Retranslation and Socio-Cultural Changes

Alessandro Amenta, Natascia Barrale and Chiara Sinatra

Introduction

Retranslation, understood as a new translation of the same text in the same language, is an ‘antique, frequent and polymorphic’ phenomenon (Brisset 2004: 41), but it started to be systematically analysed only in the 1990s by the French school of Translation Studies (Bensimon 1990; Berman 1990; Gambier 1994). Nonetheless, it was already addressed at the end of the 1960s with the concept of the ‘translation series’ proposed by Balcerzan (1968). For the Polish scholar, ‘a translation of a foreign-language work is always one of many possible expressions. Multiplicity and repeatability are therefore essential attributes of translations. The same foreign-language work can serve as the basis for a whole series of translations in a given language’, which means that ‘translation thus exists in a series of translations. A series is the basic form of existence for artistic translation. Such is the specificity of its ontology’ (Balcerzan 2019: 105–106). Due to the language barrier, and the Iron Curtain, these ideas did not circulate much at the time, although they were later developed by Translation Studies and became the focus of research on retranslation. Some of these concepts include the importance of the historical dimension, the socio-cultural context and the changing linguistic codes, as well as retranslation as an ongoing reinterpretation process, never concluded, but inserted in a potentially infinite sequence, an ‘open-ended series’ (ibid.: 106).

Over time, retranslation has been examined through a great variety of approaches and methodologies, covering a wide range of issues and factors, often from an interdisciplinary point of view. It has been addressed from a synchronic and diachronic perspective, in historical and cultural dimensions, in its textual and extratextual aspects, with reference to the canon, to linguistic standards, translation strategies, the source and target culture, to ideologies, censorship, readers’ expectations and also to economic, publishing and pragmatic issues. If the twenty-first century is ‘the age of retranslation’ (Collombat 2004: 1), it is certainly also the age of studies on retranslation, resulting in a great number of research insights and a wide range of theoretical contributions.

The critical debate, mainly focused on literary translations, first tried to define the object of the analysis (‘what’ a retranslation is) and the reasons behind it (‘why’ retranslate). One of these questions concerns the longstanding dispute on the presumed ageing of translations compared to the timelessness of the ‘originals’, with the exception of the ‘great translations’, which are considered to stand the test of time (Bensimon 1990; Berman 1990). At the root of this view is a question of status: the source text is understood as a work of art, the translation a derivative and secondary text, thus provisional and perfectible. Although it was assessed that the language of translations can sometimes be more conservative and traditionalist than the source text, ageing was later problematized as the main reason for retranslation.

What was also reconsidered was the concept of retranslation as a progressive improvement of the target text, moving from a linear, unidirectional perspective to the idea of multiple retranslations as rhizomatic branching out (Brownlie 2006) or ‘comet tails’ (Frank and Schultze 2004). The ‘retranslation hypothesis’ (Bensimon 1990; Berman 1990; Chesterman 2000) based on the idea that the first translation is target-oriented and the following are source-oriented, was also discussed and both confirmed and contradicted (Koskinen and Paloposki 2003). The phenomenon of retranslation was then studied in connection with the socio-cultural aspects (Pym 1998; Koskinen and Paloposki 2003; Susam-Sarajeva 2003) and the economic-publishing factors (Kahn and Seth 2010), and focused on production, fruition, reception and circulation dynamics. Considerable space was also given to retranslation as a device that can generate a potentially unlimited number of new interpretations, with the re-translator decoding meanings that do not run out over time but are themselves subject to change (Vanderschelden 2000; Monti and Schnyder 2011).

Another central theme, closely connected to the previous one, is retranslation as an answer to ideological changes in the target culture. A translation may prove to be misaligned with a cultural system that in the meantime has evolved. Hence the need to retranslate a text to match it to new social, cultural and political values, that retranslations themselves can influence (Brownlie 2006; Venuti 2013; Cadera and Walsh 2016). A case in point are feminist and post-colonial retranslations that rewrite a text against the dominating culture. The re-translator implements a counter-narrative, taking a clear position regarding social values and historical paradigms. Other changes involve ‘linguistic usage, literary canons, translation traditions, and the commissioning institutions’ (Brownlie 2006: 28), which imply rethinking the target text in the light of the transformations that have taken place. Furthermore, the ‘technological turn’ has led to greater access to lexicographic resources and new working tools that allow a more accurate decoding of the source text. Consequently, a retranslation can be an opportunity to correct previous errors, inaccuracies and misunderstandings. These amendments may also be motivated by a change in the customs and habits of the target culture or a closer relationship with the source culture in terms of knowledge and familiarity.

