Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Károly Szokolay: The problems of translating poetry

There are sometimes exceptions among great poets who use unusual metrical forms in their native language. Here is Charles Algernon Swinburne, for example: (Sapphics) All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me. As for using different metrical forms, my conclusion must be the following: the more metrical forms a language is able to use, the more metrical forms can be translated into it. From this point of view the Hungarian language can be regarded as a unique one. Hungarian poets have used a great many forms of verse. But this means at the same time, of course, that a part of our poems cannot be translated properly into several major languages. That may be the reason why the French often translate poetry into prose. As for modern translators of Hungarian poetry into English, they try to follow the original metrical forms. Finally I must emphasise the role of the poet in verse-translation. In his essay Edwin Morgan is tempted to say, "if the translator gives us a good poem it can't be a close translation, and if it is a close translation it can't be a good poem. The man who knows the foreign text best is quite likely to be a scholar and not a poet."

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9 I perfectly agree with Edwin Morgan when he says that "somehow the translator must produce the emotional »lift« of poetry, and to get this he has to throw out ballast of various kinds, and the first thing to go, the least indispensable thing, will be literal accuracy."

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0 I think most of our Hungarian poets who are translators as well know this very well and do what Edwin Morgan did, even when György Rába says, "Verse-translation is like making a circle into a quadrangle." 135