Foreword to “Tales of Transformation..." by Lopamudra Banerjee
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1940) is among those great talents from the land of Bengal who brought the inexplicable feelings of joy and sorrow in every phase of our lives, enriching us with his writing in almost all genre of literature. Being a poet and lyricist who wrote more than a thousand of poems and about two thousand lyrics, melody is the very nature and soul of his writing.
Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings. In influencing write-ups, words seem to move despite residing still on paper. In many a situation, the images that words hide while walking forth are the desired meaning of particular words rather than the word itself. Those words sing and dance by coming out of the paper. Language is texture of those images and music. We speak in images and rhythm, by taking help of words. And in case of literary translations, it is this very articulation of expressions that matters the most to bring home to the readers the full essence of the original text in question.
Chance of source language influencing the target language and that of the translator intervening onto the style of original writer are major challenges in literary translation. On translating text into the new language as it is in source language, there is a chance of it being emerged as an absurd sentence in the target language making no sense at all. In the attempt to make the translation meaningful to the target language, there exists a risk of the original work getting meddled by the translator’s style.
Hence, literary translation is not merely an act of picking words from one language and keeping it by dipping in the vessel of another language. Those words need to be rinsed, washed, carved and decorated as much as possible. These transcreations of ‘Chitrangada’ and ‘Chandalika’ show that Lopamudra, has gone through all these essential efforts in translating these plays in English. Moreover, transferring melodies and the very unique and specific ‘literary environment’ of eastern essence to western environment is the greatest challenge of rendering Tagore’s work. Lopamudra has also tackled these challenges skillfully, proving her prowess in transcreation.
- Suman Pokhrel
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Foreword to “Tales of Transformation:
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