Path to becoming a translator by Jorge Luis Borges
At the age of 9, Borges translated The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde from English into Spanish. His first published work was a translation and it was proud that it was brewed within him; all of these clearly demonstrate the pivotal position in translation work for this great Argentine author. Although never worked for any translation organization, Borges has remained steadfast in translation throughout his life.
His long career in translation includes translating texts from English, French, German, Old English and even Old Norwegian into Spanish, including works by William Faulkner, André. Gide, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Henri Michaux, Jack London, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift, Walt Whitman and Virginia Woolf, are some of the authors whose work he translated.
Borges concept of translation
For Borges, translation was not about converting a text from one language to another but rather converting one text into another. He argued that even a literal translation, due to changes in spatial and temporal coordinates, also contains a variety of different meanings, metaphors, and connotations, a principle true to translation. literal meaning in business or legal translations.
Could the translation ever be better than the original?
One of the reasons why Borges was so fond of translation, according to him, it can enrich a text or even improve it. Revisiting different versions of a work is one of the most interesting literary experiences Borges loves. He was well aware that any change in linguistic rules could lead to translation losses but held the view that these losses were sometimes necessary.
Borges' method
As a translator, Borges has translated quite "freely" in many ways compared to the original. Having analyzed his translations, as Efrain Kristal did, we can conclude that Borges has applied the method:
1. Eliminate elements that he deems repetitive, unnecessary or inconsistent;
2. Eliminate what he calls text noise points;
3. Add a few nuances (like changing the title for example);
4. Rewrite the text after considering another text (for example when he translated Angelus Silesius, a 17th century mystic who gave him some post-Nietzsche acumen);
5. Sometimes it may include literal translations from a piece of your own work.
Translated translations
Borges also mentioned the problem of spoofing (a book where the title or author's name is wrong) in the field of translation. In his youth, the man who later wrote The Aleph and The Book of Sand, was the author of a column in El Hogar, where he regularly published his own articles. From time to time he will also publish in magazines, in the style of Emanuel Swedenborg or the Arabian Nights, translations of texts that he argues by chance, ... texts that are undoubtedly their own he.
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