International Journal of Social and Human Sciences 3 2009

Deconstruction in Poetry, Poetry in Deconstruction The Quest for Meaning

Gke Metin1
question, a trace to follow in both poetry and the deconstructionalist approach to translation. With this paper, the aim is to go after this big question, not in an attempt to find an answer -which would pose a contradiction with the deconstructionalist form of thought- but to penetrate into it so as to come up with new questions. The texts which will be studied in this paper are Olsun Diye by Orhan Veli Kank and its translations The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man by Jordan Davies, Ectstasy by Gary Sullivan, For the Hell of It by Talt Sait Halman and To Keep Busy by Murat Nemet-Nejat. It can be asserted that the encounter of poetry with the deconstructionalist approach to translation is very exciting. This may be both because poetry is in deconstructionalism, as it may be seen in Jacques Derridas and Paul De Mans thoughts on poetry which will be discussed later on, and because deconstructionalism is in poetry by nature, as it is in Enis Baturs poem. However, it seems that the excitement mostly ensues from the sublimity in both, because they necessitate the uppermost travail (a term used by Derrida in his article What is a Relevant Translation) to comprehend and/or to realize. In order to exemplify this travail, it may be tenable to quote from an article by Yurdanur Salman. In her essay entitled .E.V. .R.M.E.N. Ne Demektir? A r Bir Soruya Hafif Bir Yant she asks What does translator mean? and gives eight simple but loaded answers to the question she asks. One may try to think of the answers to these questions, assuming that the question was What does a translator/ poetry/ a deconstructionalist approach to translation mean? The answers are ile- suffering, emek- endeavour, vasta/arac- medium, i - ama ok zorlu i ,- work- but very hard work, rahatszlk,discomfort, marifet/beceri, talent, er-i -mek, (trying to) reach, neden- (asking) why?[2] Though Salman comes up with tenable answers to the questions she asks herself and to the reader, none of the answers she gives entails a certainty. She rather discusses these answers with the reader. Likewise, in this paper where meaning in poetry, poetry translation, the deconstructionalist approach to translation and the undeterminable and untranslatable meaning in a deconstructionalist approach to

AbstractIn this paper, where a discussion of deconstruction,

poetry and poetry translation in deconstruction in their interrelatedness and in their relation to meaning is aimed at, the question asked is If the interferences of interpretation never end, how shall we interpret and discuss meaning? Maybe the answer is that we can only talk about possibilities as far as meaning is concerned, just like it is for meaning in deconstruction, poetry and poetry translation. The texts which will be studied in this paper are Olsun Diye by Orhan Veli Kank and its translations The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man by Jordan Davies, Ecstasy by Gary Sullivan, For the Hell of It by Talat Sait Halman and To Keep Busy by Murat Nemet Nejat.

KeywordsDeconstruction, poetry, translation, Orhan Veli

Kank

I. INTRODUCTION . Poetry is neither order nor chaos. It may only be a whimsical focal point that lies Between two extremes to trip up time. A snare, perhaps, on the threshold of rare sounds, a question lying with the curl of a bell, in the throat, way down at gut-point, rolling out at my slightest movement from a dark nook, a ball of lust, maybe that. Not order, butanticipation, a clock-spring, stubborn ember, always a phoenix. [1] What is the relevance of Enis Baturs poem Ars Poetica in this context? Why are the connotations loaded in these lines related to the scope of this study? Is it because Batur describes the art of poetry through this poem which is also known to be his autobiographical poem so profoundly? Or is it because the binary oppositions he deconstructs and the land of terra incognita he poses in the form of poetry, associates the deconstructionalist approach to translation? Maybe because it succeeds in doing them both, leaving a big

1 Gke Metin is with Ya ar University, gokce.metin@yasar.edu.tr)

zmir, Turkey (e-mail:

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Orhan Velis poem Olsun Diye, with its four translations will be discussed, there will be questions left unanswered. II. MEANING IN DECONSTRUCTION Though discussing poetry, poetry translation and deconstruction in their interrelatedness is necessary in order to be able to come up with tenable questions in this paper, it seems important to discuss meaning in deconstruction, referring to the ideas of two important names, Walter Benjamin, in his relation to the deconstructionalist approach to translation and Jacques Derrida, as a deconstructionalist. This discussion may help the clarification to a certain extent of what deconstructionalism is not, if not what it is. We may not call him a deconstructionalist, but Walter Benjamin is probably the mostly quoted intellectual by the deconstructionalists with his article Die Aufgabe des bersetzers, the translation of which appears in The Translation Studies Reader as The Task of the Translator. Carol Jacobs, in her article entitled The Monstrosity of Translation asserts that: Die Aufgabe des bersetzers dislocates definitions rather than establishing them becauseits concern is not the readers comprehension, nor is its essence communication.[3] Likewise, what she understands from the idea of pure language, which Benjamin defines as the totality of the intentions of languages supplementing each other [ 4 ] is that what is meant can not be found in a single word or phrase but in the mutual differentiation of the various manners of meaning [3]. Does Benjamin really understand and describe meaning in the way that Jacobs interprets it? What does Jacobs mean by the mutual differentiation of the various manners of meaning? In The Task of the Translator Benjamin asserts that: No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listenerFor what does a literary work say? Very little to those who understand it. Its essential quality is not statement or the imparting of information. Yet any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information- hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. But do we not generally regard as the essential substance of a literary work what it contains in addition to information- as even a poor translator will admit- the unfathomable, the mysterious, the poetic something that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet? [4]

