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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1303  Monday, 8 August 2005

From:           Al Magary <al@magary.com>
Date:           Friday, 05 Aug 2005 12:38:20 -0700
Subject: 16.1295 Shakespeare's Macbeth in Kurdish
Comment:        Re: SHK 16.1295 Shakespeare's Macbeth in Kurdish

Well, that's interesting and I sure hope the Kurds have some time and
safe opportunities, and maybe some Halliburton security guards, so they
can perform their very own Macbeth.  This goes to the whole problem of
literature in translation:  to what extent is it still Shakespeare?

Take a look at this, for example:

HAMLET.
Voi, Yorrick parka! -- Minä tunsin hänet, Horatio: äärettömän sukkela,
erinomaisen leikillinen mies; hän on selässään minua kantanut senkin
tuhannen kertaa; ja nyt, kuinka kuvitustani kauhistaa! mieltäni oikein
kääntää. Tuossa riippuivat huulet, joita olen suudellut en tiedä kuinka
monesti. Missä ovat nyt sinun kompasi, sinun kujeesi, sinun laulusi,
sinun säkenöitsevät
kokkapuheesi, jotka saivat koko pöytäseuran nauruun purskahtamaan? Ja
nyt eikö yhtäkään jäljellä, jolla voisit ivata omaa irvikuvaasi?
Aivanko kutistunut? Mene nyt armon kamariin, sano hänelle, että vaikka
hän tuuman paksulta maalaisi poskensa, tuollaisen muodon hän lopulta
saapi; koeta, saatko häntä nauramaan. -- Ole hyvä, Horatio, sano minulle
yksi asia.

--
This speech of Hamlet's is recognizable from the second word. Yes, it is
in Finnish, and the whole play in translation may be found at Project
Gutenberg:  http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/6/3/15632/15632-8.txt  But
if you didn't see the speech prefix and (untranslated) references to
"Yorrick" and Horatio, would you still recognize this as Shakespeare?
If you saw a minimally staged performance of this translation in
Helsinki, how long, if ever, before you would say it's undeniably
Shakespeare?

What makes something "Shakespeare"?

I don't intend to go all post-modern here but common sense says a lot,
maybe too much, is lost in translation.  And performance?

Cheers,
Al Magary

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