Exploring the Turkish Translations of Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” from the Perspective of Deconstruction and Hermeneutics

Year 2022, , 783 - 811, 15.01.2023

Ilgın Aktener

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2021-1004261

Abstract

In translation studies, poetry has mostly been discussed from the perspective of untranslatability due to a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is the subjective and personal nature of poetry: poems are considered to be specific to their creators, who incorporate much from their lives into their creations. Untranslatability of poetry brings to the fore the obsolete notion that the source text is superior to the target text. It is, therefore, necessary to disentangle the concept of untranslatability from the translation studies on poetry. To do so, this study concentrates on a highly personal example of poetry, i.e., the Confessional poet Sylvia Plath’s poem “Lady Lazarus” (1965) and its Turkish translations by Yusuf Eradam (2014/2020) and Nurten Uyar (2015), and seeks to explore the two translators’ subjective interpretations of the death/suicide theme specific to Plath’s poetry. In doing so, figures of speech related to the overall theme of death/suicide, and specific words and phrases are studied comparatively from the perspective of deconstruction and hermeneutics. The aim is to focus on howeach translator interpreted the aforementioned elements rather than whether or not they transported these elements accurately and well. In this way, the superiority of the original over translation, as well as untranslatability of poetry, are deconstructed in harmony with the theoretical framework of this study. In conclusion, it is argued that both translators indeed translated the personal content of the poem in question through a process of subjective interpretation, which resulted in target texts that have their own peculiarities but at the same time, are similar to the source text

Keywords

Deconstruction, hermeneutics, poetry translation, Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

Thanks

I would like to thank Prof. Neslihan Kansu-Yetkiner for her valuable feedback and Dr. Simon Mumford for patiently proofreading my article.

References

• Alberge, D. (2012, August 17). FBI files on Sylvia Plath’s father shed new light on poet. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/17/sylvia-plath-otto-father-files. google scholar
• Altay, A. (2001). Şiir çevirisinde çevrilemeyenler, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 18(1), 29-43. google scholar
• Alvarez, A. (1990). The savage god: A study of suicide (EPUB). London, UK: Bloomsbury. google scholar
• Arrajo, R. (1998). The revision of the traditional gap between theory & practice & the empowerment of translation in postmodern times. The Translator, 4(1), 25-48. google scholar
• Bassnett, S. (1998). Transplanting the seed: Poetry and translation. In S. Bassnett & A. Lefevere (Eds.), Constructing cultures: Essays on literary translation (pp. 57-75). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. google scholar
• Bassnett, S. (2005). Sylvia Plath: An introduction to the poetry, second edition. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
• Berk, İ. (1978). Çeviride şiir dili. Türk Dili: Çeviri Sorunları Özel Sayısı, 322, 71-75. google scholar
• Birkan Baydan, E. (2015). Translation as an act of interpretive process: Interpreting ‘The Snow Man’. Interactions, 24, 25-35. google scholar
• Boase-Beier, J. (2009). Poetry. In M. Baker & G. Saldanha (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies, second edition (pp. 194-106). London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Butscher, E. (2003). Sylvia Plath: Method and madness. Tuscon, AZ: Schaffner Press. google scholar
• Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of Translation. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. google scholar
• Clark, H. (2020). Red comet: The short life and blazing art of Sylvia Plath (EPUB). New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. google scholar
• Connolly, D. (2003). Poetry translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies (pp. 170176). London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Davis, K. (2001). Deconstruction and translation. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing. google scholar
• Davis, K. (2009). Deconstruction. In M. Baker & G. Saldanha (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies, second edition (pp. 74-77). London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Derrida, J. (1981). Positions. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. google scholar
• Derrida, J. (2001). What is a “relevant” translation? Critical Inquiry, 27(2), 174-200. google scholar
• Furniss, T., & Bath, M. (2007). Reading poetry: An introduction. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Gadamer, H. G. (2004). Truth and method, second revised edition. London, UK & New York, NY: Continuum. google scholar
• Hirsch, E. (2014). A poet’s glossary. Boston, MA & New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. google scholar
• Hoffman, S. K. (1978). Impersonal personalism: The making of a confessional poetic, ELH, 45(4), 687-709. google scholar
• Jakobson, R. (1959/2012). On linguistic aspects of translation. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (pp. 126-131). New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Jones, F. (2011). Poetry translating as expert action: Processes, priorities and networks. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. google scholar
• Koskinen, K. (1994). (Mis)translating the untranslatable: The impact of deconstruction and post-structuralism on translation theory. Meta: journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal, 39(3), 446-452. google scholar
• Lachmann, G. (2008). The Dedalus book of literary suicides: Dead letters (EPUB). Sawtry, UK: Dedalus Books. google scholar
• Lehman, D., & Brehm, J. (2006). The Oxford book of American poetry. Oxford, UK & New York, NY: Oxford University Press. google scholar
• Marmara, N. (2018). Sylvia Plath’ın şairliğinin intihar bağlamında analizi. İstanbul: Everest Yayınları. google scholar
• Parlak, E., & Bağırlar, B. (2018). Opposing male dominance in Lady Lazarus. Kafkas Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 21, 99-112. google scholar
• Plath, S. (1960). Edge. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49009/edge-56d22ab50bbc1. google scholar
• Plath, S. (1962). Daddy. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2. google scholar
• Plath, S. (1965). Lady Lazarus. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus. google scholar
• Plath, S. (2014/2020). Lady Lazarus (Y. Eradam, Çev.). In Ariel ve seçme şiirler. İstanbul: Kırmızı Kedi. google scholar
• Plath, S. (2015). Lady Lazarus (N. Uyar, Çev.). In C. Eyüboğlu (Ed.) Deli kızın aşk şarkısı: Seçilmiş şiirler. Antalya: S’imge Edebiyat. google scholar
• Staff, H. (2012, August 20). Newly released FBI files corroborate Sylvia Plath’s characterization of her father as pro-Nazi [Poetry News]. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2012/08/newly-released-fbi-files-corroborate-sylvia-plaths-characterization-of-her-father-as-pro-nazi. google scholar
• Şenel, N. (2020). A comparative analysis of death and suicide within the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara. (Doctoral dissertation, Pamukkale University, Pamukkale). Retrieved from http://acikerisim.pau.edu.tr:8080/ xmlui/handle/11499/35338. google scholar
• Tellioğlu, B. (2018). Şiir çevirisi eleştirisinde çevrilebilirlik/çevrilemezlik ikiliğini aşmak. RumeliDE Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 11, 192-213. google scholar
• Toury, G. (1982). A rationale for Descriptive Translation Studies. Dispositio, 7(19/20), 23-39. google scholar
• Toury, G. (1995/2012). Descriptive Translation Studies - and beyond, 2nd ed. Amsterdam, Netherlands & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. google scholar
• Widdowson, H. G. (2013). Stylistics and the teaching of literature. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. google scholar
• Wilson, A. (2013). Mad girl’s love song: Sylvia Plath and life before Ted. New York, NY: Scribner. google scholar
• Wood Middlebrook, D. (1993). What was confessional poetry? In J. Parini (Ed.), The Columbia history of American poetry (pp. 632-649). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. google scholar