A reading of Benjamin may show that he does not believe in the transmission of meaning -which he describes as what a literary work says- neither in literature nor in any form of art. Besides, he does not attach importance to the transmission of information, which he says is the only thing transmittable, a hallmark of bad translations. It is not transmission but reproduction which Benjamin thinks is necessary for translation. What he calls the essential substances of a literary work, i.e. unfathomable, the mysterious, the poetic something which associates what Jacobs also refers to in the phrase the mutual differentiation of the various manners of meaning, [3] is a phase he states, a translator may reach only if s/he is a poet. This seems to be more than a praise of poetry, poets or poet-translators. Can it not be read as the equation of poetry as the highest form of literary art with translation then? Is not translation, in Benjamins terms, nothing but an art, aiming at that which is unreachable but should be attempted to reach, a mystery that should be suffered to reveal, not because it is known that there will be a revelation, but because producing a translation is aiming to reach the pure language, the mysterious underneath the reciprocal relationship of languages? Setting out from this idea, it may also be understood why translatability is an essential quality of certain works [4] , only great works of art may have an afterlife, a translation, a given because they are high art. Derrida, one of the most influential and controversial of late twentieth-century thinkers and the theorist to initiate the form of thought called deconstruction, interprets The Task of the Translator in his article Des Tours de Babel. Referring to Benjamins essay, he asserts that: since to complete or complement does not amount to the summation of any worldly totality, the value of harmony suits this adjustment and what can here be called the accord of tongues. This accord lets the pure language, and the being-language of language, resonate, announcing it rather than presenting it. As long as this accord does not take place, the pure language remains hidden, concealed (verborgen), immured in the nocturnal intimacy of the core. Only a translation can make it emerge. [5] As it may also be seen in Derridas interpretation of The Task of the Translator, for Benjamin there is a shared secrecy, a common meaning underneath the reciprocal relationship of languages and only a real translation may reveal this secrecy- this hidden meaning. The real translation is only possible when the source text is high art, i.e. a text worth and eligible for the translators effort. Derrida relates the task in The Task of the Translator to the condemnation of the Shemites to translation in Des Tours de Babel. The translator is cursed because translation becomes law, duty and debt, but the debt one

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can no longer discharge. [5] Nevertheless, though his article is entitled The Task of the Translator, it seems that there is a focus on the quality of the source text at the expense of ignoring the talent of the translator in Benjamins approach. The source text needs the target text to survive which makes the translator a mediator. It may be here where Benjamin and Derrida part, for whereas Benjamin mostly seems to focus on the quality of the source text and relate the accessibility of the meaning underneath the pure language to the quality of the source text, Derrida underpins the indefinable, indeterminable meaning and the translators futile but honorable effort to respect the verbal quantity as a quantity of words, each of which is an irreducible body, the indivisible unity of an acoustic form that incorporates or signifies the indivisible unity of a meaning or concept. [6] Just when God in the action of his anger deconstructs the tower of Babel and in doing this annuls the gift of tongues, or at least embroils it, sows confusion among his sons and poisons the present [5] he erases any possibility of a definable, determinable meaning. This, he does, through objecting to their will of understanding each other, condemning them to translation, to something both necessary and impossible for he at the same time imposes and forbids translation. [5] Does not the anger of God at man who wants to ease the route to meaning and his deconstructing the tower of Babel also determine the faith -the damnation- the condemnation of translation to the uncertainty of meaning? How would you translate a signature? asks Derrida. And how would you refrain, whether it be Yahweh, Babel, Benjamin when he signs right next to his last word? [5] The answer is uncertainty, as we can also see in Venutis interpretation of Derrida: If meaning is an effect of relationships and differences along a potentially endless chain of signifiers-polysemous, intertextual, subject to infinite linkages- then meaning is always differential and deferred, never present as an original unity, always already a site of proliferating possibilities that can be activated in diverse ways by the receivers of an utterance, and that therefore exceed the control of individual users. [7] Another article by Derrida is What is a Relevant Translation? As a relevant translation is what Derrida calls the best translation possible, [6] i.e. something inevitably lacking, it also comprises in its answer the impossibility of concretizing meaning. In Derridas words: a relevant translation is assumed, rightly or wrongly, to be better than a translation that is not

relevant. A relevant translation is held, rightly or wrongly, to be the best translation possible. [6] (italics mine) Likewise, Shylocks tragic end in The Merchant of Venice, which Derrida assigns to because everything in the play can be retranslated into the code of translation and as a problem of translation [6] may be read as the tragedy of his attempt to concretize meaning in the way he wants to. Portia asks Shylock- the Jew to forgive Antonio, but he refuses to understand. He uses his oath and the bond to mask his unwillingness to be conscientious, he chooses the easy way, like the Shemites do, when building a tower so that they could live as one. The punishment of Shylock, much like the punishment of the Shemites is the punishment of the attempt to homogenize meaning, either by imprisoning it in a tower or in an oath. The mercy Shylock lacks in The Merchant of Venice, is the mercy the Shemites lack for tongues other than theirs or the travail [6] they are unwilling to experience to understand what the other means. Shylock wants justice and he wants it realized without reservation. Nevertheless, no justice is easy when it is for all. Justice preserves its own taste, its own meaning, but this very taste is better when it is seasoned or relev by mercy. [6] says Derrida. In this, he objects to the classical sense of translation where there is a supposition that meaning can be transferred from one language to another. Kathleen Davis, in her interpretation of Derrida in Deconstruction and Translation, skillfully summarizes most of what is mentioned here about Derrida: In order to exist as meaningful events, texts must carry within themselves traces of previous texts, and are, therefore, acts of citation. The source text for a translation is already a site of multiple meanings and intertexual crossings, and is only accessible through an act of reading that is in itself a translation()deconstruction,()rejects the idea that meaning is before or beyond language, and can thus be safely, or cleanly (properly) transferred from one linguistic system to another()Derrida does not turn from observing the failure of the theory of meaning transfer to providing a new set of recommendations on how to translate. Rather, he asks: just how do we produce meaning, and what is it about this process that at the same time imposes the limit and the possibility of translation? [8] III.MEANING IN POETRY AND POETRY TRANSLATION In the introduction part, the aim was to clarify the point in writing this paper, exemplifying the deconstruction in poetry and poetry in deconstruction and in the first part entitled Meaning in Deconstruction, a discussion of the viewpoints of two unique intellectual-theorists on meaning in relation to

