Translating Linguistic Poetry: Mario Martín Gijón’s Rendicción in Polish, English, and French

The lyrical work of Spanish poet Mario Martín Gijón is linguistic in the extreme. Not only does he juxtapose similar-sounding words, but he fuses them graphically into one, with parentheses containing a word fragment [me(re)ce, entreg(u)arme] or two fragments separated by a slash [conju(r/nt)os, in(v/f)ierno]; he also uses enjambment within words (cor / reo, tarde / seosa). These techniques result in a multiplication of readings, which constitutes a major challenge for translators.

Terence Dooley, Miguel Ángel Real and the author of this essay (here in the dual role of translator and researcher) translated Martín Gijón’s poetry into English, French and Polish, respectively. Each translator had at their disposal language matter of very distinct properties. The translator into French was able to take advantage of the largely convergent Romance roots, which made it possible to recreate many word games on a one-to-one scale or with only minimal changes. English offered such a possibility much less frequently; Polish – only once. Therefore, the English and Polish translations are re-creations to a much larger extent than the French one. However, the significant differences between each of the versions stem not only from the properties of the target languages, but also from the different approaches of the translators.

The lyrical work of Spanish poet Mario Martín Gijón is linguistic in the extreme. Not only does he juxtapose similar-sounding words, but he fuses them graphically into one, with parentheses containing a word fragment [me(re)ce, entreg(u)arme] or two fragments separated by a slash [conju(r/nt)os, in(v/f)ierno]; he also uses enjambment within words (cor / reo, tarde / seosa). These techniques result in a multiplication of readings, which constitutes a major challenge for translators.

Terence Dooley, Miguel Ángel Real and the author of this essay (here in the dual role of translator and researcher) translated Martín Gijón’s poetry into English, French and Polish, respectively. Each translator had at their disposal language matter of very distinct properties. The translator into French was able to take advantage of the largely convergent Romance roots, which made it possible to recreate many word games on a one-to-one scale or with only minimal changes. English offered such a possibility much less frequently; Polish – only once. Therefore, the English and Polish translations are re-creations to a much larger extent than the French one. However, the significant differences between each of the versions stem not only from the properties of the target languages, but also from the different approaches of the translators.