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TRANSLATOR'S
INTRODUCTION
by Mark Spitzer
"He
[Céline] said (in 1950) (in a newspaper interview in Paris) that
there were only two real writers in France at the time, himself and Jean
Genêt [sic]. He dismissed Genêt half-jokingly for the obvious
reason known to us all. Yet he was wise enough to recognize Genêt.
I feel that Genêt completed the tragedy of the French Queer Underworld
for Balzac, but in Rimbaud's terms, or rather under Rimbaud's terms, and
under Villon's critical eye (as Baudelaire watches from a distant balcony).
This investigation was something portly Bourgeois master Balzac could
never have dared to undertake... And I say Céline was right about
Genêt."
-Jack Kerouac.
When I first started translating the poetry of Genet, I just wanted to
know what he had to say. Then I found that the previous English translations
were full of obvious blunders, as well as translation liberties which
worked to inject the poems with qualities the originals never possessed.
In some cases, an overwhelming flowery flow was ascribed to the verse
-- in others, sexual detail was exaggerated by translators vying for a
more homo-pornographic tone than the originals ever included (for example,
the addition of extraneous cocks and superfluous sodomies). In other instances,
accuracy was sacrificed in order to maintain the rhyme-scheme. I objected
to this.
But then again, I objected to pretty much
everything at that time. I was a scraggly young expatriate living in Paris,
who identified myself as a poet. I found it ironic that Genet the novelist
and Genet the playwright were regarded with respect, whereas Genet the
poet was pretty much considered an awkward adolescent who couldn't find
a voice, so stole from others. I was convinced, however, that part of
this stigma had to do with the critical reception of the poems in English,
which had suffered due to clumsy translations. And since it was obvious
to me that Genet's use of metaphoric imagery was rich in the visionary
tradition of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, I felt that the poems had been unjustly
represented.
That's why I spent a decade translating
the poetry of Genet. At first my focus was on sound; I wanted to keep
the assonance, alliteration, and meter similar to the original. But the
more research I did, the more I began to lean toward a literal translation;
that is, a translation that took into account what the poet had to say,
rather than what sounded good in English. Still, I looked for ways to
work with multiple meanings while maintaining the music. In the process
of this, I opted for free verse and cut a lot of punctuation. Ultimately,
the line lengths were limited by the bi-lingual templates in the
following translations.
Still,
I wouldn't say these translations have reached their final evolution.
Right now, they're more finished than they've ever been, but that
doesn't mean they're written in stone. What they are written in is
hypertext, which affords me the luxury of making changes whenever I want
[the most recent revisions being January 2000].
But
back to Paris, where I worked with experts on Genet and the language,
as well as with original texts at the Bibliothèque Nationale and
the IMEC Archives. I was fortunate enough to meet Edmund White at that
time, who had just published Genet: A Biography in three different
languages. He assisted me on the first and second poem and gave me a copy
of a never-before-translated poem. He also wrote the foreword to my book
and advised me on cryptic argot.
The biggest challenge in translating Genet,
though, was making sense of his algebraic logic. Sometimes, the subject
was five lines from the verb, and other times, adjectives modified air.
Gender was also frequently distorted. Genet's fondness for archaic idioms,
ambiguous connections, and his employment of secret syntax was befuddling
as well.
For example, roses occupy a mysterious place
in the work of Genet; they're personified and sexualized, but never in
a way that's clear to the reader. Similarly, there's a recurring image
of a hanging foot that has continued to baffle scholars for decades.
Which
brings me to this point: anyone who claims to understand the ellusive
poetry of Genet is fooling himself, and maybe others. For instance, some
versions of "Un Chant d'amour" employ the word "col" (neck), whereas
other versions use the word "vol" (flight, or, by extension, flurry
or flock) in relation to doves. What the poet originally meant,
of course, is debatable -- and the poems are full of such moments.
Due
to such uncertainty, the French texts used here remain unedited, to preserve
the anomalies that past editors have attempted to clarify by correcting
through guesswork. Misprints and errors in the French texts are therefore
listed at the end of this collection.
I should also note that the poems translated
here are not the poems that have been translated in the past; rather,
they are rarely used texts, which I picked for their enigmatic errors
and intriguing typos which set them apart from the usually used versions
of the verse. I did this because of my appreciation for the more obscure
texts which often provide for a slightly different personality to the
poems, and other times raise questions that are not considered when working
with the texts translated by Steven Finch and others.
Concerning the Estate of Genet: They turned
out to be the most unreasonable humans I have ever dealt with. They made
promises they didn't keep regarding rights, they lied about posthumous
legal issues, and in the end, they cost me three good publishers who intended
to put my translations out world-wide. This led to agents and arbitrators arguing
for years, and finally a letter from the Estate, informing me that if
I had any respect for Genet, I would stop trying to obtain appropriate
authorization.
Well, guess what? Now it's the age of the
Internet, and your permission, Ms. Marston, is no longer necessary, since
under International Copyright Law the electronic publication of these
"interpretations after Genet" do not interfere with any
sales of any in-print versions of the poetry. Furthermore, you are the
one who lacks respect for Genet. Otherwise, these translations would have
been accessible years ago, instead of free of charge to everyone now,
and easily re-postable if your lawyers manage to get them taken down (after
much expense on your part, and a whole lot of negative publicity on your
intent to censor "intellectual property," I assure you).
That said, I'd like to thank Edmund White,
Professor Camille Naish, Professor Sam Gannon, Professor Alan Taylor,
Albert Dichy, Ian H. Magedera, Janine Cortell, Christine Eisen, Alfredo
Merosati, Julian Lord, Emanual Boetsch and Renaud O'Riley for assistance
on these translations. I'd also like to acknowledge the Bibliothèque
Nationale, the IMEC Archives, and the Special Collections at the University
of California (Berkeley) and Kent State, for providing access to their
resources. Special thanks also to Karl Orend, Thomas Christensen, Rex
Rose and Andrei Codrescu (who unknowingly and postmodernly influenced
the Berriganizing of these traductions in their final evolution via theories
of George Steiner). Other forms of assistance were provided by Joe Swanson,
Pete Sniegowski, Kent Maguire, Tony Dare, Kevin P.Q. Phelan, Majella O'Shea,
Stephanie Keho, the Mountain Gals, and the historic George Whitman of
Shakespeare and Company. But most of all, I am indebted to my friends
Armel and Mélina Cusin-Gogat, who not only spent hundreds of hours
in the translating process with me, but fed me as well. Wherever you are,
these translations are for you.
-
Mark Spitzer, 2002.
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