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deconstruction was aimed at. They were both attempts to contribute to a holistic understanding of meaning in deconstruction, poetry and translation, like this part where meaning in poetry and poetry translation will be discussed. Not surprisingly, a most sublime commentary on poetry,which is decidedly the most sublime of all literature, comes from Jacques Derrida. In Derridas words: I am a dictation, pronounces poetry, learn me by heart, copy me down, guard and keep me, look out for me, look at me, dictated dictation, right before your eyes: soundtrack, wake, trail of light, photograph of the feast in mourningIt sees itself, the response, dictated to be poetic, by being poetic. And for that reason, it is obliged to address itself to someone, singularly to you but as if to the being lost in anonymity, between city and nature, an imparted secret, at once public and private, absolutely one and the other, absolved from within and from without, neither one nor the other, the animal thrown onto the road, absolute, solitary, rolled up in a ball, next to (it)self. [9] What can one do but only go after tricky traces supposing there is a meaning hidden somewhere when poetry- once public and private, neither one nor the other seems to be a realm so hard to penetrate into? Do these thoughts on poetry deem the idea of studying poems in patterns irrelevant because they are a deconstructionalists? If Salh Birsels views on poetry in her book iirin lkeleri are considered, it may be seen that this is not the case. In his words, art, for centuries, has tried to answer some questions. However, art today, poetry today, is a question on its own essence. [10] According to him, poem is a form among forms, it is not the most mature form, and poet is a wo/man who has new tastes. [10] Likewise, for another deconstructionalist, Paul de Man,it is written that: For De Man deconstruction was not a critical method applied to literary texts from the outside. It was a constitutive fact of literature itself. The poetic text is the most advanced and refined form of deconstruction because it simultaneously asserts and denies the authority of its rhetorical mode. [11] De Man likens the originating of poetic language to the originating of flowers. Just as flowers rise out of the earth without the assistance of imitation or analogy and for that, they are totally defined by their identity, the poetic word strives to banish all metaphor, to become entirely literal. [11] With this comparison, what is written about Paul de Man, i.e. that he thinks that the poetic text is the most advanced and refined form of deconstruction may have been

affirmed. Yet, it also seems important to note a clear distinction he makes between word and poetic word. In his terms, unlike words (italics mine) which originate like something else (like flowers), flowers originate like themselves. [11] De Man does not only raise his hat to the poetic word as an entity, but also strengthens the idea of deconstruction in poetry by making a distinction between the word and the poetic word. Davis explains Derridas interest in translation as a deconstructionalist, in a way that may help us form the connection between translation, deconstruction and poetry. According to Davis: The effacement of essentialism is one reason why translation is so important to Derrida, who as a philosopher continually questions the metaphysics of presence upon which Western philosophy has traditionally relied. [8] Can it not be asserted then, that the effacement of essentialism which may be seen as the motto of the deconstructionalist form of thought and which Derrida aims to reflect on translation is also the motto of poetry? Considering Salh Birsels argument that poetry today, is a question on its own essence, [10] this idea seems to be relevant. Yet, assuming that poetry is deconstructed by nature, how is poetry translation related to meaning? If there is no identified meaning in poetry, can it be possible to attain this meaning through translation? Can it be claimed that a meaning is not transferred? And if there is a meaning, which meaning is it? Is it the meaning the author aims to give, the meaning that he thinks he gives after reading the work he completed or the meaning one thinks s/he gets from what one reads when it may actually be something quite different? David Connoly, in his article Poetry Translation, claims that the core of the poem can not be reproduced because the message of a poem is implicit [12]. He mentions that people talk about translation as the art of the impossible and also describes poetry translation as a special case within literary translation which is highly demanding and therefore nearly impossible. Nevertheless, he also quotes from William Transk who exclaims impossible, of course, thats why I do it [12] and from Nabokov, who adds an irony to this impossibility. Nabokov, whom he asserts is a firm believer in the impossibility of poetic translation exclaims: I want translations with 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. [12] The irony in this exclamation, reminds one of one of Derridas comments. In What is a Relevant Translation? Derrida asserts that:

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If you give someone who is competent an entire book, filled with translators notes, in order to explain everything that a phrase of two or three words can mean in its particular formthere is really no reason, in principle, for him to fail to render without any remainder- the intentions, meaning, denotations, connotations and semantic overdeterminations, the formal effects of what is called the original. [6] Though Nabokov refers to poetry translation and Derrida translation in general, they obviously give tongue to the same dilemma: the necessity and the impossibility of translation. The alternative translations of poetry, ironically proposed by Derrida and Nabokov, are of course invalid, because as Derrida states when referring to poetry translation: in the rigorous sense conferred on it over several centuries by a long and complex history in a given cultural situation, the translation must be quantitatively equivalent to the original, apart from any paraphrase, explicitation, analysis and the like. [6] What Derrida and Nabokov want to stress through their ironic alternative translations is not only the complexity but also the difficulty of the deed and the suffering translator necessary to do an almost impossible - the most possible translation. Again Derrida, addressing both the expert scholars and accomplished professionals [6] expresses his admiration for these travail ing translators in the words: How dare one speak translation before you who, in your vigilant awareness of the immense stakes -and not only the fate of literature- make this sublime and impossible task your desire, your anxiety, your travail, your knowledge and your knowing skill? [6]

