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Published: 6 October 2011

The Nobel Prize winner, poet Tomas Transtromer
Transtromer squabbles
R eviewing Robin Robertsons versions of Tomas
Transtromers poems, The Deleted World, on January 26,
2007, Alan Brownjohn wrote:
Robertsons book, a bilingual edition, is an inspired
sampling of key poems from seven of Transtromers eleven
volumes, in effect a tribute for the Swedes seventy-fifth
birthday from a poet whose own landscapes approach those
of Transtromers in their bleakness; appropriately this small
selection follows Robertsons recent publication of
Swithering, his own third volume. That shows affinities with
the Transtromer poems (see his Entry, or Sea-Fret)
without betraying any debt to them.
Two weeks later, on February 9, Robin Fulton accused Robert Robinson of borrowing excessively from
Fultons own translations of Transtromer:
Sir, - Alan Brownjohns diplomatic review (January 26) of Robin Robertsons versions of Tomas Transtromers
The Deleted World (Enitharmon, Brownjohns own publisher) tiptoes round some of the problems of
Robertsons enterprise. An excessively large number of Robertsons lines are identical to mine in my
Transtromer translations (as published by Bloodaxe, and New Directions): elsewhere, wittingly or unwittingly,
Robertson makes arbitrary changes to the Swedish, a language he does not seem to understand. His versions
are neither dependable translations nor independent imitations: they show a cavalier disregard for
Transtromers texts and I have yet to see a reviewer able or willing to say so.
ROBIN FULTON.
Mjughaug terasse 8, N4048 Hafrsfjord, Norway.
On February 16:
Sir, - Robin Robertson is hardly the first poet to make arbitrary changes in his versions from a foreign
language (Letters, February 7). The most famous (or perhaps notorious?) case is that of Robert Lowell in his
Imitations of 1961. In his introduction to that volume, Lowell quotes Boris Pasternak as saying that the usual
reliable translation gets the literal meaning but misses the tone. Lowell goes on to argue the case for licence in
poetry translation, or in the making of versions to write alive English. This is surely what Robertson has done
in his Transtromer versions. Lowell knew no Russian but still translated Pasternak; Geoffrey Hill has no
Norwegian but still managed to give us a first-class poetic version of Ibsens Brand. Lowells cavalier disregard
for his archetypes extended as far, he freely admitted, to cutting the original poems in half, adding stanzas to
them, dropping lines, moving lines, moving stanzas, changing images and altering metre and intent. In relying
too on lines from Robin Fultons translations of Transtromer, Robertson can perhaps take heart again from
Lowells example of lifting whole passages from other writers, such as Thoreau and Melville, in his original
poem, The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket. The crux surely is in getting the tone of Transtromer right, and in
making his work come alive on the page for a British audience as poetry, which tasks both Robertson and
Fulton, in their different ways, have fully done.
W. S. MILNE.
18 Crediton Way, Claygate, Esher, Surrey.
March 2:
Sir, - I wonder if W. S. Milne took the time to compare Robin Robertsons versions of Tomas Transtromer both
with the Swedish originals and with the available English versions (Letters, February 16) ? If only Robertson
had vandalized Transtromer in the way Lowell vandalized his originals the results might have been interesting,
but a version which tinkers with only a word or phrase here and there hardly begins to be an imitation -it reads
only like a translation with hiccups. As for the tone of Robertsons versions mentioned by Mr Milne, that is
indistinguishable from the tone of the other English versions of Transtromer. Mr Milnes letter also inspires me
with curiosity about the origins of the strange current fashion whereby a translation is liable to be praised in
inverse proportion to the translators knowledge of the original language. Perhaps you could offer a little prize
to the reader who comes up with the most appropriate quotation from Popes Dunciad or Swifts A Tale of a
Tub.
ROBIN FULTON.
Mjughaug terrasse 8, N4048 Hafrsfjord, Norway.
