乔 直 汕头大学
O’Connell , George , Shantou University
原文Original
Sleep and Waking: the Erotics of Poetry and Translation
Not long ago I came across a current translation theory anthology and read some of its selections. While I confess I prefer literature, either original or translated, I was struck by the density of the theoretical prose, with its thickets of jargon and redundant circumlocution, far indeed from the work of actual literary translation. However, it was not just the tortuous rhetoric that held my attention, but certain theoretical assumptions. One theory, called Skopos, a Greek word originally meaning “watcher”, but turned by the theorist to his own purposes, actually suggests that art and literature are created almost exclusively by conscious intention, leaving little room for the live oscillations between conscious mind and unconscious impulse that lie at the heart of creative process. As proof that poetry is largely a deliberate activity, and hardly the fruit of inspiration, which he dismisses, the theorist cites Goethe’s confession that while making love, he sometimes found his fingers drumming out a metrical cadence on his lover’s back. I would like to believe he tells us this for precisely the opposite reason the theorist assumes. Goethe means to acknowledge a rhythmic inspiration so irresistible that it overpowered him even in the extremis of such circumstance. Its source, unknowable of course, was presumably not at the forefront of consciousness, but deeper, with its own rhythmic will, its own motive, its unbidden connection to larger, more improvisational or even archetypal forces.
Without the unconscious, there seems little likelihood of the poet escaping his or her own limitations, of coming upon some utterance of the previously unsayable, as Rilke does in The Duino Elegies. In the poetry of my own country, few voices address this conversation between conscious and unconscious forces more pointedly, more clearly than the great Theodore Roethke. His signature poem, a villanelle called “The Waking” (1953), opens with the following two stanzas, expressing his transits between the two worlds:
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Roethke means to tell us, fittingly enough through the strict and deliberate villanelle form, how indispensable what he calls “sleep”, that half-conscious loss of self and rational intention, has been to his own creative process. Note that this sleep is not simply surrender to some vague romantic dreaminess, but as the title underscores, a “waking”. The poet “wakes” to “sleep”, declaring his awareness is split, one half consciously alert enough to record and note what the other half offers up as imagination “dreams” its connections, its rhythms, its unexpected turns and associations. Through poetry, Roethke achieves the ritual metamorphosis of translating the personal into the universal, thereby enlarging our world.
Don’t the best translations enlarge our world, yet at the same time seduce us into a more intimate relation with the world beyond ourselves, with languages not our own, and with cultures we thought alien but now find surprisingly human? Just as creativity in the original language thrives on a healthy oscillation between conscious intention and subconscious impulse, between deliberately steering the language toward evocative accuracy and letting the words’ own pressures fill the sails, so the most successful translators are equally involved in such a fruitfully erotic relation with the poems they translate.
In short, I believe the time has come for Chinese universities to establish its own such programs, focusing less on translation theory than on the actual creative translation process, and exposure to the literature that nourishes it.
The time has come.
译文Translation
睡眠与苏醒——诗歌与翻译之交缠关系
不久前，我偶然看到一本当代翻译理论文集并读了其中一些文章。虽然我承认自己喜爱文学胜过理论，无论是本国的文学作品还是翻译的文学作品我都喜欢，我还是震惊于这些理论文章的晦涩难懂（density）。这些文章中充斥着层层叠叠的术语和冗繁迂回的说辞，与实际的文学翻译作品相差甚远。但是，引起我注意的不仅是那些含糊费解的修辞，同时还有一些理论假说或臆断。有一种理论叫“目的论”（Skopos），在希腊文中原意是“观察者”（watcher），但理论家为了自己的目的而改变了它的意思。这一理论认为，艺术和文学创作可以说完全出自明确的目的，而没有为有意识的心灵与无意识的冲动之间的相互震荡留下任何余地，即使这种相互震荡处于创作过程的核心。为了证明诗歌大多出自有意的创作行为而不是灵感的产物，这个理论家引用了歌德的告白。歌德坦言说，他有时在做爱的时候发现自己的手指会在爱人的背上有节奏地敲击。我以为，歌德告诉我们这些是出于与这位理论家的假定完全相反的原因。歌德想要坦承的是：韵律灵感是如此难以抗拒，即便在这种场合的最紧要时刻都能征服和控制他。灵感无法测知的源泉可能并不在意识的最前端，而是在更深处，有着自己的韵律意志和动机，自发地与更巨大、更即兴、更原始的力量紧密相连。
若没有无意识，诗人们几乎很难逃出他们自我的局限性，无法述说曾经不可言说的情感，里尔克的《杜伊诺哀歌》就是一个例证。在美国诗人中，很少有人像伟大的西奥多·罗特克那样如此直截了当地展现了意识与无意识之间的对话。在他的代表作十九行诗《苏醒》（1953）中，开始的这两节就清楚地表明了他如何在这两个世界之间穿行：
我醒来又睡着，我正在慢慢地醒来。
我在无所畏惧中感受自己的命运。
我通过前行来知晓自己的目的地。
我们通过感觉来思考。那儿有什么需要我们知晓的么？
我听见我的生命快乐起舞。
我醒来又睡着，我正在慢慢地醒来。
运用严谨而松缓的维拉内拉诗歌形式，罗特克想告诉我们，他称之为“睡眠”的这种半意识、丧失自我和理性意图的状态在其创作过程中是多么不可或缺。请注意：这种睡眠不是简单地坠入一些模糊的、浪漫的梦幻中，而是如标题所强调的是一种“苏醒”。诗人“醒来”就看见“睡眠”，声明他的意识是分裂的，一半意识足够清醒，能记录并注意到另一半意识所呈现的东西，仿佛想象在“梦想着”其连接、韵律、突转和关联。罗特克通过诗歌完成了宗教礼仪般的质变，将个人经历转译为普遍经历，并因此扩大了我们的世界。
最好的译作不也是这样么？它们扩大了我们的世界，但同时诱惑着我们去和我们身外的世界、我们的母语之外的语言、我们以为格格不入但后来很惊异地发现息息相通的异族文化建立更为亲密的关系。如果说，游移于有意识的目的和潜意识的冲动之间，往返在对词语之准确性的刻意追求和让词语自身散播的随意放任之间，可以使原作语言中的创造力勃然喷发。同样，最成功的译者也可以同他们翻译的诗歌建立这种富有成效的交缠关系。
简而言之，我相信已经到了中国大学建立自己的此类翻译项目的时候了。中国大学的翻译研究不应过多关注翻译理论，而应更多关注真正的、有创造力的翻译过程，并关注滋养了创造力的文学作品。
这个时刻已经到来。