The creation of poetry is one of the most intense expressions of freedom. It is not unusual for poets to demand the same freedom for translation that they demand for their original creativityJackson Mathewsobserved to translate a poem whole is to compose another poemit will have a life of its own which is the voice of the translator. [14] Though these quotations seem to be valid in their relation to Derridas praise of the suffering translator, it is highly probable that if Rexroth and Leighton claimed to be deconstructionalists, Arrojo would criticize them for the same reason she criticizes Venuti, in her article The Death of the Author and the Limits of the Translators Visibility. [15] Rexroth sees the translator as an advocate and Leighton asserts that the other poem composed through translation will have a life of its own which is the voice of the translator. However, when the author is deconstructed and neither the reader nor the translator as reader is omnipotent, there is nothing but the words -temporary and relative- kingdom. Granted, the translator is -and should be- free from the source text so as to realize the relevant translation Derrida mentions [6] but this is not a costless and unconditional freedom and the translators advocacy or voice, can not be identified and named so easily in the deconstructionalist approach to translation. In Arrojos words: If the interference of interpretation is not exactly an option but rather the inevitable consequence of the deconstruction of absolute originality, as well as the mark of any relationship between subjects, we will also have to accept the fact that the translators options and interpretations are not simply present in the translated text, nor objectively recoverable by its readers and critics. [15] In this play of interferences Arrojo describes as the inevitable consequence of the deconstruction of absolute originality, can one assert that any meaning one thinks s/he deduces from what s/he reads may be the meaning the author or the translator aims to give with what s/he writes or translates? If the interferences of interpretation never end, how shall we interpret and discuss meaning? These are some of the questions aimed to be discussed in relation to this critical analysis, and quest for the meaning in the deconstructionalist approach to poetry translation. IV. ORHAN VEL KANIK AND HIS POETRY Orhan Veli Kank, a touchstone in Turkish poetry, will serve as a means for us to think upon deconstructuralism, poetry and translation in their interrelatedness. His poem Olsun Diye, written in 1937 [16], -being very typical of his simple style, which is a characteristic of his poetry- and its

So what can poetry translators do but defend their freedom, which should actually be a given, when the hardness of the task they are involved in and their travail is considered? In the two articles by the same name, The Poet as Translator published in different years and having different definitions of poetry, the same idea may be deduced, i.e. the freedom of the translator to tell what he wants to tell. Kenneth Rexroth, in 1961, writes: The ideal translator, as we all know well, is not engaged in matching the words of a text with the words of his own language. He is hardly even a proxy, but rather an all out advocate. [13] Likewise, Lauren G. Leighton, three decades later, in 1991, writes:

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four translations will be the works analyzed in -their relation to- deconstruction. Orhan Veli, who died at the age of 36 as one of the leading figures of Turkish poetry, tells his life story in the words: I was born in in 1914. I was scared of frogs at the age of 14. I was greatly interested in reading at the age of 9, and writing at 10. I was acquainted with Oktay Rfat at 13 and Melih Cevdet Anday at 16. I went to the bar at 17. I started drinking raki at 18. After 19, begins my age of idleness. After 20, I began to learn how to earn money and to suffer from extreme poverty. At 25 I had a car accident. I fell in love many times. I never got married, now I am a soldier. [17] (translation mine) Like the routes he took in the journey of his life, he also took many different routes in his journey with poetry, the beginning of which was first known to us with the publishing of his first poems in Varlk periodical in 1936. Oktay Rfat and Melih Cevdet Anday were his friends from high school and together they published the book Garip in 1941. In the preface of the book, they argued that meter and rhyme degenerated poetry. The stereotyped elements which served to the interests of the ruling classes had to be abandoned. Poetry had to address the majority. These ideals resulted in the increase in the subject matter of poems, the freeing of poetry from the oppression of the ruling class and its orientation towards public. The language of poetry was closer to spoken language and the life of the man on the street entered poetry. This was how the publishing of the book Garip resulted in the initiation of the Garip (Strange) movement in Turkish poetry, which would later be called Birinci Yeni and Orhan Veli gained his reputation as the poet who brought poetry to the public. [18] (translation mine) Murat Nemet-Nejat refers to Orhan Veli Kank as the lightning rod of Turkish poetry for -as he puts it- every ensuing movement in Turkish poetry starts with an attack on him [19]. He describes Orhan Veli as a poet who writes a minimalist poetry stripped of metaphors and he asserts that in him the link between eda and the rhythms of conversational Turkish becomes absolute. [19]. Also, when mentioning the period between 1921 and 1950, he maintains that Orhan Veli, together with Ahmet Ha im, Yahya Kemal Beyatl and Nazm Hikmet, established the backbone of eda in Turkish poetry. [19] But in what sense should the word eda be thought of in order to understand the correlation Nemet-Nejat finds between eda and Orhan Velis poetry? Several clues may be found in Nemet-Nejats work, which help us understand what he refers to by eda but two descriptions, one my Nemet-Nejat and the other by Talt Sait Halman, may offer an approximate definition of eda. Nemet-Nejat, in his definition of eda, interestingly refers to Walter Benjamin. In Nemet-Nejats words:

In The Task of the Translator, Walter Benjamin says that what gives a language translatability is its distance from the host language. Eda is this distance. [19] Besides, Talt Sait Halman, in his preface On EDA asserts that: The concept of eda is focal, not a fanciful title. Originally a Persian noun, it was employed in Ottoman Turkish in the sense of style or mannerism or even affectation. The eminent neoclassical poet Yahya Kemal Beyatl reintroduced it as a literary term signifying distinctive poetic style. For Nemet-Nejat, eda stands as the variegated essence of all the authentic hallmarks of Turkish culture and poetry. In an important sense, it is what makes Turkish poetic creativity both universal and uniquely original [20] Considering these descriptions, it may be understood why Nemet-Nejat regards Orhan Veli as a milestone and why he asserts that he established the backbone of eda in Turkish poetry. Orhan Veli, by forming a distance with the host language and by offering a distinctive poetic style, brings his very unique eda to Turkish poetry. Prof. Dr. Do an Aksan, in his book Cumhuriyet Dneminden Bugne rneklerle iir zmlemeleri, describes the properties of lyric poetry as the capability of the poet to transfer his genuine personal feelings, enthusiasms and images directly to the poem, a very sincere and convincing style of expression, devoid of any ornament or pose, candor, the ability to express too much by telling very little, and reaching the natural in spoken language by making use of the patterns in that language [21]. Here, he asserts that Orhan Velis poetry is lyric, like Yunus Emres, Pir Sultan Abdals, Cemal Sreyas and Bedri Rahmis poetry is. The properties of lyric poetry Aksan mentions, seem to be a detailed description of the word simplicity used by the critics and Nemet-Nejat when mentioning Orhan Velis poetry. This will also be a part of the discussion in this analysis at the end of which, hopefully, tenable questions will have been asked, in the quest for meaning in poetry in deconstruction and/or deconstruction in poetry. V. THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ORHAN VEL KANIKS POEM OLSUN D YE AND ITS FOUR TRANSLATIONS ST OLSUN D YE Btn gzel kadnlar zannetiler ki A k zerine yazd m her iir

