On Translation and Rewriting

This essay argues that translations are shaped by the needs and expectations of the target culture, and given that aesthetic and cultural norms change over time, there is a constant need for retranslations. The creative translation work of classicists such as Anne Carson and Josephine Balmer serves to illustrate the divergency of translation practice where there is no reliable source version. Two examples further explore how ancient texts are reconfigured: Cieran Carson’s rending of the Irish epic The Tain and Sioned Davies’s version of the Welsh epic The Mabinogion. Translators today have more freedom to exercise their own creativity as we recognize the unreliability of source texts that have undergone countless changes over time.