Towards a Sociology of Drama Translation: Hamlet Lives Happily

Translation as a sociallysituated activity: Two instances in the history of Shakespeare Translation in Egypt Sameh F. Hanna

Overview  Tanyus Abdu’s Arabic

translation of Hamlet

(1901/1902).  Accounting for Abdu’s translation through Bourdieu’s sociology of cultural production;  Khalil Mutran’s translation of Othello (1912).

Mainstream history of drama translation in Egypt: Two assumptions  History

of drama translation is the story of progress from ‘unfaithful’ to ‘faithful’ versions [linear historical narrative].  History of drama translation is a history of ‘textuality’, not agents, institutions, cultural markets, etc.

Tanyus Abdu (1869-1926)

Hamlet in Arabic (1902) – Front Cover

Gloss of Front Cover Riwayat (the Play) of Hamlet A text for acting in five acts Authored by Shakesepeare, the renowned English Poet Arabized by The skilled writer, Tanyūs Effendī ‘Abdu Owner of the well-reputed al-Sharq Newspaper A second edition at the expense of Ibrahīm Faris, owner of al-Sharqiyya bookshop, Cairo, Egypt Al-Matba‘a al-‘Umūmiyya, Cairo, Egypt.

Early reception of the translation  The

only Arabic stage version of Hamlet for over 15 years.

 In

its published form, it went into two different editions.

The translation as seen by historians of drama translation The undeniable fact is that the translator availed himself of all the means of distortion, which he brought to his translation…The translator pioneered a school known for deformation and distortion in translation practice. No story or play he translated was left unchanged. (Najm 1956: 241; my translation)

Hamlet lives: change of plot structure The ghost (addressing Hamlet): And you may happily live on earth, forgiven by Heaven. Go before me where your uncle sat; this throne was made but for you (Hamlet ascends the throne, looking admiringly at his father, while the ghost gradually descends into the depths of the earth, smiling at Hamlet. The curtain falls slowly, while the public is chanting outside).

Hamlet sings: change of generic structure Neutralising the tragic effects in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Hamlet’s monologues in Shakespeare: divided identity, tension between the public and private selves…distorted language/whispered discourse (pauses, exclamations, questions, incomplete structures)  Monologues in Abdu’s translation: versified, declamatory and smooth language. 

The variety of Arabic used A diluted variety of Standard Arabic: not colloquial, but definitely not the kind of Arabic used in Pre-Islamic poetry or traditional Arabic narrative (maqamat).

How can we study this and similar cases?  Contrastive

linguistic, text-based

approaches  Context-based approaches

Contrastive linguistic approaches: Is that what Shakespeare really said/meant?

Abdu’s translation of Hamlet is considered “an awkward translation” marked by such “deviations from the source text” that it ends up offering only “a ghostly resemblance of the original” (Alshetawi 2000: 78).

Context-based approaches  Locating

translation in its social context.  Problem? • Unclear notions of ‘social context’: is it used to mean the class structure, political structure, or the societal context in which translators live and work? • Mechanistic understanding of the relation between society and translation: causeeffect relation.

Bourdieu’s sociology: Multiple contextualisation 1 Social space

Field of Drama translation

Bourdieu’s sociology: Multiple contextualisation 2

Theatre Production

Literary Production Drama Pg. T Translation Sg.T

Read.

Perf.

Readership

Drama Translation Criticism

Spectatorship

Bourdieu’s sociology: Translation as a field of cultural production The field: 1.

Structure

2.

Dynamics

1. Structure of the field of (drama) translation: 1. 

Options (positions) available for producers of translation in the field: Range of themes, motifs, genres, linguistic and aesthetic practices;



Modes of production: translation for publishing vs. translation for stage; publishing with government vs. private publishers; publishing in a series for established writers/translators vs. a series for marginal writers/translators



Options are culture-specific: naming theatre in the Arabic tradition (Ibn Yunis’s translation of ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’ into madih and hija’; the connotations of the term riwaya)

2. Producers and co-producers of translation:  Dispositions, orientations, world-views (the outcome of socialization; professional training) (habitus).  Resources (cultural and social capitals).  Trajectory: successive decisions taken in the field and other adjacent fields.

Structure of the field: 3. Presupposed ideas (doxa).

2. Dynamics of the field of (drama) translation.  1.

2.

Struggle between: Profit-oriented and prestige-oriented translators. Established translators and newcomers.

Another case of drama translation? Khalil Mutran’s translation of Othello (1912)

1911/1912: Structural changes in the field of drama translation  A new

generation of drama translators.  Middle-class salaried employees.  Published drama translation becomes an option.  Achieving distinction vis-à-vis the early generation of drama translators

A Translation of Makbith in Arabic verse Makbith Authored by Shakespeare, the greatest of the English Poets The play of Makbith Arabized in verse from the English language by Muhammad ‘Iffat Our Arabization is dedicated to the whole world, to authors, poets and scholars. It is especially dedicated to the honourable scholar and distinguished relative, Tabūz Zada Husayn Rushdī Pasha, Foreign Minister of the Egyptian Government 3 December 1911 Muhammad ‘Iffat Son of the late Khalīl Pasha ‘Iffat Printed in al-Muqattam printing house, Egypt, 1911

Muhammad Hamdi’s translation of Julius Caesar (1912)

Mutran’s Othello (1912)  Classical

literary Arabic as a strategic

choice.  Choice

is politically justified.

“By God, if I could put my hands on the vernacular, I would have killed it unremorsefully, and this I would have done in revenge for a matchless past glory… and for a nation whose unity had been shattered by its vernaculars”. (Mutran 1912: 8, my translation)

Arabization as reclamation  Arabizing

the play: “I approached this play to arabize it, as if I were retrieving it into its origin”. (Mutran 1912: 8).  Shifting of positions between translation and original.  Arabizing/reclaiming the name of the title hero.  And Arabizing….

“In Shakespeare there is definitely something of an Arab…in all he writes, in general, there is something Bedouin, something that anchors itself to the free, genuine human instinct”. (Mutran 1912: 78, my translation)

Othello’s discourse  Highly

classical Arabic; almost archaic diction; stylized structures.  The Venetian Senate scene: the seemingly powerless Arab warrior is powerful with…language.

Shakespeare: Othello: And little of this great world can I speak More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, And little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. (Othello. I.iii, 87-90)

Mutran: Utayl: Apart from the feats of broil and battle, I find little that my tongue can utter of the conditions of this huge world, and if I speak for myself, I cannot sweeten my defence, and there is no need to worry about the effect of my rhetorical devices on you. (Mutrān 1912: 29-30, emphasis added, my translation).

Mutran’s Pan-Arabism is secular and inclusive  Removing

references to religions, heathen gods, Christian oaths.

 Removing

negative references to

ethnicities.  Secular

Pan-Arabism in public space

Discourses on secular PanArabism in the social space “Some might think that the purpose of the Arab unity…is an Islamic unity, parallel to what existed during the apex of Islamic civilization and that the aim of reviving the language is the strengthening of the Islamic element and the re-establishment of the Islamic Empire…The Arabic unity has become something different from what it used to be. It comprises today all those who speak Arabic, regardless of their different denominations and religions…the goal at which we are aiming must be limited to the revival of the language disregarding denominations. If anything else is intended, we will regress to the darkness of the Middle Ages”. (Jurji Zaydan, al-Hilal, vol. xv, 405-6) 