Translating Neruda: Femininity and Sensuality ... - Triceratops Home

Mueller 34
grammatical phrasing of the rest of the poem, and therefore “caracola,” “la campana,” “la
paciencia del trigo submarino,” “el tembloroso rey,” and “la luna” all become the
subjects of the story that the narrator wants Oceana to tell, become the song of the sea.
Jacketti changes the meaning of the phrase, asking the snail and bell themselves to sing
rather than asking Oceana to sing songs about them. Jacketti’s reading here is consistent
with a choice she makes in the first line of the poem, translating “cántame los
desaparecidos / cantares” as “sing to me, the vanished / songs.” In both of these cases,
Jacketti’s translation finds its home in a more standard formation of English than Neruda
uses of Spanish. This poem distinguishes itself because of the ways that Neruda plays
with the roles of various parts of speech, and in choosing not to structure her translation
in a way that breaks the norms of English grammar, Jacketti fails to convey the full effect
of the original in the target language.
In Section VIII, the addition of a colon in English clearly serves the intended
purpose of maintaining the original Spanish word order, a choice that suggests some level
of foreignizing intent, but the result is a slight change in the meaning in English: “tú
sabes como sobre la sal ultramarina / en su nave de nieve navega el Argonauta” becomes,
“You know the way: over the ultramarine salt / the Argonaut navigates his snow ship.”
In Spanish, the phrase means that Oceana knows how the Argonaut moves, implying
ancient memory. In the English, the implication is instead of ongoing activity, as though
the Argonaut were navigating according to the guidance of Oceana. Even when
maintaining a sentence structure closer to the Spanish in order to disrupt English
linguistic codes in keeping with Venuti’s definition of foreignizing intent, Jacketti