British, Postcolonial, and Works in Translation

This is Unit Twenty of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part one of two: the tradition bands, British and postcolonial, American, and works in translation, and the decision that governs how this course can teach them. Unit nineteen closed by saying decision D8 governs this unit. Here is this unit's governing idea, and it pays off when three translators are set side by side: the exam weights by tradition as well as by period, those bands cut across the others rather than adding to them, and in the translation band what you read was shaped by someone other than the author, so naming which decision the translator made is the band's characteristic question. We begin with why the percentages exceed a hundred and with obligation O-9. Then Pope, who imposed a form Homer did not have, Longfellow, who kept Dante's tercets and dropped their rhyme, and Tagore, who translated his own verse into prose. Then translated drama, where prose travels better and register is what is at risk, through Nora's plain finality and Chekhov's silences. Last, the largest band, British and postcolonial, whose second half is in copyright, and decision D8, stated in full and disclosed rather than hidden, with Equiano as the earliest ancestor. By the end you will be able to say why the bands overlap. To name three translator decisions. To read a translated play with one extra question. And to state decision D8 and why it is disclosed.

Four entries to start: the tradition bands and how they cut across the period bands, why their percentages exceed a hundred, the translation band's size and problem, and obligation O-9.

Tradition bands cross the period ones.

AIL 1901 Bands That Cut Across

The exam weights by tradition as well as by period and genre. British and postcolonial writing carries forty to fifty percent, American the same, and works in translation three to ten. A single passage counts in several bands at once, which unit one established; one passage counts several times.

They overlap; they do not partition.

AIL 1902 Why the Percentages Exceed a Hundred

Adding every band's maximum gives far more than a hundred percent, because the bands overlap rather than partition. A Shakespeare sonnet is poetry, British, and Renaissance simultaneously. Unit one warned against reading the weightings as slices of a pie, and they are not slices of a pie.

Three to ten percent.

AIL 1903 Works in Translation

Three to ten percent, the smallest tradition band and comparable in size to the classical period band. Unit sixteen raised its central problem: what you read was shaped by someone other than the author, and that shaping is examinable; unit sixteen raised the problem.

Name the translator, name the choice.

AIL 1904 The Translator's Choices Are the Translator's

Obligation O-9 governs this course: where a passage is read in translation, the entry names the translator and says what they chose. A verse form, a register, a word order in English belong to whoever made the English. The original author supplied something else; the form in English is the translator's.

Nine entries on three translators: Pope's couplets revisited, Dante's opening in Longfellow with the rhyme dropped and what that costs, the gate's inscription, Tagore translating himself into prose and what survives, and the three decisions named.

A Greek poem in English couplets.

AIL 1905 Pope's Homer, Revisited

Unit sixteen worked it: Pope rendered Homer's Greek hexameters as rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter, the heroic couplet of the eighteenth century. The English form is Pope's and belongs to his age, not to Homer's. That is the clearest case of the three translators here.

Three lines, and a lost path.

AIL 1906 Dante's Opening in Longfellow's English

The Inferno opens that midway upon the journey of our life the speaker found himself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. Three lines, and the stanza shape is Dante's. What has happened to the sound is a separate question; the stanza is Dante's shape.

The tercets kept, the rhyme dropped.

AIL 1907 Terza Rima Without the Rhyme

Unit eight defined terza rima: three-line stanzas rhyming A B A, B C B, C D C, each handing a rhyme to the next. Longfellow keeps the three-line stanzas and drops the rhyme entirely. Life, dark and lost do not rhyme, and the interlocking is gone.

Accuracy bought, momentum lost.

AIL 1908 What That Choice Costs and Buys

Italian rhymes easily and English does not, so preserving terza rima across a long poem forces heavy distortion of sense. Dropping it buys accuracy and loses the form's forward pull. A reader should know which they are looking at, and this reading is offered as one, attributed as one.

An elevated English register, chosen.

AIL 1909 "All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter In"

Longfellow gives the inscription over the gate as all hope abandon, ye who enter in. The word order is inverted and the pronoun is archaic, neither of which is required by the Italian. The translator has chosen an elevated English register, and the inversion is the translator's.

The poet is his own translator.

AIL 1910 Tagore Translating Himself

Tagore wrote Gitanjali in Bengali verse and then put it into English himself. The poet and the translator are the same person, which removes the usual question of fidelity and replaces it with a stranger one about what an author owes their own work, a different question from fidelity.

Bengali verse, English prose.

AIL 1911 Verse Rendered as Prose

His English is prose. Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure; this frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. Bengali verse has become English prose paragraphs, and the decision was the author's own.

Images survive; line breaks do not.

AIL 1912 What Survives the Change of Form

The repetitions survive, and the elevated address survives, and the images of the vessel and the reed flute survive. Rhythm and line break do not. A candidate asked what this passage does should answer about the prose in front of them, the prose they are given.

Impose, partly keep, or change genre.

