PROBLEMS OF ACCENTUATION IN TRANSLATING POETRY, II

PROBLEMS OF ACCENTUATION IN TRANSLATING POETRY, II

(© LEON LEVIŢCHI)

 

Intonation

            Intonation represents the variations in voice pitch which appear in relation to the different vibrations of the vocal chords. There are three basic types of intonation:

§         equal intonation – when the sound of the voice is on the same musical note;

§         rising intonation - when the sound of the voice rises from a lower to a higher musical note;

§         falling intonation - when the sound of the voice falls from a higher to a lower musical note.

On the other hand, intonation can be normal (recto tono) that is neutral and closely related to the phonological stress and expressive, emotional, affective, involving various tones of the speaker’s reactions.

◙ Practise normal and expressive intonation in reading the following sentences:

“Aren’t you lying?” – “No.”

“Don’t leave me so soon!”

Since intonation can be hardly represented graphically, it is necessary for the translator to read the SL text aloud several times, like an actor, with dramatic “exaggeration”, with the appropriate intonation and accentuation and only after this reading will he find the right tone of the text and the accented items that should be preserved through translation.

Lengthening the sounds

            Modality can be phonologically accentuated by lengthening a sound, usually a vowel. Thus, What? can become Whaaaaat? to express surprise.

The length of words and sentences

            When long words alternate with short words, or, long sentences with short ones, this creates a contrast with accentuation effects. Here are two examples from Shakespeare:

A. No; this hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine

Making the green one red. (Macbeth)

B. If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and, grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth
(For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),
Speak of it! Stay, and speak! (Hamlet)

Phonological repetition

a. Repetition of a sound

            Writers may repeat a certain sound in a series of words and translators should be aware of such repetitions because repetition means accentuation. They can have either an onomatopoeic, imitative role being organically related to the message of the text, or they can only function as a means of conveying musicality.

◙ Identify the vowels that are repeated in the following stanza from E.A. Poe’s The Bells and comment on the function of the repetition. Then analyse its Romanian version (signed by I. Cassian – Mătăsaru) in point of sound repetition.

Hear the sledges with the bells,           Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!     How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,         In the icy air of night!     While the stars, that oversprinkle     All the heavens, seem to twinkle         With a crystalline delight;       Keeping time, time, time,       In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells     From the bells, bells, bells, bells,           Bells, bells, bells—   From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

I-auzi, zurgălăi de-argint      Clopoţind ! Ce de lumi de vis vesteşte linul lor colind !      Cum mai sună, sună, sună      Prin al nopţii tainic ger, Pe când stelele-mpreună Fac cu ochiul către lună      Sub nemărginitul cer ! Ţinând pas, pas, pas Într-un fel de runic glas Cu zurgălăitu-n cântec ca un sunet de cleştar     Dintr-un clinchet, clinchet,     Clinchet clar – Clopoţind, zurgălăind în clinchet clar.

◙ Identify the consonants that are repeated in the following lines from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott and comment on the function of the repetition. Then offer a Romanian version:

But who hath seen her wave her hand? Or at the casement seen her stand? Or is she known in all the land,            The Lady of Shalott?

b. Alliteration

            At large, alliteration involves the repetition of the same sound or group of sounds, mostly at the beginning of the words in a series. It is not specific to Romanian poetry (and prose), but it has been of utmost importance in the history of English literature. In old English, since rhyme was unknown to poets, alliteration played the role of rhyme observing a complicated set of rules that took into account the accented syllables as well as the morphological category of the words in the alliterative series.

            When he comes across alliteration in the SL text, the translator should ask two questions:

1. Is alliteration a means of accentuation for a word, notion or idea?
2. If rendered as such, does it observe the TL norms?

An answer for the first question is that the words whose first sound is repeated in a series are accented, even if the phonological stress does not fall on the first syllable all the time. This means the respective words should also be accented when rendered into TL, but not necessarily by alliteration.

            As for the second question, there is a clear cut difference between Germanic and Romance languages. In Germanic languages alliteration is much used and natural, whereas in Romance languages it sounds artificial, conventional. So, when alliteration observes the rhythmic accent, it is not necessary to render it as such in a Romance language. But when it has onomatopoeic functions, when it has “sound connotations”, it should be respected throgh translation.

◙ Identify the alliterations in the following lines and comment on their rendition in Romanian:

The light breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow follow’d free; We were the first that ever burst Upon the silent sea. (Coleridge)	Sub vântul viu a prins pârâu De spume să se sape, Noi eram primii care brăzdam Acele mute ape. (Leon Leviţchi)
And hurry, hurry ! off they rode     As fast as fast might be; Spurned from the courser’s thundering heels      The fashing pebbles flee. (W. Scott)	Şi-au călărit, grăbit, grăbit, Iar pietrele din cale Au scăpărat şi s-au smintit      Şi-au duruit la vale. (Leon Leviţchi)

c. Rhyme

            A characteristic of poetry, rhyme involves the repetition of the final sounds of words, necessarily including a vowel sound. It represents an accentuation of the idea.

1. The sound quality of rhymes

• Imperfect rhymes: assonance; unaccented rhymes; broken rhymes.
• Perfect rhymes: homonymic or rich rhymes; non-homonymic rhymes.

Imperfect rhymes

A. Assonance represents a partial rhyme in which the accented vowels are the same, but the consonants are totally or partially different, yet similar.

e.g. ride – write; faith – race; name – stain;   bine – nime; bate – departe

            Eye-rhyme is a variety of assonance in which the letters are identical, but the sounds are in assonance: wind – behind.

            Assonance is very frequent in non-folk English poetry, while in Romanian culture it characterizes folk poetry.

            B. Unaccented rhymes are represented by final unaccented syllables.

e.g. nameless – lawless

            C. Broken rhymes are rarely used: a word is broken in two lines and it is its first part that rhymes with another word.

e.g. Winter and summer, night and morn,

        I languish at this table dark;

        My office window has a corn-

         er looks into St. James’s Park. (Thackeray)

Perfect Rhymes

A. Homonymic or Rich Rhyme – identical words in writing and pronunciation, but with different meanings: .. before all - ….. submitted first to her, all,

It is not necessary to render them through translation.

B. Non-Homonymic Rhyme – words identified as non-homogeneous morphological categories: noun – verb, adjective – adverb, etc.  Since they are unexpected, they are more sonorous and the accentuation they achieve is stronger. This type of rhyme represented the golden rule of classical versification.

◙ Find one example from English (American) poetry and one example from Romanian poetry to illustrate the use of non-homonymic rhyme.

2. Rhyme position in a line

A. End-rhymes          

                                     Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles

                                      Miles and miles (Browning)

B. Internal / Interior Rhymes      The feast is set, the guests are met (Coleridge)

C. Sectional Rhymes         Then up with your cup, till you stagger in speech (Scott)

3. Rhymes as line relations

A. Rhymes in couplets, aabb

e.g.    ‘Tis hard to say if greater want of skill

             Appear in writing or in judging ill.

            But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’offence

            To tire our patience, than mislead our sense. (Pope)

B. Alternate Rhymes, abab

eg.     My horse moved on; hoof after hoof

          He rais’d and never stopp’d;

          When down behind the cottage roof,

           At once, the bright moon dropp’d. (Wordswordth)

C. Enclosing Rhymes, abba

e.g. Now rings the woodland luod and long,

       The distance takes a lovelier hue,

       And drown’d in yonder living blue

       The lark becomes a sightless song. (Tennyson)