Madam, - In your Weekend Review of January 8th, Belinda McKeon touched on the practice whereby "translations" of foreign-language poetry turn out, on closer examination, to be merely "versions".
The apt headline of her article, "Whose lines are they anyway?", highlights the nub of the matter. As I understand it, the prevalent practice involves a translator who produces an English version of the original poem. This version, also referred to as a "crib", is then rewritten by someone who may have little or no knowledge of the source language. The result is a version of a version of the original which, in subsequent publication, is described as a "translation".
This is exactly what seems to have happened with regard to Eavan Boland's recently issued After Every War: Twentieth Century Women Poets. I agree with Eva Bourke (Weekend Review, January 15th) that this book should be billed as "versions from the German", rather than as "translations from the German". How can it be otherwise since Boland admits in her introduction to the book that she does not speak German?
In defence of this practice I have often heard it argued that the "crib" is only a rather mechanical version produced by a translator and that it is the subsequent treatment by a poet which is the more important part of the work. It is not necessary, this line goes, that the poet should have any knowledge of the source language. It is enough that he or she is a poet.
This argument has never made sense to me. Indeed, the catalogue of errors and misinterpretations which Bourke found in Boland's book should be enough to underline the dangers of relying on people who do not know the source language well enough to do justice to the original.
To reiterate Bourke's view (and mine): such books should be clearly labelled as "versions". Then those of us who like value for money would be able to ignore them and spend it on genuine translations.
After all, incorrect labelling which might mislead a purchaser is not admissible in other commercial areas. Why should bookselling be an exception? - Yours, etc.,
EAMONN LYNSKEY, Hillcrest, Lucan, Co Dublin.