Poetry translators as cultural ambassadors

26 Pages·2017·0.51 MB·English

Poetry translators as cultural ambassadors:
Communicating Modern Greek poetry in English
Nadia Georgiou
Centre for Translation Studies
University of Surrey
Keywords: paratexts, poetry translation, cultural mediation, ambassadorship,
symbolic/social capital
Introduction
The current hegemonic state of the English language marginalizes many of the other
languages used around the globe today. As a result languages less commonly used in
translation are often called ‘minor’ or languages of lesser currency. This power
imbalance is reflected in the cultures in which these ‘minor’ languages are spoken.
Disciplines, such as Postcolonial studies, foreground the role of agents who influence
the dynamics of power and authority through their advocacy of minor languages and
cultures. Similar attempts have been recorded in the field of translation, particularly in
the case of literary translators, whose agency does not remain on the level of
accurately representing the referential meaning of a text but also involves transmitting
as much of its symbolic capital and resonance as possible.
What follows in this paper is a presentation of the influence and agency of three main
poetry translators from Modern Greek into English who were active in the second half
of the twentieth century, Edmund Keeley, Kimon Friar and Rae Dalven. Through the
scrutiny of a number of paratextual materials (appearing within the printed volumes of
translated poetry and retrieved from extratextual sources) recurrent patterns are
identified in terms of the background of the translators and their attitudes towards the
initial and receptor cultures. From these patterns a set of criteria are derived which are
then examined in order to establish the translators’ own sense of cultural mediation
and how this mediation is received by the source and receptor cultures.
Cultural mediation: brief overview
[1]
In this section some characteristics of the ambassadorial role of translators, as found
in relevant bibliography, will be discussed. These characteristics will be used as
criteria in order to explore cultural mediation/agency/ambassadorship in the paratexts
created by translators of Modern Greek poetry into English or paratexts written about
them and their work in the following section.
The translator’s role as communicator between cultures forms part of a wider
discussion concerning the identity and agency of the translator throughout the
translation process. ‘Similar attempts to take into consideration the perspective of the
translator were made in early discussion on the effect of translation norms and the
influence of the translator’s individual style (Toury 1995, Simeoni 1998, Boase-Beier
2006). The concept of ambassadorship is also related to ideas about the function not
only of the translated text within the receptor culture but also of the translator as the
mediating force, the agent who introduces the (new) work.
One of the first translation scholars to make use of the concept of ‘cultural
ambassadorship’ was Francis Jones (2000, 2009). Jones borrows Goffman’s Social
Game Theory (1970), which ascribes prototypical roles that are performed by parties
or players in order to promote their own interests. For Translation Studies the
interesting part of this theory is the role of the ‘ambassador’, who is “… someone who
transmits messages between different parties, but who is also empowered to negotiate
for his or her own party” (Jones 2009: 305).
Jones takes this notion of ambassadorship a step further with relation to the poetry
translator and creates his own model “of the poetry translator’s twin tasks: as text
converter and as representative of source poet or source text” (Jones 2000: 69). He
adds that “literary translators from lesser-known languages usually find themselves
not only discovering and evaluating ‘new’ writers, but also having to package and
promote ‘their’ writers in such a way that publishers, journal editors, reviewers and
the public see them as worth publishing and reading” (2000: 65).
Research shows that translators very often adopt the role of the intermediary. The
description more commonly preferred is the more neutral term ‘cultural mediator’
(Bedeker and Feinauer 2006, Limon 2010, Torikai 2011) or ‘cultural agent’ (Tahir-
Gürçaģlar 2009) and ‘cultural ambassador’ (Asimakoulas 2015, Mackridge 2010). At
times the translator is considered a ‘culture broker’ who can mediate “between
[2]
different intellectual traditions and report back to powerful nations” (Simon 2002:
122).
After exploring the trajectories of two different translators, Mme de Staël and Gayatri
Spivak, Simon contends that both translators “wield[ed] considerable influence as
high-profile mediators, collapsing intellectual and political agendas” (2002: 122). In
the case of Mme de Staël who advocated Goethe’s credos about World Literature,1-
the translator was seen as a mediator “whose task … [was] to promote a spiritual
exchange … toward what we would today call global communication” (2002: 128).
Spivak is not regarded as “a silent mediator; … [but] rather a participant, a
foregrounded link in the interplay between East and West … incarnating the points
where they intersect, overlap, and impinge upon one another” (2002: 134). This
statement describes a fundamental function of most translators, irrespective of
language combination and specialization.