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Kendileri iin yazlm tr. Bense daima zntsn ektim Onlar i olsun diye yazd m Bilmenin. [21]

Were meant for them. And I always felt badly About having written them Just for the hell of it. [19]

TT1 THE SHAMEFUL FEELINGS OF A BAD MAN translated by Jordan Davies

TT4 TO KEEP BUSY

The beautiful women thought Every last girl thought my love poems were about her. Ive always felt terrible that it was never the case! [19] The love poems I wrote Were about them, And I always suffered Knowing that I wrote them TT2 ECSTASY translated by Gary Sullivan A. Titles Every woman on earth assumes my love poems are about her. I wrote them all, it pains me to say, in exquisite fits of boredom. [19] When the titles The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man (TT1), Ecstasy (TT2), For the Hell of It (TT3) and To Keep Busy (TT4) are compared, it may be seen that whereas For the Hell of It and To Keep Busy, translated by two intellectual- translators, Talt Sait Halman and Murat NemetNejat, can be considered as literal and faithful renderings, The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man, and Ecstasy may associate quite different atmospheres in the target readers mind. Olsun Diye, is a phrase very typical to the spoken language like For the Hell of It and To Keep Busy. In this sense, Halman and Nemet-Nejat seem to have aimed at reflecting the spirit of the Garip movement, appreciable in the title Olsun Diye. Nevertheless, whereas the title of TT1, i.e. The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man associates a bestseller novel, an article or a film with psychoanalytic concerns, the first thing the title of TT2 Ecstasy brings to mind for any member of todays world, is probably the name for a drug. Yet, a reading of Murat Nemet-Nejats essay entitled The Idea of a Book, following Halmans foreword in Eda, leads one to think that the choice of the translator may be due to his To keep busy. [19]

TT3 FOR THE HELL OF IT translated by Talt Sait Halman

All the pretty women though The poems I wrote on love

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will to conceptualize mystic, oriental associations of Turkish culture in the target text. In Nemet-Nejats words: In the Turkish tradition the supreme Sufi act is weeping, the dissolution of the individual ego by suffering through love, loss, the liquid of tears. What is ecstatic (italics mine) in eda involves a blurring of identities, in pain, at the same time, moving from object to object, unifying them in a mental movement of yearning, dance of dispossession. Wine has to be bought; tears are for free. No gendered pronouns, no stable word order, Turkish is a tongue of radical melancholia. [19] One can also relate this to the initial dictionary meanings of the word ecstasy which are a feeling of extreme happiness and a state which you cannot see or hear what is happening around you, because you are having a powerful religious experience. [23] Consequently, it may be asserted that the titles T1 and T2 may associate more different worlds when compared to TT3 and TT4. Yet no two poem titles may be claimed to associate the same world either, when the indeterminable meaning in the deconstructionalist approach to translation is concerned. B. Structure and Punctuation Parallel to the difference in the associations of the titles of TT1 and TT2, we may observe that, they also noticeably differ from the source text in their structure. Whereas ST is made up of six lines, TT1 is a couplet -which draws attention in terms of its shape- and TT2 is composed of five lines. There are also differences in the punctuations of these two translations. Therefore, before passing to the analysis of TT3 and TT4, TT1 and TT2 will be looked at, in their structure and punctuation. Reading TT1 together with ST, makes one think that The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man could as well be read as a translation into a prose from the verse Olsun Diye, if it were not for the two lines it is composed of. TT1 seems to give even a stronger taste of spoken language than ST, because it is a poem of two sentences and two lines, i.e. a couplet. It may be asserted that it reads like it is quoted from a story or a novel and divided into two lines, when it could as well be left undivided. In this sense, though there is simplicity in the idea, the title and the language of ST, it still has more rhythm in it than TT1. However, the exclamation mark, omnipresent in ST and at the end of the second line of TT1, which goes Ive always felt terrible that it was never the case! may produce an effect other than simplicity. Maybe it adds a stronger sense of humor or a stronger will to surprise the reader than the lines Bense daima zntsn ektim/ Onlar i olsun diye yazd m/ Bilmenin.

TT2 is composed of five lines, again contrary to ST which is composed of six lines. The presence of two half-sentences in one line in the third line of TT2 which goes are about her. I wrote them all, disrupts the reading which seems to be omnipresent in the reading of ST. Besides, looking at the punctuation, one sees that whereas the two lines before the last line in TT2 end with commas, there are no commas in ST. The commas in the lines are about her. I wrote them all, / it pains me to say, before the last line in exquisite fits of boredom. in TT2, again seem to serve to disrupt the reading, causing the reader to take a breath, opposed to the effect in the last lines of ST, which are the lines we may compare and which read Bense daima zntsn ektim/ Onlar i olsun diye yazd m/ Bilmenin. When it comes to TT3 and TT4, it may be observed that they follow the same number of lines with ST. Halmans translation For the Hell of It, i.e. TT3, follows ST also in punctuation, therefore there seems to be a complete consistency with ST and TT3 in terms of structure and punctuation. However, the full stop at the end of the third line of ST which is Kendileri iin yazlm tr. is omnipresent in the third line of Nemet-Nejats translation To Keep Busy, i.e. TT4, which is Were about them,. The replacement of the full stop which indicates the end of the sentence with the comma which tells the reader to take a breath prevents the realization of a full consistency between TT4 and ST. C. Omissions and Additions The omissions and additions in TT1, posit abundant material for comparison. Concerning the translation of the title Olsun Diye, as The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man, it may be asserted that the title is wholly omitted and another title is added. In the translation of btn gzel kadnlar as every last girl (italics mine) gzel is omitted and last is added, whereas kadnlar is omitted so as to add girl. There seems to be a taste of delicacy in the phrase gzel kadnlar which is omitted in TT1. These omissions and additions may serve to the exaggeration of the sense of humor in the target text, which is given very naively and simply in the source text. In this sense, the coherence between the probable idea of the title The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man, and every last girl is worth considering. Because as the translator uses the phrase every last girl, he definitely refers to every girl who thought she would be the last in his life and/or every girl he thought would be the last girl in his life, but somehow did not, for he did not feel anything strong enough to write a love poem for anyone. As he confesses that his love poems were never meant for anyone, with a snobbish manner in his ironical pretension that he felt terrible for tricking- every last girl in his life, it becomes hard for one to take seriously that he ever felt ashamed or that he ever thought he was a bad man for what he did. Looking at the ST, one does not sense a snobbish manner in the confession that the man had to trick the women in his life. It may even be said

