Notes from Source: Anne Carson’s “A Fragment of Ibykos Translated Six Ways” and the 85 project’s “Common Autumn Song” raise important questions about the retranslation of ancient Classical texts, specifically lyric poetry. Both works are retranslations that challenge the conventionally singular, linear and unidirectional movement of an original “source” towards a translation “target.” Multiple retranslations–translations of a single original text over and over again–offer unique and complementary facets of the original, and highlight the fact that a text is not a closed unit with a single, identifiable, retrievable meaning. Retranslations also reflect the ideological and poetological currents of the time in which they are made. If nineteenth-century English-language translations of Latin poetry rhyme, even though the Latin does not, then what ideological and poetological currents are motivating Carson’s six ways of Ibykos and the 85 project’s versions of Li Bai? Carson retains the structure and rhetorical gestures of the original poem while breaking with the historically conventional poetic diction used in traditional translations of ancient Classical texts. The 85 project relies on unconventional visual layout and deferral techniques that attempt to mimic for the Western reader the experience of reading Classical Chinese poetry. Carson’s Ibykos and the 85’s Li Bai offer challenges to existing translation and retranslation theories.

Further Notes: Publisher: Texas Tech University Press