The Translator as Dramatist:On the Problems of Translating Dramatic Texts

Hana,; Ghani, Khalief

	The Translator as Dramatist:On the Problems of Translating Dramatic Texts
journal of the college of basic education
Article 1, Volume 15, Issue 65, 2010, Pages 153-167
Authors
; Khalief Ghani
Abstract
Despite the peculiar richness of the theatrical corpus since the emergence of Greek Tragedy as a dramatic genre in the 5th century B.C. (Case 1985:318), little effort has been made to developing the theatre studies as a well-defined academic discipline. Noteworthy, in this context, is the dominance of written-text analysis approach to theatre texts since Aristotle's The Poetics (Kier 1980: 5).This situation gives rise to two far-reaching results. The first is related to the commonly-held view of the supremacy of literary/written text over the other elements of the theatrical show. The second result is concerned with the impact such an attitude had on translating theatre. In this respect, Susan Bassnett notes that "of all types of literary translation, theatre is the most neglected area."(1991: 120)1 There is very little material on the special problems of translating dramatic works mainly because it has become common practice for the individual theatre translators to translate dramatic texts in the same way as prose texts (ibid.).However, theatre texts, as Bassnet asserts, can not be read, and hence, translated in the same way as the other prose texts. In fact, they "must be read differently…as something incomplete, rather than as a fully rounded unit, since it is only in performance that the full potential of the text is realized."(qtd. in Xu 2008: 8) Bassnett's affirmative statement of the incomleteness of theatre texts implies that the linguistic system is only one element among many to be considered in the process of translation. As a result, the problems of translating literary texts take on a new dimension of complexity with theatre translation (Bassnett 1991:132) since the translator is faced with a central problem: whether to translate the theatre text as a purely literary text, or to try to translate it in its function as one element in another, more complex system (ibid.: 120).In order to understand the reasons behind this seemingly unjustified negligence of dramatic texts translation, it is necessary, firstly; to know the meaning of drama as a literary genre.

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