Feb. 25 post Ellie Wells

 I enjoyed the Senelick lecture we listened to for this week's assignments. The part in the beginning was very interesting, about that one translator who translated multiple works from different authors in the same style, without preserving any of the author's original style. This goes back to our discussion about foreignization of a translation, whether we want to keep the author's original style, even if it is less appealing to an English audience, or colloquialize the text to an American readership.  In my opinion, I remain strongly on the side of foreignization, and staying true to the original text, since translators are not creators of new text, so much as they are transcribers of another text and author. I think that the belief that translators have free reign to interpret the stories in new ways is fundamentally wrong, and if this were the case, then the translator should not have become a translator, but an author. It shows hubris, to show no care for the original style and format of the work, but to instead make up your own. 

On that same note, I thought that Tiang offered a very interesting perspective about the role of a literal translator compared to a transformative playwright. I agree with the points he made about literal translators not getting credit for their work. They should definitely be credited and thanked for their work, because without them, many of the plays would not have made it out of the beginning stages. They are the heavy lifters in terms of these works, and it is disheartening and demeaning to be left out of a credit because their work was only the foundation for the show. However, he and I disagree on his point about a translator having to transform the work. To some extent, I get where this perspective comes into play, because literal translations of texts are not interesting, and a lot of the time they are illegible. However, like I stated before, transforming a work through a translation in essence just makes a completely new work. It is of almost no use to read a translation in this style, because the if original intentions of the original work are transformed and changed by a translator, then the audience does not really receive the message of what the author was trying to say. Translators' jobs should be to make the work legible and interesting, and still stay true to the original author's message and meaning.