Some Key Pitfalls in Literary Translation

Abstract

Literary translation, despite the numerous rewards it offers both to translators themselves and the humanity in general, is considered to be the most challenging type of translation. Research shows that numerous factors contribute to this state of affairs. The differences between the source and target language and culture surely account for a large portion of the challenges that arise in doing literary translation. In addition, literature abounds with diverse literary genres – the most predominant ones being prose, poetry and plays. Each of them features a set of specifc traits which when transferred into the target language need to be addressed with special deliberation. Nevertheless, a plethora of issues that literary translators grapple with are common to all three literary genres. These encompass translating the title, the culture-specifc terms, slang, expletives, subtext, style, etc. This paper is intended to shed some light on these common pitfalls that recur in translating diverse literary genres, and is intended to be of assistance to novice literary translators. What makes the study particularly valid and authentic is the fact that the points discussed are illustrated with instances of translation solutions extracted from empirical studies of Macedonian translations of literary works originally written in English.