13 LITERARY TEXTS Literary texts are different from

13. LITERARY TEXTS Literary texts are different from all other types of text because authors don’t have to respect any standard conventions at all. Basically, there are no rules; each individual author writes what s/he wants and how s/he wants. The translator has to “get into the head” of the author of the source text and produce a target text that reflects his/her intentions. Read Taylor pp 117 -121. We cannot list the characteristics of literary texts because anything is possible, but one tendency we can identify is the use of cataphoric reference.

We have seen how journalistic texts use anaphora: all the key information is given in the headline, lead and first paragraph. Subsequent paragraphs refer back to information already given and provide further details. Earnest Hemingway’s story The Snows of Kilimanjaro begins: “The marvellous thing is that it’s painless, ” he said. We don’t know who he is or what it refers to. This is cataphora; the two pronouns refer forward to information that will be revealed later. Why do you think fiction writers use cataphora? In what genres of literature do you think it is particularly important?

“The marvellous thing is that it’s painless, ” he said. “That’s how you know when it starts. ” “Is it really? ” “Absolutely. I’m awfully sorry about the odour, though. That must bother you. ” “Don’t! Please don’t. ” “Look at them, ” he said. “Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that? ” The cot the man lay on was in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out past the shade on to the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds squatted obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick-moving shadows as they passed. They’ve been there since the truck broke down, ” he said. “To-day the first time any have lit on the ground. I watched the way they sailed very carefully at first in case I wanted to use them in a story. That’s funny now. ” “I wish you wouldn’t, ” she said. “I’m only talking, ” he said. “It’s much easier if I talk. But I don’t want to bother you. ” n. b. Both shade and shadow translate as ombra. They are not exactly the same thing in English.

“You know it doesn’t bother me, ” she said. “It’s that I’ve gotten so very nervous not being able to do anything. I think we might make it as easy as we can until the plane comes. ” “Or until the plane doesn’t come. ” “Please tell me what I can do. There must be something I can do. ” “You can take the leg off and that might stop it, though I doubt it. Or you can shoot me. You’re a good shot now. I taught you to shoot, didn’t I? ” What have you understood so far?

The title suggests that the man and the woman are in Africa (Mount Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania). They are in the desert and their truck has broken down. The man has a leg wound that is now affected with gangrene (cancrena), which causes flesh to decompose (hence the smell) but also eliminates the pain of the wound. He will die if he doesn’t get treatment soon. The big birds are vultures (avvoltoi) who know they might soon have a substantial meal. The unnamed couple have radioed for help and they hope a small aircraft is on its way, but they cannot be certain that it will arrive. The man suggests that the woman could either cut off his leg or shoot him. She is clearly upset by his black humour.

Some Literary novels start slowly but in more popular fiction there is a tendency to try to produce a begining that will attract and hold the reader’s attention. Would you want to continue reading if a story began like this? My parents were little more than kids when they married: dad was 17, mum was 16 and I was just 14 months.

Literary writers break all the rules. The technical term is deviation; they use forms that deviate from the norms of the language. Deviation is used in advertising texts, usually for humorous effect, but in literature it often has a more serious purpose. There are various types of deviation: lexical grammatical discoursal semantic morphological pragmatic Graphological In the following short texts, try to decide what kind of deviation is present. In each case consider how the translator could produce an equivalent text.

p 1. Some go u and some go d o w n 2. She lay in bed worryful and unasleep. 3. She met me, she fascinated me, she seduced me, and finally she husbanded me. 4. There is no altruism today; it has become altruwasm. 5. The multicoloured white light was dark and ominous. 6. Let’s begin at the beginning. I was born. 7. “Excuse me. Do you know where Prof. Greene’s office is? ” “Yes, I do. ”

p 1. Some go u and some go d o w n 2. She lay in bed worryful and unasleep. GRAPHOLOGICAL DEVIATION MORPHOLOGICAL DEVIATION 3. She met me, she fascinated me, she seduced me, and finally she husbanded me. GRAMMATICAL DEVIATION 4. There is no altruism today; it has become altruwasm. LEXICAL DEVIATION 5. The multicoloured white light was dark and ominous. SEMANTIC DEVIATION 6. Let’s begin at the beginning. I was born. DISCOURSAL DEVIATION 7. “Excuse me. Do you know where Prof. Greene’s office is? ” “Yes, I do. ” PRAGMATIC DEVIATION

