Discussion assignments

1. What is the main point of Royall Tyler’s criticism of Setouchi Jakuchi’s translation? Provide your arguments, please, considering the context of deconstruction theory (outlined in the first chapter of this education book).

2. What does Royall Tyler mean by “preserving the discretion and decorum of the narration”?

3. How does he solve the problem of “bluntness”. Please, comment on his statement: “The characters seldom call a spade a spade, and moreover their notion of "spade'' is very broad”.

4. How does this translation strategy refer to the polysystem translation theory The exponent of this theory Even-Zohar believes that the integration of the study of literature with the study of social and economic forces of history is essential for translation. the scholar reads the text of the cultural fabric and tries to discover those rules that regulate the system of cultural heterogeneity, the “polysystem”.[25]

5. How does Royall Tyler solve the problem of tanka translation. Pleas, compare a passage from Chapter 10 (“Sakaki”- the same Japanese web) with Royall Tyler’s translation rendered as “The Green Branch”:

Snow was blowing on a stiff wind, and by the time Genji arrived the late emperor's residence was all but deserted. Genji began to speak of the past. His Highness [one of Genji's brothers] observed that the five-needled pine before the empress's rooms was weighed down by snow and that its lower branches had died. He said, "Alas, that great pine whose broad shade inspired such trust seems to live no more, for the year's last days are here, and the lower needles fall.

6. What kind of grammatical transformation does Royall Tyler outline in his translation with regard to interior monologue?

Please, compare the following examples from Chapter 49 (you may find the original on the web <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/genji>) with the translation made by Royall Tyler:

At heart he knew he would never forget a loss he still felt keenly, and he simply could not understand why, when they had clearly been meant for each other, they had nonetheless remained strangers to the end. Oh, how I could love someone whose looks recalled hers a little, even if she were unworthy in rank! If only I might see her again, just once, at least in the incense smoke of that old story! He was in no hurry to consummate this exalted alliance (please, search the web <http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/ jwb/tylerlecture.html>).

Please, analyze the translation shifts in rendering the character’s thoughts.

7. What place does Royall Tyler reserve for philological research in the process of translation? What are his arguments? Compare Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”) of the original and Royall Tyler’s translation (“The Broom Tree”). What is his main point in criticizing Waley’s translation?

8. Please, comment on the episode of “The Tale of Genji” that remains the most controversial to this days and the grammatical equivalence of Tyler’s translation discovery: “He knew that he would have been sorry not to have her”. How does the translator defend Genji against American students and professors who condemn him as a rapist? Suggest, please, your translation of this ambiguous episode. What is the moral dimension of Tyler’s translation?

Дата добавления: 2015-05-29