AIL 1913 Three Translators, Three Decisions

Pope imposed a form the original did not have. Longfellow kept a shape and dropped its sound. Tagore changed genre entirely. Those three exhaust most of what a translator can do, and naming which one a passage shows is the band's characteristic question; here the governing idea pays off.

Six entries on translated drama: why prose drama travels better and what is at risk, Nora's plain final sentence, the problem play's founding example, Chekhov's people talking past each other, the procedure with one added question, and what the exam can ask.

Prose drama travels better.

AIL 1914 Ibsen in English

A Doll's House was written in Norwegian and is read here in translation. Prose drama survives translation better than verse does, because there is no metre or rhyme to lose. What remains at risk is register: how formal or how blunt a character sounds, and register is what is at risk.

Plain, and therefore final.

AIL 1915 "I Must Stand Quite Alone"

Nora tells Helmer she must stand quite alone if she is to understand herself and everything about her, and that for this reason she cannot remain with him any longer. The sentence is plain, and its plainness is what makes it final; the plainness carries the weight.

A social question, argued out.

AIL 1916 A Play That Argues

Unit nineteen named the problem play: a social question put on stage and argued through the characters. This is the form's founding example, and unit twelve's rhetorical apparatus reads Nora's final scene as effectively as unit thirteen's dramatic one; two units' apparatus apply.

People talking past each other.

AIL 1917 Chekhov in Translation

Chekhov's plays are also read here in translation. His manner is the opposite of Ibsen's argument: people talk past each other, and what matters is often what is not said. Unit fourteen's question about who a speech is aimed at becomes the central one; what is not said carries the scene.

The usual four, plus one.

AIL 1918 Reading a Translated Play

Use unit fourteen's procedure unchanged: read the directions, establish who can hear, name the device, read the speech as an argument. Then add one question: does anything in this English sound like a translator's choice rather than a character's voice. Listen for the translator.

The printed words, and nothing else.

AIL 1919 What the Exam Asks of Translation

It asks what the printed words do, which is answerable without the original. No question can require knowing Greek, Italian, Norwegian or Bengali. The band's difficulty is conceptual rather than linguistic, and obligation O-9 is the whole of the answer; no original language is required.

Six entries to close: the British and postcolonial band and the claim in its joining, what it holds, the licensing problem, decision D8 in three parts, why the constraint is disclosed, and Equiano as the earliest ancestor.

Two traditions, one band.

AIL 1920 British and Postcolonial

Forty to fifty percent, and the exam's outline joins the two with a conjunction. That joining is itself a claim: that writing from Britain and writing from places Britain colonised belong in one band, related rather than separate, and the joining is itself a claim.

The British half is already covered.

AIL 1921 What the Band Holds

Every British writer this course has read, from Chaucer to Yeats, and writing in English from Ireland, the Caribbean, Africa, India and elsewhere. The British half has been covered by four period units. The other half raises a problem this course must state plainly; the other half needs stating.

The band cannot be quoted here.

AIL 1922 The Licensing Problem

The writers most associated with postcolonial literature published after nineteen thirty, so their work is in copyright. This course holds no licence to reproduce it, and decision D2 keeps every worked passage before that year. The band cannot be taught by quotation; copyright, not editorial choice.

Ancestors, names, and empire texts.

AIL 1923 Decision D8

D8 answers it in three parts. Teach the technique on public-domain ancestors. Name later writers without quoting them. And where an empire text has been answered by a later one, name the answer and quote only the text that is free to quote; three parts, all disclosed.

State the gap; do not hide it.

AIL 1924 Why the Constraint Is Disclosed

A course that quietly omitted a band would leave a student unaware of a gap. Saying what cannot be reproduced, and why, lets the student seek those writers elsewhere. Unit nineteen took the same approach with Wilde and Shaw, and the student can then go looking.

The band's earliest ancestor.

AIL 1925 Equiano, Revisited

Unit twelve worked his narrative of the crossing: the salutation in his nostrils, the wish for his former slavery, the last friend death. Published seventeen eighty-nine and written to be read by people who could end the trade. He is the band's earliest ancestor here; unit twelve worked the passage.

That is the bands that cut across, three translators, translated drama, and the British and postcolonial band under decision D8, with the governing idea paid off in three decisions. You can name the three tradition bands, say why their maxima exceed a hundred because they overlap rather than partition, and state obligation O-9: the form in English belongs to whoever made the English. You can say Pope imposed couplets on Homer, Longfellow kept Dante's tercets and dropped the rhyme, buying accuracy and losing momentum, and chose an elevated register at the gate, and Tagore turned his own Bengali verse into English prose in which the images survive and the line breaks do not, and name impose, partly keep, or change genre. You can read Nora's plain finality as a problem play, Chekhov's silences by who a speech is aimed at, run unit fourteen's four moves plus listening for the translator, and know no original language is required. And you can state the joined band's claim, the licensing problem, D8 in three parts, why the gap is stated, and Equiano as the earliest ancestor. Part two takes the rest of the ancestors.