The opening paragraphs from Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess is best known as the author of A Clockwork Orange, which Stanley Kubrick made into a controversial film, but his real masterpiece is Earthly Powers. The octogenarian first-person narrator of the novel, Kenneth Toomey, is a homosexual British novelist who is asked by the Vatican to write the story of a miracle allegedly performed by the brother of his late brother-in-law, Don Carlo Campanati and later Pope Gregory XVII. The novel is set in the late 1960 s but the elderly narrator describes events from his entire life span. Note that homosexuality was legalized in England Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland) only in 1967. Consider the symbolism of the name Kenneth Toomey.

It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me. ‘Very good, Ali, ’ I quavered in Spanish through the closed door of the master bedroom. ‘Take him into the bar. Give him a drink. ’ ‘Hay dos. Su capellán también. ’ ‘Very good, Ali. Give his chaplain a drink also. ’ There is a word in the above lines that the great majority of native English speakers do not know. Do you think the average reader would want to carry on reading?

I retired twelve years ago from the profession of novelist. Nevertheless you will be constrained to consider, if you know my work at all and take the trouble now to reread that first sentence, that I have lost none of my old cunning in the contrivance of what is known as an arresting opening. But there is really nothing of contrivance about it. Actuality sometimes plays into the hands of art. That I was eighty-one I could hardly doubt: congratulatory cables had been rubbing it in all through the forenoon. Geoffrey, who was already pulling on his over-tight summer slacks, was, I supposed, my ganymede or male lover as well as my secretary. The Spanish word arzobispo certainly means archbishop. The time was something after four o’clock on a Maltese June day – the twenty-third to be exact and to spare the truly interested the trouble of consulting Who’s Who. This paragraph could be described as fictional truth. Why? How would you describe the narrator’s prose?

Geoffrey sweated too much and was running to fat (why does one say running? Geoffrey never ran). The living, I supposed, was too easy for a boy of thirty-five. Well, the time for our separation could not, in the nature of things, be much longer delayed. Geoffrey would not be pleased when he attended the reading of my will. ‘The old bitch, my dear, and all I did for him. ’ I would do for him too, though posthumously, posthumously. Line 3. Why is ragazzo not a good translation of boy? Lines 5 and 6. There is discoursal deviation because we are given a quotation but no mention of who uttered (or will utter) the words. How do we know whose words they are?

FALSE FRIENDS 13 Conference: usually translated as convegno Conferenza: usually translated as lecture Conductor/Conduttore. As technical terms in the discipline of physics the two words are identical in meaning but there are differences in non-scientific use: A conductor is not a driver but un direttore d’orchestra. Confidence. 1. Fiducia. I have confidence in her ability to do the job. 2. Fiducia in se stesso. Our goalkeeper has lost confidence after making a couple of mistakes recently. 3. Confidenza. I’m telling this in confidence, so please don’t tell anyone else. Confidential information = informazioni riservati Confident = fiducioso, sicuro Self-confident = Sicuro di sé Confidente = 1. police informer 2. confidant(e) (literary, from French)

THE DIARY OF A BRAVE TRANSLATOR VERILY IN LEG – PART 13 One of my neighbours is a real gossip and I discovered recently that she has been diffusing some ridiculous stories about me. I’m not letting it worry me because people who know me won’t believe her. Anyway, as I always say, who wounds with a sword perishes by the sword, so one day she will find out what it is like to be the victim of malicious gossip. I had some consolation this morning when I saw her putting the kids in the car to go to the beach. Twenty minutes later it started raining basins. To be honest with you, I think she has some psychological problems. In fact, other people have told me that she lacks a Friday. Fortunately, I don’t gossip like she does.

Spread (the verb diffuse is only used in technical texts) Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. It’s pouring (I haven’t heard a native English speaker say “it’s raining cats and dogs” for at least forty years) S/he’s got a screw loose. He’s one can short of a six-pack.