On April 20, JC weighed-in:
Readers who followed the exchange on our Letters pages in February and March on the subject of poetry
translation and its close cousins the version and the imitation, might have asked when the translator at the
centre of the controversy would speak up for himself. In making his translations of the poetry of the Swedish
poet Tomas Transtromer, Robin Robertson had been accused by Robin Fulton of borrowing excessively from
Fultons own Transtromer versions. Fulton reads Swedish; Robertson does not, but works from a crib provided
by a native speaker. However, in a letter to the TLS of February 9, Fulton complained that a large number of
Robertsons lines are identical to mine; elsewhere, Robertson makes arbitrary changes to the Swedish, a
language he does not seem to understand.
The process of translating poetry from a language of which the poet has skimpy knowledge has a respectable
history. Correspondents in the TLS exchange have mentioned Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell; Christopher
Logue, whose accounts of the Iliad have enthralled readers for over forty years, knows no Greek. Still, the
subject continues to vex some people. The April issue of the Chicago magazine Poetry is dedicated to
translation. It offers versions of a variety of works by twenty-five modern poets, together with an explanation of
the translators approach. Of the twenty-five, more than half have acquaintance with the original language,
including J. M. Coetzee from Afrikaans, John Peck from Chinese, D. H. Tracy from Swahili, as well as those
charged with Russian, French, Serbian and Hebrew. The minority group are quick to admit their shortcomings:
As a lowland Scot, I dont speak Gaelic, Kathleen Jamie writes (a non sequitur, but let it pass), adding that it
felt a bit fraudulent setting out to translate a poem from that language. Being Kathleen Jamie, she comes up
with something good in itself -the accepted validation of the poet translating from a language he or she does
not understand. Like Ms Jamie, Franz Wright (Belarusian), Peter Campion (Korean) and Clive Wilmer
(Hungarian) work with rough objects which, as practised versifiers, they strive to sand and varnish. Another is
Robin Robertson, who attempts an English version of Pablo Nerudas Oda a un gran atun en el mercado
(Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market). Discussing his approach to Nerudas Spanish (with a good dictionary),
Mr Robertson refers to a recent collection I made of some free versions of poems by Tomas Transtromer
which attracted spluttering fire from certain quarters. As he sees it, the anxiety seems to centre on the term
version . . . and it is baffling that a process that has been going on for over half a century seems to have been
overlooked. He then invokes Lowell and Logue. However, in our understanding of Fultons complaint, his
anxiety is not over the term version, but over the resemblances between Robertsons versions -or
whichever term you fancy -and his own. It may be an unjust claim; if so, it seems baffling to let it go
unchallenged.
Back to the Letters page on April 27:
Sir, - Robin Fulton writes (Letters, February 9) that he has yet to find a reviewer willing or able to say that
Robin Robertsons Tomas Transtromer versions, published by Enitharmon as The Deleted World, are neither
dependable translations nor independent imitations. I wonder if the entirely straightforward reason for this is
simply that nobody but Mr Fulton has managed to arrive at such a surprising and oddly narrow-minded
distinction. Certainly, the suggestion he goes on to make, that Robertsons versions are identical to his own, is
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difficult to accept: without a doubt, the feel and tenor, if not the literal sense, of their respective English
versions is quite different. Indeed, for Fultons apparent accusation of plagiarism to be worthy of debate, we
would have to accept the idea that the value of a poem resides in its literal meaning and not much else.