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that he feels guilty for what he had to do, a guilt which, it is probable that he tries to hide, but also knows that will be sensed anyway. Another omission in TT1 may be observed in the translation of Bense daima zntsn ektim/ Onlar i olsun diye yazd m/ Bilmenin. as Ive always felt terrible that it was never the case! The phrase onlar i olsun diye yazd m bilmenin is omitted and condensed in the phrase that it was never the case. Especially the omission of the verb bilmek here omits the voice of the conscience in the source text. Orhan Veli, in giving the last single line to Bilmenin seems to stress the conscience which disturbs the man, which gives him the feeling that he has done something wrong, whereas the phrase it was never the case associates indifference. It may also be asserted that, the omission of her with the translation of A k zerine yazd m her iir(ST) (italics mine) as my love poems (TT1) adds to this indifference, for it lessens the romanticism of the man who writes many love poems, evident in the presence of her in the phrase her iir, when it could as well be iirler. All in all, the choices of Davies in her translation The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man, i.e. TT1, seem to omit the naivety in ST and add more irony, snobbishness and indifference to TT1. When it comes to TT2, there are two omissions to be discussed. The first one is the omission of the title Olsun Diye and the addition of the title Ecstasy. Ecstasy, in its dictionary definition is kendinden geme, a r mutluluk whereas i olsun diye does not associate any process one goes through at the end of which one reaches somewhere. When one says s/he does something i olsun diye, it means s/he could as well not have done it, but s/he did it and what s/he did does not make much difference for him/her and/or for anyone else. Ecstasy, however, is a state of being beyond reason and self-control, a state of overwhelming emotion. When the title Olsun Diye is looked at contextually, taking the whole poem into consideration, it may be deduced that one should not take the phrase Olsun Diye literally, i.e. that the man does not really write the love poems he writes i olsun diye, for he has his conscience neccessary to feel sorry for the women he had to trick. However, this impression does not suffice to assert that there is a parallelism between Olsun Diye and Ecstasy. Another omission is the adjective gzel in the phrase btn gzel kadnlar, which may not be seen in the translation every woman on earth. (TT2) It is interesting to note that the two AngloAmerican translators, Jordan Davies and Garry Sullivan, make the same choice in omitting the adjective gzel in their translations, whereas Murat Nemet-Nejat and Talt Sait Halman do not.* Another point about TT2 in this part is the addition of the verb to say, in the translation of the phrases bense daima

zntsn ektim / onlar i olsun diye yazd m, as I wrote them all/ it pains me to say. Here, the man in the poem talks to the reader, in opposition to the man in ST. When the title of the poem, i.e. Ecstasy is considered in its dictionary definition and when we think of Nemet-Nejats interrelating Sufism and ecstasy in the words which reads, the supreme Sufi act is weeping, the dissolution of the individual ego by suffering through love, loss, the liquid of tears. What is ecstatic in eda involves a blurring of identities, in pain, at the same time, moving from object to object [19] We may presume that the man in the poem unbosoms his heart, reveals his naked heart in front of the reader, in a state of unconsciousness. Could the omission of the word bilmenin from TT2 be interpreted as a consequence of this unconsciousness in this context, the omnipresence of which was interpreted as the omission of conscience from TT1? Considering TT3 and TT4, they share a common omission with TT1, due to the translation of A k zerine yazd m her iir (ST) as The poems I wrote on love (TT3) by Halman and The love poems I wrote (TT4) by Nemet-Nejat. As can be seen in the quotations, the adverb her -either because it is disregarded or overlooked- is omitted in Halmans and Nemet-Nejats translations. * Should one interpret this as the inclination of AngloAmerican poetry translators to write love poems to women only if they are beautiful or their belief that it does not matter whether the women are beautiful or not? Topic of another discussion. When discussing Daviess translation The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man the idea was that the omission of her from the phrase a k zerine yazd m her iir adds to the indifference in the poem, an effect which the translator was thought to have aimed at, in consistency with his general choices. However, it is hard to decide about how to interpret Halmans and Nemet-Nejats choice to omit her. Can not we relate this difference in the potency of interpretation to Venutis interpretation of Derrida, where he asserts that meaning is always differential and deferred, never present as an original unity, always already a site of proliferating possibilities? [7] The last point is related to an omission in TT4. The word bilmenin, which is given in TT4, is disregarded or overlooked with the translation of Onlar i olsun diye yazd m/ Bilmenin. as About having written them/ Just for the hell of it. in TT3, like it was in TT1 and TT2. Here, the omission of bilmenin -the lack of which, it was argued, may suggest the omnipresence of conscience for TT1 and contribute to the state of unconsciousness for TT2- and the

