RHETORIC, THEATRE AND TRANSLATION

by Manuel Ángel Conejero

This book is dedicated to all
my doctorate students past and present,
with whom I have shared
the benefit of rich discussion

Some of the material of this book, as stated in the Foreword, have already been published by the Shakespeare Foundation of Spain. However, since all three essays are at the centre of postgraduate training at the University of Valencia, some of the perspectives have been frequently changed due to endless discussions amongst colleagues and trainees in our seminars. For this reason I would like to express my gratitude to Doctor Martínez Luciano for his generous criticism and to Pilar Ezpeleta, Vicent Montalt and Jesús Tronch who continuously read the manuscript of the third essay and raised a large number of helpful queries which I hope have improved and clarified its contents.

The three essays published in this volume, entitled after the second, Rhetoric, Theatre and Translation, have been written after many years of research and practical experience translating Shakespeare’s plays into Castilian at the «Instituto Shakespeare». The first two essays have already been published in the series En torno a Shakespeare I and II respectively. The third one, however, has not been published before and it constitutes an extended version of a paper delivered at the World Shakespeare Congress held in Tokyo in August of 1991. The purpose of this book is both to provide the advanced student of literature and drama with new theoretical background and also to introduce the general reader to a field of research still to be discovered in its fulí complexity.

The first essay, under the title “Translating the Translation”, deals with the analysis of different kinds of approaches to the translation of Shakespeare’s plays, with special reference to the well-known version of Macpherson’s. It also presents both the theoretical bases and the method of translation used at the «Instituto Shakespeare», and goes on to argue why the approach followed by this team of translators is more adequate from the theatrical point of view on the grounds of concepts such as literal translation versus theatrical translation, written text versus scenic text, and prose versus verse. Rhythm, tone, prosodic scheme and theatrical effect are emphasized as the main aims of the translations produced at the «Instituto Shakespeare». Finally, there is sorne reference to the language used in the Castilian translations as it relates to the Seventeenth Century Castilian and the theatrical tradition.

“Rhetoric, theatre and translation”, the second essay of this volume, presents new points of view in the study of theatrical translation with the inclusion of concepts such as rhetoric and theatre. In treating and interrelating these concepts, new levels of complexity emerge which force us to understand translation, theatre and rhetoric as sharing many aspects. This new angle through which to look at the phenomenon can throw light upon many questions which may have arised in the first essay. It also supports the idea of theatrical translation to the detriment of a more literal procedure. In the second part of this essay, the reader will find a detailed analysis of sorne lines of a soliloquy from Macbeth, and its translation into Castilian.

In the third essay, “Translating as rewriting”, we find a further development of the above mentioned relationships between rhetoric, theatre and translation. The essay also establishes the different phases or elements which are involved in the process of multiple translations undergone by a text (from the original source, through translations into second languages, and then to the receiver). Special attention is drawn to the ideas of, on the one hand, text as a score containing the phonostylistic and theatrical keys useful for the performance, and, on the other, translation as re-elaboration in the target language, in an effort to reproduce a “whole meaning” conveyed by rhetorical strategies.

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