Page:Performing Without a Stage - The Art of Literary Translation - by Robert Wechsler.pdf/25

 have to give yourself to other people’s ways of writing; you can’t simply impose yourself on them.”

Another thing that can help develop good judgment is memorization, something that has been out of fashion for quite some time now, at least in the United States. Poet-translator Rosanna Warren told me, “I feel so grateful to my parents for uprooting me from the U.S. and throwing me into a French lycée when I was twelve and thirteen, when I had to memorize so much. I think memorization is crucial, absolutely key. It shapes the mind. If you don’t shape the mind with something like Shakespeare, then the mind shapes itself out of its baser appetites.”

Also central to the young translator’s ability is the question of his maturity in terms of his vision of himself as a writer. That is, why he is a writer and what about writing most interests him. There seems to be a rule that the less one has to say, the stronger one’s urge is to say it. Most young people want to be writers to express what they feel is their special take on the world. They confuse creativity with originality, and originality with self-expression. Rarely is a young person whose focus is self-expression going to toss all this aside and translate instead. Thus, to be a young translator, one has to be drawn to writing for reasons other than self-expression. In many countries, where there is great demand for translators and most educated people speak another language fluently, translation is simply a way for aspiring young writers to pay the rent. Whether they want to or not, they do it because it’s there. In the monoglot English-speaking world, there are many fewer opportunities, and few of the opportunities will pay the rent. This is sad, because, as Eliot Weinberger has written, “To translate is to learn how poetry is written. Nothing else is so successful a teacher, for it carries no baggage of self-expression.”

For most people who write, it is only as they age that they realize their take isn’t so special, and it thus becomes easier to perform the work of someone who really does have a special vision or style. Translation is, in many ways, a middle-aged art.Translators aren’t very good or interested when they’re young; when they reach the age most creative writers are starting down the other side of the hill, translators start doing their best work; and then, when they hit their sixties, many realize that it’s their last chance to his maturity in terms of his vision of himself as a writer. That is, why he is a writer and what about writing most interests him. There seems to be a rule that the less one has to say, the stronger one’s urge is to say it. Most young people want to be writers to express what they feel is their special take on the world. They confuse creativity with originality, and originality with self-expression. Rarely is a young person whose focus is self-expression going to toss all this aside and translate instead. Thus, to be a young translator, one has to be drawn to writing for reasons other than self-expression. In many countries, where there is great demand for translators and most educated people speak another language fluently, translation is simply a way for aspiring young writers to pay the rent. Whether they want to or not, they do it because it’s there. In the monoglot English-speaking world, there are many fewer opportunities, and few of the opportunities will pay the rent. This is sad, because, as Eliot Weinberger has written, “To translate is to learn how poetry is written. Nothing else is so successful a teacher, for it carries no baggage of self-expression.”

For most people who write, it is only as they age that they realize their take isn’t so special, and it thus becomes easier to perform the work of someone who really does have a special vision or style. Translation is, in many ways, a middle-aged art.Translators aren’t very good or interested when they’re young; when they reach the age most creative writers are starting down the other side of the hill, translators start doing their best work; and then, when they hit their sixties, many realize that it’s their last chance to