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omission of her, in the translation of a k zerine yazd m her iir (italics mine) as the poems I wrote on love could be interpreted together as the inclination of the poet to wholly disregard conscience and/or delicacy, but it would be overinterpretation if we look at the poem in its entirety. D. Lexical Choices* and Discourse It may be asserted that the most characteristic property of Orhan Velis poem Olsun Diye, is the simplicity in its idea and language, parallel to the idea of the Garip movement, the members of which argued that the language of poetry should be closer to spoken language and the man on the street. In this part of the analysis, how the lexical choices in TT1, TT2, TT3 and TT4 associate or differ from the lexical choices in ST and their effects on the discourse in ST and the TTs will be looked at. Considering the differences between ST and TT1, the first lexical choice that can be noted is the one between thought and zannettiler ki in the translation of Btn gzel kadnlar zannettiler ki as Every last girl thought. The verb zannetmek in the phrase zannettiler ki has denotations like suppose, imagine which could be choices more related to the verb zannetmek in ST than the verb to think which mostly brings to mind its denotation having a belief or opinion about something. *All the definitions that will be given in this part will be quoted from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English and Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary. As for the translation of daima zntsn ektim as Ive always felt terrible (italics mine), the verb zntsn ekmek seems to be much closer to feeling unhappy about something than feeling terrible, when we consider the denotations of the word terrible like extremely severe in a way that causes harm or damage and making you feel afraid or shocked. These choices, together with the omission of the title Olsun Diye and the adittion of the title The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man, seem to reflect a change of discourse, due to a change towards a more derisive humor, a stronger feeling of indifference towards women. As for TT2, the first change in discourse which attracts the attention stems not from a lexical choice but from a change in the tense. As it may be observed in the translation of Btn gzel kadnlar zannettiler ki/ A k zerine yazd m her iir/ Kendileri iin yazlm tr. as Every woman on earth assumes/ my love poems/ are about her. whereas in ST, the writing of the poems and the assumptions of women belong to the past, in TT2 it is not clear whether the man still writes poems or not. Besides, the women definitely still assume that the love poems are written for them. Per contra, looking at the rest of the poem in TT2, it may be observed that it is a translation into past tense as I wrote them all/ it pains me to say, / in exquisite fits of boredom. When the change in the

tense is thought together with the disorder in the structure of the poem which disrupts the reading and which was noted in the part Structure and Punctuation, these differences in tense and structure may be interpreted as an attempt to reflect the feeling of unawareness, unconsciousness in the state of ecstasy, which is the title of the poem. In this respect, the choice of the word exquisite in the translation of Onlar i olsun diye yazd m as in exquisite fits of boredom in TT2, may be interpreted in relation to this extreme state of mind, this ecstasy, for the adjective exquisite gives the meaning felt very strongly when it comes before a noun. All in all, it may be asserted that in TT2, the naive simplicity in the confession of the man in Olsun Diye, i.e. ST, seems to be converted into a state of unconsciousness, a disorderliness and unawareness in Ecstasy, i.e. TT2, which reflects a change in the discourse. There is not much to comment on the lexical choices and discourse of either TT3 or TT4. It may only be noted that Halman chooses to translate Bense daima zntsn ektim, i.e. line four in ST, as And I always felt badly whereas Nemet-Nejat translates this line as And I always suffered. The verb to suffer has different denotations among which are to experience physical or mental pain, and to be in a situation that makes things very difficult for you but it seems to associate a feeling stronger than the verb zntsn ekmek anyway. In this sense, if it is considered that the man in the poem is not serious about his suffering, as he wrote them to keep busy, we may say that this adds more irony to TT3, than the irony the verb zntsn ektim adds to ST. VI. DISCUSSION AND/OR CONCLUSION(S) Raymond Van den Broeck, in his article Translation Theory After Deconstruction, refers to Derridas La pharmacie de Platon in the words: What philosophical discourse cannot master, he says, is the word that means two things at the same time and is therefore untranslatable into another language. For, either we translate pharmakon as poison or as remedy, the former relating to illness, the latter to health; and since the translator will have to choose between remedy and poison, in other words between life and death, either decision involves a substantial loss of meaning. [4] Where is the meaning to be found and replaced by another meaning? How is meaning produced and reproduced? The deconstructionalist form of thought acknowledges the impossibility of giving exact answers to these questions, if it does not deem them totally unnecessary, for as it may be seen in the dilemma of having to choose between poison and remedy, deconstruction rejects the idea that meaning is before or beyond language and thus can be safely transferred from one linguistic system to another [8]

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If one accepts that language is beyond meaning, De Mans argument that the poetic text is the most refined form of deconstruction [11] becomes tenable, for poetry, decidedly, is where language is used in its highest potential. To be more specific, if what is meant by language also comprises the infinite possibilities of meaning, which will naturally be beyond a single meaning, poetry will surely be in deconstruction for it is language in its most sublime form. In this paper, where the aim was to discuss deconstruction, poetry and poetry translation in deconstruction in their interrelatedness and in their relation to meaning, the question was, If the interferences of interpretation never end, how shall we interpret and discuss meaning? Maybe the answer is that, one can only discuss meaning in its infinite possibilities of interpretation and only talk about possibilities as far as meaning is concerned, just like it is for meaning in deconstruction, poetry and poetry translation. Going back to the idea of deconstruction in poetry and poetry in deconstruction, i.e. deconstruction which is with and without poetry as a part of existence, it surely is not the deconstruction which deems the meaning in poetry unattainable but the deconstruction which already is and always there, for there was not ever and will never be the meaning to attain neither in poetry nor in deconstruction. Does not Derrida -also- refer to the same uncertainty of meaning, the same blurriness inherent in the observable, when he defines poetry as photograph of the feast in the mourning ? [9] Does not Paul De Man tell the same thing, when he likens the originating of poetry to the originating of flowers which unlike words- originate like themselves [11] ? And does not Birsel, when he says Art today, poetry today is a question on its own essence? [10] Granted, meaning may not be identified, but if this is the case, i.e. if there is no identified meaning in poetry, can it be possible to attain this meaning through translation? And if there is a meaning, which meaning is it? were the questions asked in this discussion. Here, one should go back to Connoly, who asserted that the core of the poem can not be reproduced because the message of a poem is implicit. [12] Does not the deconstruction in poetry actually mean the deconstruction in poetry translation, for translation and deconstruction in their interrelatedness is already in poetry, in the infinite possibilities of meaning, the intralingual translations inherent in poetry? I think this critical analysis served to show the deconstruction in both poetry and poetry translation, in the infinite possibilities of interpretation and meaning in the ST and the TTs, though it had to be limited with the scope of this paper and therefore interpretations to a certain extent.

