Literary Translation: Drama and Prose

MA and BA optional course. Priority enrolment for students of English and American Studies from the 2nd year of the BA programme onward.

 

The course will take the form of a workshop focused on some of the basic problems involved in the translation of literary texts. Particular attention will be paid to the translation of modern drama, introducing the students to the challenges of producing a stageable text. However, the workshop will also focus on the translation of fiction, especially such that involves linguistic experimentation, dialect or other specific features. Students will be expected to translate assigned extracts on a week-to-week basis and be actively involved in criticising their own work. The class will be conducted in Czech.

 

 

PROCEDURE

After the first two opening sessions, classes will have the following structure:

1. All students produce a draft translation of the assigned extract;

2. Apart from that, each extract will have its main Translator, whose work will have two Reviewers. The Translator will provide his/her translation (word processed or typed) to the Reviewers and the instructor a week in advance. The Reviewers will prepare a joint presentation = a critique of the Translator’s work, focusing on its strengths and/or weaknesses.

3. The class will be organised around the Reviewers’ presentation, combining it with the instructor’s and the Translator’s comments. The Translator’s version will be copied out by him/her for the rest of the group, who will be expected to contribute to the discussion on the basis of their own translations of the same extract.

 

 

SCHEDULE AND MATERIAL

3 Oct               Introduction

10 Oct              Bernard McLaverty, “Walking the Dog”

17 Oct              Mike McCormack, “Stained Glass Violations”

24 Oct              Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman

31 Oct              Roundtable on poetry and translation with Aifric Mac Aodha, Justin Quinn, and Daniela Theinová

7 Nov              Samuel Beckett, “Dante and the Lobster”

14 Nov            Brian Friel, Faith Healer

21 Nov            Edward Albee, The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?

28 Nov            Harold Pinter, The Caretaker

5 Dec               Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan

12 Dec             Enda Walsh, Penelope

19 Dec             Samuel Beckett, That Time

2 Jan                reserve

 

Note: Extracts for translation will be made available on Moodle; full texts are mostly available from the library of the Department of English and American Studies.

 

 

ASSESSMENT

Credit requirements include 1. regular attendance, 2. producing the assigned translations on a week-to-week basis, 3. serving either once as a Translator of an extract or twice as a Reviewer, and 4. submitting a final translation of a set text with a brief commentary on the method utilised by the translator and the problems encountered (G.B. Shaw, Pygmalion, 38-40; text to be distributed in class at the beginning of the semester). The deadline for submission is 14 January 2013.