Other Translation scholars who have studied aspects of translators’ ambassadorial role
include Limon, who asks pertinent questions about the relationship between translator
status and translators’ ability to act as cultural mediators (2010: 33). Tahir-Gürçaģlar
views translators as “individuals who are equipped with special assets and abilities”
and a high level of cultural capital, which in turn offers them “high symbolic status …
that positions them higher on the social ladder” (2009: 164). Asimakoulas presents
translators and publishers working in the publishing industry as agents of cultural
ambassadorship who “were not simply transmitters of messages, but also individuals
who felt empowered to negotiate on behalf of interest groups” (2015: 8).
From this brief overview of scholarly discussions on the subject of the translator as
cultural mediator/ambassador some recurring characteristics can be noted. The
translators’ mediating abilities are often a consequence of their elevated status within
the receptor culture, which is often linked to a high level of cultural (symbolic) capital.
The translators have strong ties to the cultures from and into which they translate.
This often offers valuable insights into their motivation for undertaking and
continuing to translate literature. The translators often (feel empowered to) mediate in

1 A fairly well-known utterance by Goethe on his views on Weltliteratur reads “I am more and more convinced
that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and
hundreds of men.[ . . ]. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at
hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach” (Damrosch 2003: 12)
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favour of lesser-known or lesser-diffused cultures; despite financial and other
difficulties, the translators exhibit strong dedication to the source culture/poets/text.
Finally, the ambassadorial role does not end with the translation of the text but
continues with other activities, such as its promotion in the receptor culture.
The research cited in this section demonstrates how intercultural representation and
mediation form a dynamic and complex matrix in which translators and their interests
(as well as other agents) affect the selection, promotion and reception of translated
literature. The exploration of the cultural ambassadorship of Modern Greek poetry
translators discussed in this paper offers insights into the forces shaping the field of
production of translated poetry.

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Materials used
Two types of materials were used for the exploration and discussion of the poetry
translators’ position within the spectrum of cultural mediation: texts created by the
translators to accompany their translations and texts written by other agents that are
directly relevant to the translators and/or their translations. Both types of materials fall
under the category of paratexts.
Genette (1997) defines and expands the term “paratexts” from an intriguing
philosophical perspective, describing them as, a threshold, a space of liminality, more
like a link or a bridge than a boundary. Paratexts are generally described as texts
which extend and complement the main text. Sometimes they may accompany it,
appearing in the same bound volume; at other times the paratexts appear in external
sources but maintain a link to the main text, as in the case of an interview with the
author of a book. Genette differentiates between these two categories, calling the first
set of “elements inserted into the interstices of the text” (1997: 5) peritexts. The
second category, which he calls epitexts, consists of “the distanced elements (which)
are located outside the book, generally with the help of the media” (1997: 5).
In Translation Studies and in Translation History in particular, paratexts have been
used for the study of individual cases of translators (Hermans 2014), the route
translated texts follow through space and time (Assinder 2012), the rewriting of
literary texts under different regimes (Linder 2004) and so on. Paratexts provide the
translation researcher with information concerning the intended target readership, thus
offering a glimpse into translation norms within the receptor culture. Their mediating
role helps to trace the transmission of a text from one culture to another and from one
period to another. Like any narrative, paratexts express the point of view of the writer,
advocate specific agendas and are heavily influenced by the cultural norms they
purport to expose.
For the purposes of this study I have included a number of peritexts: introductions,
prefaces, forewords, afterwords, acknowledgements, dedications, front/back/inside
covers, biographies, bibliographies, translator’s notes, critical reading, suggestions for
further reading written both by the translators who translate the main text and by
associates or colleagues--what Genette refers to as allographic paratexts (1997: 9).
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A number of epitexts are also included: interviews with the translator, interviews with
the translator and the poet whose work is being translated, obituaries, critical essays
(by the translator or others on the translator’s body of work), reviews (by the
translator about other translators work or about the work the translator has translated),
autobiographical accounts written by the translators, biographies found in
encyclopedias, university websites and collected papers in library archives (containing
translation drafts, notes and correspondence between co-translators or translator-
editor-publisher or translator-poet). Correspondence written or addressed to the
translators was also used. A list of the paratexts used for this paper is attached as
Appendix A.
The paratexts were first skimmed through in order to establish general categories for a
broad classification. The categories are fluid and overlapping but offer an
understanding of the issues discussed, and often those omitted, by the translators. One
such category includes texts in which the translators discuss their relationship to the
source poet. Another category includes texts on collaboration between a combination
of one or more poets and one or more translators. A third category includes texts
which offer biographical information.