A closer look at the deconstruction in poetry and poetry translation and going through some discussions in this critical analysis may first necessitate looking at the titles again. Here, the interpretation of the titles The Shameful Feelings of a Bad Man and Ecstasy as being more different than the titles For the Hell of It and To Keep Busy will be deconstructed. How can one decide about what is more or less different? What is referred to in this assertion? How can the possibility be ignored that the word hell for instance in the phrase For the Hell of It may take a reader much further than the title of ST than the word Ecstasy does? For the word Ecstasy, it was asserted that the first thing it probably brings to mind for any member of todays culture is the name for a drug. Probable for whom and in reference to what was this assertion made? Likewise, can it be anything other than a temporary illusion, when the omission of the word bilmenin from TT1 is interpreted as the omission of conscience and from TT2 as a part of the state of unconsciousness? What is it in the source and the target texts which make one believe in the relevance of this assertion? Can this relevance be justified or proved? In reference to what may it be proved? In this discussion, Prof. Dr. Do an Aksan, who defines lyric poetry as the capability of the poet to transfer his genuine personal feelings, enthusiasms and images directly to the poem, a very sincere and convincing style of expression, devoid of any ornament or pose, candor, the ability to express too much by telling very little, and reaching the natural in spoken language by making use of the patterns in that language [21] was also referred to. Aksan asserts that Orhan Velis poetry is lyrical, in parallelism with the Garip movement he is an initiator of. But if poetry is language and language is the possibilities of interpretation, can it be classified according to whether it reflects the genuine personal feelings, whether it is convincing in its style and expression or whether it reaches the natural in spoken language or not? And if it can not be classified this way, how can it be asserted that a poem or that its translation is lyrical? Ludwig Wittgenstein, in one of his notes which constitute his book Zettel asks: How is it that we are forced to think of a complete list of rules for the usage of a word? What do we mean by a complete list of rules for the playing of a chess piece in chess? Do not we come up with disputable cases for which we may not decide with a normal list of rules all the time? [25] (translation mine) The meaning rejects and recreates itself every time, to unite with form once again, as an extension of the infinite possibilities of interpretation in language, as a relevance of the eternal rivalry between and the unity of the possible and

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the impossible, the translatable and the untranslatable in poetry. Maybe one should go back to Ars Poetica to see the beginning in the end and/or the end in the beginning: . Poetry is neither order nor chaos. It may only be a whimsical focal point that lies Between two extremes to trip up time. A snare, perhaps, on the threshold of rare sounds, a question lying with the curl of a bell, in the throat, way down at gut-point, rolling out at my slightest movement from a dark nook, a ball of lust, maybe that. Not order, butanticipation, a clock-spring, stubborn ember, always a phoenix. [1]

[18] Atatrk Enstits. (2001). Kim Kimdir: Orhan Veli Kank.Available at:http://www.ata.boun.edu.tr/chronology/kim_kimdir/orhan veli_kanik.htm. [19] Nemet-Nejat, Murat. (ed.) (2004). Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry. New Jersey: Talisman House, 4-12, 79-82. [20] Halman, Talt Sait. (2004). Preface: On Eda. Murat Nemet-Nejat (ed.) Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry. New Jersey: Talisman House, 2, 1-3. [21] Aksan, Do an. (2003) Cumhuriyet Dneminden Bugne rneklerle iir zmlemeleri. stanbul: Bilgi, 26. [22] Kank, Orhan Veli. (2002). Orhan Veli: Btn iirleri. stanbul: Adam, 189. [23] Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.(1995). UK: Longman Group Limited, 436. [24] Broeck, Raymond van den.(1990). Translation Theory after Deconstruction, Patrick Nigel Chaffey, Antin Fougner Rydning and Solveig Schult Ulriksen (eds.) Translation Theory in Scandinavia, Proceedings from the Scandinavian Symposium on Translation Theory (SSOTT III) Oslo, 266-286. [25] Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (2004). Zettel. Translated by Do an ahiner. stanbul: Nisan, 104.

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[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Batur, Enis. (2006). Ars Poetica. Saliha Paker (ed.) Ash Divan. Selected Poems of Enis Batur. New Jersey: Talisman House, 83. Salman, Yurdanur. (2002). evirmen Ne Demektir? A r Bir Soruya Hafif Bir Yant. Adam Sanat, 200, 22-25. Jacobs, Carol. (1975). The Monstrosity of Translation, MLN. Volume 90. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 755-766. Benjamin, Walter. (2000). The Task of the Translator. Lawrence Venuti (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 15-25. Derrida, Jacques. (1985). Des Tours de Babel. Joseph F. Graham (ed.) Difference in Translation. London: Cornell University, 165-207. Derrida, Jacques. (2001). What is a Relevant Translation? Critical Inquiry, 27, 169-200. Venuti, Lawrence. (2003). Translating Derrida on Translation: Relevance and Disciplinary Resistance, The Yale Journal of Criticism,16, (2), 237. Davis, Kathleen. (2001). Deconstruction and Translation. UK: St. Jerome. Derrida, Jacques. (1988). Che cos la poesia? Cook, Jon. (ed.) Poetry in Theory. UK: Blackwell. 535, 533-537. Birsel, Salh. 2001. iirin lkeleri. stanbul: Adam, 16. De Man, Paul. (2004). Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image. Cook, Jon. (ed.) Poetry in Theory. UK: Blackwell, 413-419. Connoly, David. (1998). PoetryTranslation. Lawrence Venuti (ed.) The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London; New York: Routledge, 170-176. Rexroth, Kenneth. (1961). The Poet as Translator. William Arrowsmith and Roger Shattuck (eds.) The Craft & Context of Translation. Austin: University of Texas, 22-37 Leighton, Lauren G. (1991). The Poet as Translator. Lauren G. Leighton (ed.) Two Worlds One Art: Literary Translation in Russia and America. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University, 151-178. Arrojo, Rosemary. (1995). The death of the Author and the Limits of the Translators Visibility. Mary Snell Hornby, Zuzana Jettmarova and Klaus Kaindl (eds.) Translation as Intercultural Communication. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 21-32. Kank, Orhan Veli. (1993). Orhan Veli: Btn iirleri. stanbul: Adam, 189. zsoy, M. eref. ( 2001). Her Bahar Biraz Daha A k. Available at: http://www.orhanveli.net/kaniksadigimbiri/herbahar.html

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