Translations and Collation

Considering Rothenberg’s task of translating poetry and in a sense, translating a culture, I began questioning the impact of translation on authorship and intended meaning. Authorship is an intriguing topic to me and I would like to use this essay to question and discuss how translation and sound recordings are related to text collation. Using the chapter on “Editorial Procedure” in William Proctor Williams and Craig S. Abbott’s An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies, I will consider text collation in its attempt to truly reconstruct authorial intent in creating critical editions.
Translation of a text can significantly alter meaning, as we saw in the discussion of Rothenberg’s translations. This essay will question how translation can be separated from authorship and when the translator exceeds his or her authority in deciding what to translate and how to translate it. I will also question if it is possible to translate a text without authority on the subject. In the translation process, is authorial intent lost or miscommunicated, and how does this impact the critical edition when translations are ultimately included in creating the textual apparatus.
Furthermore, this essay will explore the impact of sound recordings on textual collation. Addressing the recordings and translations as a project in academic anthropology as presented by Frank Boas, I will consider how sound recordings and translations are representative of the study of human culture and how these types of transmission impact the “spirit of the text.” I will explore the questions of whether translating meaning is more important than trying to maintain a literal word for word transcription. By including or excluding translations and a sound recording of the author reading his or her text, does the spoken text differ from the written text and, if so, which is more closely connected to authorial intent? How does excluding a sound recording alter the meaning, even though the written words may not change? This essay will ultimately question whether the editorial procedure of comparing notes and constructing trees and a textual apparatus is sufficient in formulating authorial intent, or does the inclusion of a sound recording and exclusion of a literal translation more fully complete the process and create a better critical edition.