Initially I skimmed through all the texts I found that were relevant. This initial sifting
through material allowed me to determine which texts contained information that
provided some insight into the translators’ role as mediators. The second phase
constituted a close reading of the selected paratexts, bearing in mind the criteria
mentioned in the brief overview section.
Who are the poetry translators?
The subject of this case study is a number of poetry translators working from Modern
Greek into English in the second half of the twentieth century. The translators have
been categorized according to when they were active in the translation industry.
Important names in Greek literature and the history of its translation, such as Giorgos
Savidis, Philip Sherrard, Kay Cicellis, Kimon Friar, Rae Dalven, C. A. Trypanis and
others (see Appendix B) were responsible for introducing modern and contemporary
Greek writers to the Anglophone audiences of their time. Three other translators, who
are still alive at the time of this study, Edmund Keeley, Willis Barnstone and Nanos
Valaoritis, are included in this group.
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The number of individuals translating from Modern Greek into English in the mid-
twentieth century was approximately 20. They reside in the UK, USA or occasionally
in Greece. Most of them were members taught at universities in the US and UK and
wrote fiction and non-fiction, a significant point to which I return in the next section.
In my sampling I tried to cover material translated by the main people working from
Modern Greek in the second half of the twentieth century. These names recurred in
the bibliography, and they seem to have left their personal mark on the poetry they
translated and the poets whose work they introduced. For instance, the translations of
Giorgos Seferis’ work by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard in 1960, for instance,
seem to have attracted the Swedish Academy’s attention to the Greek poet, resulting
in his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963 (Keeley 2000: 17). Kimon
Friar’s translation of Odysseus Elytis’ The Sovereign Sun facilitated Elytis’ receipt of
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979 (Elytis 1980). Rae Dalven’s anthology of
contemporary Greek women poets (published posthumously in 1994), though not the
first to be published in the USA2, remains an unrepeated venture to this day.
Such acts presuppose a certain amount of influence on the part of the translator; or in
Bourdieu’s parlance, ‘symbolic capital’, which could consist of “accumulated prestige,
celebrity, consecration or honour” (Bourdieu, 1993: 7). The freedom to venture into
re-discovered territory and introduce foreign authors came from the position of the
translators within the receptor community. This position was not, however, at least
initially, a direct result of their translatorial activity. Pym’s comment that “(t)hanks to
their status and competence in other professional activities, some translators gain
considerably more social and intellectual power than they would otherwise have as
just translators” (1998: 164) rings true. These translators derived the power to act in
an ambassadorial capacity from roles and positions they occupied in parallel to their
translating activity and from social networks in which they participated, as will be
demonstrated in the following section.
Position of translators within the receptor culture
An important question at this point concerns the source of the translators’ symbolic
capital. The majority of the translators belonging to this group were also known

2 The first women’s only collection of translated poetry is, to the best of my knowledge, Greek Women Poets,
published in 1978 by poet and translator Eleni Fourtouni.
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authors in their own right: Dalven was a playwright for the theatre and the radio,
Keeley and Cicellis were novelists, Friar was a poet and theatre director and also
wrote for the radio. They acted as literary critics, editors in literary magazines and
teachers of literature, poetry and/or translation in established universities in the UK
and the USA. Their affiliation to universities such as Princeton and Ladycliff College
in the USA and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, to name a few, probably offered
them the necessary status (and formed part of their symbolic capital) which would in
turn help them reinforce their position as translators of the then largely unknown
Modern Greek literature. The obituaries published in such newspapers as The
Independent, The Guardian and The New York Times for several of the translators
discussed here (Dalven, Friar, C. A. Trypanis, P. Sherrard, N. Stangos) offer ample
evidence of their status as literary personalities.
A type of symbolic capital less frequently discussed but of paramount importance for
this study is the translators’ social capital. In translation research, social capital has
been defined as the “resources deriving from durable networks of institutionalized
relationships of mutual recognition and acquaintance” (Asimakoulas 2007: 114). The
foregrounding of the structure and nature of professional relationships which are
utilized as social leverage is of particular importance for the poetry translators in this
study, as these translators’ correspondence has demonstrated.
