The Inevitability of Commentary. A Translator’s “Blind Spots”

Abstract

This article deals with problems concerning literature translation, such as more or less justified losses of meaning and the identification of the cases in which the translator’s commentary is necessary. It supports the thesis that commenting can play a fundamental role in expressing untranslatable meanings. However, it is also stated that the translator should do all that is possible in order for the reader n to listen to the voice of the original text: he shall not explain the text and/or present his own interpretation and should instead maintain all the complexity of the original text, finding a way to put the reader in front of all questions that the text generates. By means of several examples it is shown that at a first level translators’ commentaries usually deal with explaining realia or hidden quotes: this sort of commentaries is typical of footnotes and notes in general. Such commentaries can interfere with the understanding of the text’s meaning as sometimes even the readers’ ignorance is used by the author: possible lacunas in understanding can be used as a part of the text itself. Through several examples it is proved that the problem of translators’ commenting concerns the deepest level of meaning of literary texts and it is claimed that the most serious difficulties which translators must face concern understanding, that is to say finding the way to achieve the fullest possible vision of the text in its integrity. In the end, the article states that a deep understanding the original text through philological analysis comes before both interpretation and the attention to the style and beauty of the arrival language both interpretation, intended as empathy with the text, and attention to the style and beauty of the arrival language.

Keywords

• translation theory
• literary translation
• commentaries
• translator’s commentaries
• philology