ABSTRACT

Students may enter the course thinking of translation as a process of understanding the poem word by word, interpreting it accordingly, and reconstituting it in translation by semantic correspondence and by analogical replacement of source-language idioms by target-language ones. The author's goal is simple, but achieving them is a process of generating interactive, interrelated, simultaneous trains of study. The first goal is to bring the students to a much higher competence in reading poetry and in recognizing qualities of language beyond the semantic, especially those meaning-making elements that poetry exploits. The second goal is for students to experience how the practice of literary translation enhances our grasp of several kinds of difference: between languages, between literary traditions, and between the functions and uses of poetry in distinct cultures and historical moments. Northwestern University has a very strong and demanding undergraduate creative writing program, and for students trained in it, poetic translation can substantially supplement their literary education.