Читать книгу Kreativität und Hermeneutik in der Translation - Группа авторов - Страница 30

Jean Boase-Beier (Norwich)

Abstract: We might expect the translation of Holocaust poetry, since it arose from real historical events, to be concerned above all with accuracy, leaving little scope for creativity on the translator’s part. I argue that this is not so, however. For Holocaust poetry is not a document or an account, it is a poetic expression. Translators therefore need to read the text creatively, as poetry, being open to its poetic effects and also considering how they come about. While we can often find stylistic characteristics common to Holocaust poetry, and it makes sense to say that these originate from what we might want to call “Holocaust poetics”, poets have their own poetics. Paul Celan’s poetics arose in part from his multilingual background and his own personal experience of the Holocaust. Especially his later poetry expresses the state of mind of a speaker who is traumatised by events, and suffers feelings of guilt and inertia. The poem “Mit Äxten spielend” is one such poem. I show that, by examining its style, including particular uses of repetition and ambiguity, and of the etymological connections between words (in German and beyond) the translator can get a sense of the poetics driving the poem, and can imaginatively reconstruct the state of mind of its speaker. Translation that thus creatively engages with the original poem and the poetics behind it can hope to give the new readers not only a sense of the poetics of the original but also the possibility of creative engagement with the translated poem.

Keywords: Paul Celan, Holocaust poetry, translation, poetics, creative reading.