Now, it is surely obvious, when we say that poetry is what gets lost in translation, that what matters in a poem is
not its literal surface (which any crib can convey), but its subtleties, its suggestions, its fabric of music and
nuance -in other words, its spirit -and the true test of a translation or version is, or should be, how well it
conveys this spirit. So, while it is true that two translators, working from the same originals, could hardly avoid
using common phrases or vocabulary in their English versions without going to perverse lengths to avoid doing
so, it is also the case that a good version of a poem will take that literal surface of the original only as a point of
departure. Beyond that, the fortunate translator may arrive at what J. C. justly calls something good in itself
(NB, April 20) - that is, a new poem, in a different language, which echoes, or even re-creates, not simply the
sense, but the music, the atmosphere, the entire spirit of its original. It seems that the majority of reviewers
have agreed that what Robertson arrives at, in his marvellous Transtromer versions, is an honourable, lyrically
rich and deeply sympathetic something good in itself, and the fact that he has chosen not to dignify Fultons
rather disappointing, vague and ill-founded insinuations is most surely the mark, not of a translator with
something to hide, but of one who prefers to honour the spirit of Transtromers work rather than drag it into a
muddy, mean-spirited and potentially damaging squabble over nothing.
JOHN BURNSIDE.
School of English,
Castle House,
The University, St Andrews.
Robin Fulton, on May 25:
Sir, - I admire, as many do, John Burnsides poems, and have bought his collections, but I dont for one moment
buy his testy and at times disingenuous argumentations in support of the versions of Tomas Transtromer done
by his editor and publisher at Cape, Robin Robertson (Letters, April 27). Robertson has not, with dignity or
otherwise, abstained from justifying his methods, as Burnside implies he has. He has defended his practice,
with a dash of scorn for those of a different mind, not here in the TLS as might have been expected, but across
the Atlantic, in the Hudson Review and in Poetry (Chicago). I have expressed my own thoughts very briefly here
in the TLS (Letters, February 9 and March 2), and rather less briefly in the current issue of Modern Poetry in
Translation.
The current literary fashion tends to demote and even denigrate the idea that a translator must give close
attention and respect to the words of his (or her) author, an attention which presupposes a knowledge of the
language in which the words were originally written. According to this fashion, anyone can turn out an
inaccurate translation of a work, ancient or modern, written in a language not understood by the translator,
who then justifies any inaccuracies by claiming that his production is only a version or imitation. Burnside
tells us that what matters in a poem is not its literal surface -as if poems were boxes with tops which can be
lifted off to reveal the goodies beneath -and that a version should aim to convey a poems spirit, its subtleties,
its suggestions, its fabric of music and nuance. I agree, unreservedly. But just how is a translator supposed to
convey these without a knowledge of the original language? Robertson has not so far told us how much of
Transtromers original Swedish he is able to understand unaided. By the same token, has Burnside based his
response to Transtromers poetry on an unassisted reading of the Swedish texts?
The only note of squabbling I have noticed in this exchange comes from Burnside himself, who fashes himself
into a right Fifers frazzle, and, being in a frazzle, is not altogether accurate. I never said that Robertsons
versions were identical to mine, but I did try to specify which proportions of them were. And far from its being
the case, as Burnside says it is, that two translators of the same original could hardly avoid the same words or
phrases in their translations, it is the more remarkable that such coincidences should occur, when one of them
does not know the original language.
Inevitably, the term poetry translation has to be very elastic. At one end of the scale, the prose crib may be
boring but can often tell us more about the original text than detractors would like to admit. At the other end we
have more or less wild adaptations (like Ted Hughess versions from Ovid), which may be entertaining but often
tell us little or nothing about the original work. I have nothing against imitations as such -many of the great
translators of the past (Chaucer, Douglas, Chapman, Dryden) would now in the age of copyright probably be
categorized as imitators. But Robertsons versions of fifteen Transtromer poems are neither fish nor fowl. It is
true, as Burnside points out, that reviews of Robertsons booklet have been favourable, but the comments I have
seen came from reviewers with no knowledge of Swedish. If the booklet had been published only in English, and
the poems presented as new poems, in a different language, that would have been reasonable enough, up to a
point. But the poems were published bilingually, thus inviting comparison, and such a publication really ought
to be reviewed by someone who can authoritatively compare.
ROBIN FULTON.
Mjughaug terrasse 8, N 4048 Hafrsfjord,
Norway.