Friar was largely known in the American literary field as the co-editor (with John
Malcolm Brinnin) of the anthology Modern Poetry: American and British, which they
published in 1951. During the preparation of this anthology, while Friar was teaching
at universities in the US, he had the opportunity to come to contact with a number of
important Anglophone poets of the time. These contacts he later used in order to
promote his translated work from Modern Greek, by asking them to provide blurbs or
reviews for his books (C. M. Bowra 1954, L. Durrell 1954). Dalven and Keeley in
their correspondence with publishers and editors of literary journals also frequently
mention the translations they were preparing, usually offer brief descriptions of the
themes and value of the poems and conclude by asking of the possibility of being
published (Keeley 1970, Dalven 1975). This constant attempt at promoting their own
translation work but also the poetry which for the Anglophone literary world
represented the poetic production of an entire country, prompts me to suggest that
people like Kimon Friar, Rae Dalven and Edmund Keeley acted as ambassadors for
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the culture from which they translated. Their names became associated with Greek
culture by the Anglophone readership after they published anthologies and poetry
collections; as the number of publications increased so did the acknowledgement from
private and public institutions in the form of awards and grants (Keeley won the
P.E.N.-Columbia University Translation Center Prize in 1975 and the First European
Prize for Translation of Poetry in 1987 among other awards, Friar won both a Ford
Foundation grant and a National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities grant in
1986).
A perusal of the front and back covers of the anthologies and collections translated by
these translator-scholars supports the claim that they used their symbolic and social
capital within the receptor culture in order to promote and diffuse their translated
poetry. They accomplished that by using their own status within the receptor culture
in order to introduce lesser known poets and poems.
In Kimon Friar’s 1982 collection Modern Greek Poetry the most prominent name on
the front cover is that of the translator--quite a striking fact in the English world of
translated literature. The two Nobel Laureates’ names are included on the cover in
smaller type (See Appendix C). The biographies and information about all the poets in
Friar’s anthology are included in a separate section towards the end of the volume.
Friar in this case acts as the gatekeeper who brings forth something new and uses his
name and status as guarantee for the value and quality of the material, in conjunction
with the prestige attached to any recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature awards.
Jones notes that this is an important “element to the translator’s ambassadorial role:
that of ‘gatekeeping’, of deciding which writers are to be given a voice in the lingua
franca and which are not” (2000: 70).
Similar is the case of Rae Dalven’s anthology of Greek women poets. The
editor/translator’s name appears on the front cover and the poets’ biographical
information is provided by the editor as an introduction to their poetry. A photograph
and a short biographical note of the translator are included on the back cover where
her Greek origin, her degrees and her publications are highlighted (see Appendix C).
Links to the source culture
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An issue of additional interest respecting the translators’ ambassadorial role, is the
connection of the translators to the source language and culture. Cultural historian
Peter Burke writes that ‘translators are often displaced people … Renaissance
translators [the subject of his study] from one language to another were often émigrés,
exiles or refugees. They took advantage of their liminal position and made a career of
mediating between two countries to which they owed a kind of allegiance’ (2009:
100). This claim is echoed in Baker when she writes that “translators and interpreters,
on the whole, seem to have historically belonged to minority groups of one type or
another” (2001: xiv).
Research into scattered references confirms that the translators of this period had
personal ties to Greece even if they did not originally come from that country. The
biographical notes for translators such as Rae Dalven and C. A. Trypanis include the
information that they were born in Greece and later migrated. Dalven who was born
in northwest Greece (near Ioannina in Epirus) migrated to the USA as a child. Kimon
Friar’s family came from Propontis in the Sea of Marmara and they moved to the US
when he was young. Keeley, who was born in Damascus, moved to Thessaloniki in
Northern Greece in 1936 at the age of eight and stayed there until 1939 (Siotis 2010).
These examples demonstrate how these translators retained their ties with the Greece.
Regular trips to Greece are mentioned in the cases of Dalven, Friar, Trypanis, Keeley
and Sherrard, as well as summers spent in the homes of family, friends and often
writers. For instance, Keeley describes a working day in his holiday home on the
island of Evia, near Athens, where he and Sherrard translated Seferis. Keeley has
written extensively on his personal working relationship with most of the poets he
translated, with whom he was often friends (Keeley, 2000). Friar dedicates his poetic
anthology to his ‘collaborators the Greek poets’ (1982: 3).
The translators’ familiarity extended to broader literary and artistic circles and
constituted a bond that informed their writing about the country and the poets and, I
believe, to some extent informed their selection and re-writing of the source texts into
English. The impact of the poetry networks of the source culture may be noted in one
of Keeley’s most recent interviews for the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia:
When I came to Greece to prepare with Philip Sherrard our first poetry
anthology Six poets of Modern Greece, his wife’s uncle, the pulmonary
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