Other questions are of a philological, genetic and critical-literary nature. New translations can be published according to different or rediscovered source texts that have been modified compared to those on which the previous translations were based. Sometimes the reasons for retranslations are related to general questions of an economic and publishing nature such as expired copyright and cost-benefit calculations about the advantages of publishing a new translation rather than purchasing the rights of a previous translation. Successful adaptations to other media, anniversaries and celebrations may also arouse renewed interest among publishers and readers.

Although the reasons behind the phenomenon of retranslation are impossible to sum up in a few lines, it is also important to mention the change in status of the translators. Their increasing visibility, self-awareness and recognition can find a space in retranslation where they can express their subjectivity, tastes, habits, abilities and their role as cultural mediators. Ultimately, behind a retranslation there lies a series of interconnected reasons, a ‘web of multiple causation’ (Koskinen and Paloposki 2003: 297).

These wider-ranging perspectives make it possible to define retranslation as a branch within Translation Studies. Proof of its legitimation as an autonomous field of research are both the inclusion of specific entries on retranslation in the most authoritative encyclopaedias and handbooks on Translation Studies and the publication of volumes entirely dedicated to this topic. Among these, particular mention should be made of those edited by Kahn and Seth (2010), Monti and Schnyder (2011), Deane-Cox (2014), Cadera and Walsh (2017), and Berk Albachten and Tahir Gürcaglar (2019). Furthermore, journal special issues on retranslation are becoming more frequent. In addition to the less recent ones, edited by Milton and Torres (2003) or by Bensimon and Coupaye (2004), worthy of note are the issues edited by Alvstad and Assis Rosa (2015), Sanz Gallego and Van Pouke (2019) and Tahir Gürçağlar (2020). Over time, scholars seem to have focused increasingly on target culture and extratextual factors rather than on questions concerning the source texts. They include readers’ expectations and tastes, transformations of cultural production, aesthetic parameters and linguistic standards, the position of the translated text in the target polysystem and the historical dimension of retranslations. It is in this context, connected to the socio-cultural changes of the target contexts, that this book finds its place.

The essays collected here resort to various methodologies, approaches and tools, from the reconstruction of the publishing history through considerations on reception and canon to an examination of texts and paratexts. The book, first of all, embraces essays that propose a focus on reception in the target literary panorama, with an analysis of the role of the publishing dynamics behind the processes involved in retranslation (e.g. series, reprints, revisions, new editions). In this light, the evolution in time of the target cultural contexts becomes a lens, through which to observe the history of several translations of a text, or more in general, to trace the presence of an author on the book market.

Gisela Marcelo Wirnitzer proposes a study of the reception of the famous book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum in the Spanish-speaking world. The author reconstructs the history of the retranslation of a key work in the panorama of children’s literature and draws a detailed map of its editions in terms of print runs, translators and illustrators. In particular, an analysis of the paratexts of the various editions (illustrations, appendices, prefaces or notes that contextualize the work) offers possible interpretations regarding the reasons behind the high number of retranslations, which in some cases appeared simultaneously. Marcelo Wirnitzer presents a broad and varied history of the reception concerning economic factors, the rights of the novel, the status of the translators and variations of the target readership, depending on whether the work was perceived as a book for children or for adults. The number and type of retranslations can therefore be considered a unit of measurement of the impact of the novel on the target culture.

The contribution by Dario Prola also starts from the idea of retranslation as a determining factor in the target literary polysystem. Through an analysis of the strategies adopted in poetic translation, the author offers an account of the Italian editions of the Polish work Pan Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus] by Adam Mickiewicz. The essay shows how the dominating translation tendencies in different periods, from the second half of the nineteenth century to today, reflect the expectations of the target culture and establish the position of the work in the Western literary canon. Tracing the publishing history of the Italian retranslations, Prola also highlights the artistic and hermeneutic value of indirect translation and emphasizes its central role for studies on the relations between different cultures.

Giulia Baselica reconstructs the genesis and complex publishing history of Vasilij Grossman’s Žizn’ i sud’ba [Life and Fate] by examining its two Italian translations. The author demonstrates how the layering of different versions, corrections and authors’ insertions is inevitably reflected in the target texts. Depending on the source text from which the translations derive, they contain discrepancies related to omissions and subsequent additions by the author. Baselica’s reconstruction shows the cultural implications of the relationship between retranslation and canon and reveals the extent of the dynamic nature of the source text.