'TRANSLITERATION' or TRANSLATING THE UNTRANSLATABLE

How to convey that which you can't translate; this is the bugbear of all translators! 

Poetry is hard enough to translate anyway, but when it foregrounds the visual or sound dimensions, especially in digital form, it's harder still. You have to accept that the job is impossible in one sense; but in others, it opens on to miraculous riches. We call this process 'transliteration'.

So I see it as an opportunity, even while it drives me crazy. This is because the limit of what you can understand is where you should always aim, since it is here that you are forced to look beyond, towards connections. You go as deep as you can into the place you find yourself ... then you go outwards. It's Inextrinsic.

Transliteration is more than an aspect of the Inextrinsic; it's essential to it. What makes it different from other forms of translation is a combination of the following: words in different languages remain in the same space of reading, so you can read in more than one language at the same time; you are interacting with the text via the number keys, which allows the reader to be active in making the transliteration; there is an element of chance because the app moves by landing on groups of words, and may not always start in the same place; the composite poem is created between the original writer, the programmers, and yourself, the reader.

Inextrinsic Reading should become even more active in due course, when we make the programming of the moves available to everyone. Once the basics are set up, it isn't difficult to play with this fascinating process.  Alternative transliterations can be offered without a break in reading, opening up the possibility of following associations that may vary greatly in the constituent languages. This is another aspect of what is meant by "inextrinsic": meaning goes deeply inwards and far flung at the same time.

This is especially useful when the original poem uses the page and typography actively, as in the Caligramme to the right, and in Un coup de dés (see below, and also the page on this site that introduces this poem). In the following example, the original is in black type on a white page. You can change all or part of the background, as shown below. But the poet suggests that the title metaphor of the dice in motion is the stars in the heavens; not just that it is like it, but that at the deepest level, it is of the same essence. So it is also white on black, "the alphabet of the stars".

The following poem takes this a step further, transliterating between poems. The idea here is to follow certain metaphors in the poet's work overall, exploring further how individual poems resonate with others. You can interpret this in a number of ways: as making a hybrid poem that is distinct from the two originals; as bringing out shared concerns; as adding a new dimension to translation, since metaphors often work differently in different languages.

In this version, the app begins with the complete text of Le pître châtié in French on the left and in English on the right. (Click on the image to enlarge).

The blue Reader brings in elements translated from Prose (pour des Esseintes) , while the yellow Readers move through Le pître châtié, tracing different pathways and offering alternative translations.

La Colombe Poignardée et le Jet d'eau ( The Skewered Dove and the Fountain - published 1918) . From "Caligrammes: Poems of Peace and War 1913-1916".By Guillaume Apollinaire - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28849940