literal translation" (early 1900s):
Not ladies, love, nor courtesies
Of amorous knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
s I sing,
Nor tokens, sweets, and favours
Of love's delights and cares;
But the valour, deeds, and exploits
Of those stalwart Spaniards,
That on Arauco's untamed neck
Placed by a sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
a rigorous yoke
Yoke
A yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. There are several types of yoke, used in different cultures, and for different types of oxen...
.
Owen notes that this first cut carries the sense of the original, but that the "rhythm and ring and martial tramp of Ercilla are absent. The epic note is wanting; the bird of poetry has escaped our net of English words. No patching or mending of the new form will recapture the spirit of the original. What the translator has to do is to mentally digest this raw material, and once it is well assimilated, imagine himself Ercilla, seated quill in hand in old Madrid about the third quarter of the sixteenth century, with a clean sheet before him and his portfolio of manuscript notes at hand, ruminating the opening lines of his epic of the Arauco War
Arauco War
The Arauco War was a conflict between colonial Spaniards and the Mapuche people in what is now the Araucanía and Biobío regions of modern Chile...
s."
Owen proceeds to do just that for six pages of his preface, showing the reader in great detail how he arrives at his final version:
Sing, Muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
: but not of Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
and her chuck,
And amorous jousts in dainty lists of love,
Favours and forfeits won in Beauty's siege
By soft assaults of chamber gallantry;
But of the valiant deeds and worthy fame
Of those who far on surge-ensundered shores,
Bent the proud neck of Araucania's race
To Spain's stern yoke, by war's arbitrament.