Discussion of Carson's Preface to His Translation of Dante

The introduction to Ciaran Carson’s translation of The Inferno of Dante Alighieri makes several things clear right away. #1- It’s obvious that he doesn’t believe in long, complicated introductions. The “Introduction,” including the “Acknowledgments,” is only twelve pages long. Of these twelve pages, only three are actually devoted to his theories of translation. The majority of the “Introduction” is devoted to Dante’s history and the history of the manuscript of The Inferno. 

#2 – Carson doesn’t believe that an exhaustive knowledge of the source language is necessary to be a good translator. In fact, he states “I was almost completely unfamiliar with the Italian language, let alone Dante’s Italian, when I began reading the Inferno. My primary source was the Temple Classics parallel text…and my translation owes much to it. Some phrases and rhymes have been adapted, adopted or stolen from other translations, including those of Dorothy L. Sayers, Tom Phillips, Mark Musa…I trust these will be seen not as mere plagiarisms, but as homages” (ix-x). In other words, it sounds to me like he didn’t actually translate Dante from Italian, but from other English versions. I can’t help but think that this would make Nabokov crazy, since Nabokov believes that a would-be translator should have extensive knowledge of the source language. On page 120 of “Problems of Translation: Onegin in English,” he states that “one of the main troubles with would-be translators is their ignorance. Anyone who wishes to attempt translation…should acquire exact information in regard to a number of relevant subjects” (120). He is speaking specifically of translating Onegin, but I would venture to guess that this attitude extends to all translation.

#3 – Carson also differs from Nabokov in his opinion of footnotes. Carson does not articulate a specific theory regarding footnotes, but he has chosen to include very few notes in the book, which in-of-itself speaks volumes. I’m sure that we can all recall that Nabokov’s theory of translation calls for “copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity” (125).

#4 – The last and perhaps most troubling thing that Carson reveals in the “Introduction” about his theory of translation is with regard to sounding like a translation. If Eco believes that “the worse sin of translation is sounding like translation,” then Carson is an unrepentant sinner. In defending his decision to maintain the terza rima of the original, Carson acknowledges those critics who say “too often…the necessity to rhyme will result in lines that sound like a translation” (xix). He does not attempt to dispute this, but rather states “but then some of us expect translations to sound like translations, and to produce an English which is sometimes strangely interesting. He then offers an excuse  for what he already knows is going to be an awkward and strange translation: “In any case, In understand that Dante’s Italian is difficult and strange to many Italians,” completing ignoring the fact that Dante’s Italian was not strange to Italians in Dante’s time.

In the end, it is this decision to maintain the rhyme that puts Carson most at odds with the other theories of translation that we have read. Nabokov states that “’Rhyme’ rhymes with ‘crime’” most of the time when it comes to translating poetry, especially long poems. He believes that the translator should “reproduce with absolute exactitude the whole text, and nothing but the text…The original text will not be able to soar and sing; but it can be very nicely dissected and mounted” (119). Carson is more interested in hearing the text “soar and sing,” and I can’t blame him for wanting it to. However, Musa has said it best in his preface when he states “but my main reason for avoiding rhyme has been the results achieved by all those who have used rhyme in translating The Divine Comedy: they have shown that the price paid was disastrously high…First of all it is apparently impossible always to find perfect rhymes in English for a long stretch of lines – and if a good rhyme gives a musical effect, bad rhyme is cacophonous…A second disadvantage…because of the difficulty imposed by the continuous mechanical necessity of finding rhyme, good or bad, the translator is often forced to use a diction that is aesthetically unacceptable, or even contrary to the spirit of the language” (61-2). I believe that both of these problems (bad rhyme and inconsistent diction) are on display in Carson’s translation. His choice to use “the measures and assonances of the Hiberno-English ballad” that “would allow for sometimes extravagant alliteration, for periphrasis and inversion to accommodate the rhyme, and for occasional assonance instead of rhyme” (xxi) too often brings something to the text that was never there and then obscures much of what should be there.