Translations Influenced by Emotions (#500wordsaday)

In my introductory post, someone who commented asked if the translation of poetry could theoretically be influenced by the emotional state of the translator that day. I think this is a fascinating topic and something which I have not come across in my journey to translate poetry. But I think it is a valuable question to ask: how much of the translation depends on the emotional disposition of the translator, especially on the day of the translation?

As an experiment when I still studied, the teacher said we needed to translate a poem from English into Afrikaans (my home language). Before posting the final version, we needed to translate the poem for a week every day. We needed to provide these seven different versions of the translated poem with the final version. Now thinking back on this exercise in relation to the idea of the commentator who asked about the emotional state of the translator, I can see the value in this.

I do not have access to my translations, and I did not write it down besides the copies I gave in. Thus, I will try and translate a poem here. Just something short which I wrote the other day.

skreeu in die swart skerm
in die niet
niemand luister
my stem breek
statiese klanke
monotoniese beelde
jou asem is al wat ek hoor
jou soene in my nek is al wat ek voel
jou gesig is al waaraan ek dink
maar ek skree in die swart skerm in
en verdwyn agter lee wit woorde
wat soms niks beteken

I will now translate the poem. It has a rather dark theme, and after drinking a bit yesterday (probably not the best confession to make!) I feel not myself. So this (hopefully) serves as an example of a translation which was done with a not ideal state of mind.

shout into the black screen
into the void
nobody is listening
my voice turns
into static sounds
monotonous images
your breath is all I hear
your kisses are the only thing I feel
your face is the only thing I can think of
but still I shout into the black screen
and disappear behind empty words
which does not mean anything

I think the first thing which strikes me is the “sound” or audible difference between the poems and the languages. I think poetry is dependent on the sounds of the particular language, and this influences what is written. Also, the number of words which one uses to convey an image is important. The poems are relatively the same amount of words, but some of the things are said in less words in the original poem. I also changed one things, which is probably the problem with translating your own work; if you want to change something that sounds better in the translated work, I am at liberty to do it. But one might question, is it still the same poem?

For example, “my voice turns // into static sounds” does not mean the same as “my stem breek /// statiese klanke”. In the original the image I wanted to write down was something akin to a broken voice (trailing off and disappearing) with static sounds in the background. But in the English translation (which then becomes a new poem?) I write something akin to a voice turning into static sounds. But I leave this to the reader: is this a new poem or the same poem?