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

Mueller 8
The diversity of the translators’ backgrounds is reflected in their approaches to
translating Neruda. In my readings I have observed widespread and varied use of
domesticating strategies, as well as the occasional application of foreignizing techniques.
Tarn seems to favor a more old-fashioned approach, choosing words that suggest an
earlier moment in the history of spoken English than either the 1930s or the 1950s, when
the original poems he translates were published, or the 1970s, when he was actually
translating these poems. Krabbenhoft goes for specificity, choosing English words that
are common and approachable but which don’t always carry the same meaning. Ossman
and Hagen restructure the phrases of their translation as little as possible from Spanish,
though sometimes at the cost of coherency or meaning in their text, foreignizing
grammatically but domesticating in their attempts to clarify meaning. Felstiner and
Jacketti sometimes compromise literal equivalence in their translations for images that fit
better with their overall rendering of the poem, which works better in some cases than
others. Overall, the domesticating and foreignizing techniques seen in the poems I have
selected function very differently, and are dependent on the broader nature of each
translation. In the following pages, I explore the ways in which translators’ individual
conception of Neruda informs their work, how their use of domestication shapes the
reader’s understanding of Neruda, and how this understanding might differ from that
which would develop from reading the poet only in his original language.