The Factor of Author's Reputation in Retranslations: Edgar Allan Poe on the Turkish Literary Scene

Authors

  • ESRA BIRKAN-BAYDAN Marmara University, Istanbul

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21992/T9863Z

Keywords:

Translation, Edgar Allan Poe, Turkish, Textual Analysis, André Lefevere

Abstract

This paper investigates the validity of André Lefevere’s assumption that “a canonized author is translated more on his own terms (according to his own poetics) than on those of the receiving system” (2000: 237) through a case study of Edgar Allan Poe retranslations in the Turkish literary system. The first part of the paper includes extratextual analysis carried out according to Gérard Genette’s categorization of “metatexts” and “paratexts,” and a further category which includes the social media. Poe’s poetics and the poetics of the Turkish literary system, as well as Poe’s reception in the system are explored through extratextual analysis to determine whether Poe gained more canonicity or reputation. The extratextual analysis reveals the author’s increasing influence, reception and reputation in the Turkish literary system over a time span of almost ninety years. The second part of the paper presents the textual analysis of Poe’s two tales, “Hop-Frog” and “The Masque of the Red Death”, in eight translations published between 1928 and 2002. Textual analysis serves to reveal whether Poe was translated more according to his own poetics as he became more reputable in the target literary system. The paper concludes that factors other than reputation of an author have also a role to play in translating an author according to his own poetics.

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Author Biography

ESRA BIRKAN-BAYDAN, Marmara University, Istanbul

Esra Birkan-Baydan is assistant professor of Translation and Interpreting at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, where she teaches courses on translation theory, literary and commercial translation. Shas a BA and an MA in Translation Studies from Boğaziçi University, and a PhD in Translation Studies from Yıldız Technical University. The title of her published MA thesis is Ideology Unveiled: Islamist Retranslations of the Western Classics. The topic of her doctoral dissertation is translator training. Her paper on Islamist retranslations of the Western Classics has been accepted for publication in the forthcoming Tension, Tradition and Translation in Turkey by Benjamins. She translated scholarly articles by André Lefevere, Theo Hermans and Rosemary Arrojo. Her current research interests are interdisciplinary, ideology in translation, translator training, and literary translation. Esra Birkan-Baydan is also a literary translator. Some of her published translations include Vladimir Nabokov’s Mary, Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Tales of Unease, Damon Young’s Philosophy in the Garden.
Women In Translation

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Published

2015-06-15

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2015): Women in Translation

Section

ARTICLES

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