비유적 언어의 번역에 관하여: 셰익스피어 소네트의 경우

초록

It is as hard to translate poetry as it is to translate music. It is particularly so with Shakespeare’s sonnets, as translators face double stumbling blocks: the first is the cultural barrier, and the second is the poet’s employment of bold and sophisticated figurative languages. To circumvent these barriers, translators in Korea―the majority of them Shakespearean scholars―tend to smooth out the rough edges of the original texts rather than on literal translation. Prioritizing the overall context over peculiar individual distinctions, those translators work to immediately satisfy potential readers by paraphrasing tricky metaphors, interpolating words through informative extrapolation, unraveling complicated analogies, and so forth. The relative obscurity of Shakespeare’s sonnets in Korea may have facilitated this tendency, causing translators to presuppose the necessity of enhancing the poetic responsiveness of potential readers by way of “reader-friendly translation.” However, as benign and inevitable those attempts may appear, they risk compromising the irresistible poetic beauty unique to Shakespeare’s compelling creative imagination. Literal translation harbors caveats that may perplex readers, but when done with prudence it can bring otherwise buried jewels to the surface, allowing a better appreciation of the Bard’s literary genius.

키워드