Open AccessProblems in Translating Musical Elements in African American Poetry after 1950
Author(s) -
Kristina Kočan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
elope
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.182
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2386-0316
pISSN - 1581-8918
DOI - 10.4312/elope.6.1-2.45-60
Subject(s) - blues , poetry , jazz , musical , literature , art , improvisation , african american , soul , call and response , musical form , history , musical composition , visual arts , philosophy , art history , ethnology , theology
In most cases, African American poetry eschews traditional literary norms. Contemporary African American poets tend to ignore grammatical rules, use unusual typography on many occasions, include much of their cultural heritage in their poetry, and interweave musical elements into literary genres. The influence of such musical genres as jazz, blues, soul, and gospel, together with the dilemmas that occur for the translator, will be shown to great extent, since music, like black speech, is a major part of African American culture and literature. The translator will have to maintain the specific African American rhythm, blues adaptations and the improvisational language under the jazz impact. The paper presents the problems in translating post-1950 African American poetry into Slovene, and asks to what extent can one successfully transfer the musical elements within this poetry for the target culture? Inevitably, it will identify a share of elements that are lost in translation.Afriško ameriška poezija večinoma zavrača tradicionalne književne norme. Sodobni afriško ameriški pesniki pogosto ne upoštevajo slovničnih pravil, uporabljajo nenavadno tipografijo, vključujejo velik del njim lastne kulturne dediščine v poezijo, hkrati pa svojo poezijo prepletajo z elementi glasbenih žanrov, kot so jazz, blues, soul in gospel. Članek oriše vpliv teh glasbenih žanrov na poezijo in dileme, ki se ob prevajanju pojavijo za prevajalca. Glasba, ki je zakoreninjena v črnski tradiciji kot tudi črnski govor sta pomemben del afriško ameriške kulture in književnosti. Prevajalec se mora truditi obdržati poseben afriško ameriški ritem v poeziji, adaptacije blues glasbe ter uporabo improvizacijskega jezika pod vplivom jazz glasbe. Članek podrobneje predstavlja probleme, ki nastanejo pri prevajanju afriško ameriške poezije po letu 1950 v slovenščino ter do kakšne mere prevajalec sploh lahko prenese originalnost glasbenih elementov znotraj te poezije za ciljno kulturo? Neizogibno pa članek prikaže tudi del elementov, ki se skozi prevod izgubijo