Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 13 (2018), z. 3, s.

219–235
doi:10.4467/20843933ST.18.020.8963
www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Litteraria

PAULA BALDWIN LIND

Universidad de los Andes, Chile
e-mail: [email protected]

Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text,

Paratext, and the Challenges of Recreating Cultural
Meanings in Text and on Stage

Abs tr a c t
Translating a Shakespearean play into Spanish – whether that spoken in Spain or in Latin
America – constitutes a complex process, as most translators reckon that the semantic transfer
is especially challenging, not only because of the syntactic and linguistic differences between
the source and the target language, but also because the English text belongs to a context that
is geographically and culturally distant, especially in the case of Chile. In addition, due to the
fact that Shakespearean texts are scripts to be performed, translators need to consider theatri-
cal elements inherent in the dramatic text that go beyond the textual apparatus, and that may
complicate their work. Taking The Tempest, translated into Spanish by two Chilean scholars
in 2010, in this article I will argue that a successful translation of Shakespeare for the stage –
a text that goes from the inter-lingual re-writing of the text to a cultural re-interpretation that
speaks to a diversity of contemporary identities and audiences − should endeavour to be cul-
tural, spatial, and collaborative; that is to say, that the translator should have a deep understand-
ing of Elizabethan cultural elements that can be included in the translated text by means of
paratexts − precise, relevant, and explanatory linguistic and historical notes that may shed light
on directorial decisions once the play is performed, as well as consider the space where the play
will be staged, and develop a collaborative system of work with translators, directors, and ac-
tors during the whole process.

Keywords: Shakespeare, translation for the stage, cultural elements, The Tempest.

1. Preliminary ideas
Translating for the stage constitutes a complex process, as enunciating a script
does not only involve conveying the specific sense of words, but also the fact
that these words will be, according to Patrice Pavis, “presented by the actor in
220 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

a specific time and space, to an audience receiving both text and mise en scène”.1
In this brief statement, the critic points out the link between text and performance
that has been at the centre of theoretical debate on theatre translation for years.
Furthermore, Pavis considers translators as “mediators between two unknown
contexts of performance: the «original situation of enunciation» (which might be
historically or geographically distant), and the yet-to-be-devised mise en scène in
the target culture”.2
When Susan Bassnett started analysing the problems of translating for the
theatre in the 1980s, she argued that translators should recognize an “ideal per-
formance” in the source text, so as to decode and recode it in the target text.3
However, in her later research, she advocates a quite opposite approach to theatre
translation: “What is left for the translator to do is to engage specifically with
the signs of the text: to wrestle with the linguistic units, the speech rhythms, the
pauses and silences, the shifts of tone or of register, the problems of intonation
patterns: in short, the linguistic and paralinguistic aspects of the written text that
are decodable and reencodable”.4 To a certain extent, Bassnett leaves the task of
integrating text and performance signs to the director rather than to the translator,
or at least, leaves the translation/adaptation for the stage for a later stage.
In a similar way to that probably chosen by Shakespeare when writing his scripts,
the translator’s work consists, in part, in preparing the raw material for performance.
Textual translation is the first stage of a dynamic process of consecutive translations
and adaptations. Shakespeare, as playwright and poet, initiated the creative process
of engendering the text, and, as a director, was also present at the moment of the
further translation or adaptation for the stage. In Chile, translators usually submit
the first translation or raw material to a publishing house, and if this publication
is selected for performance, they are seldom present at the second phase, working
side by side with the theatre director and his/her company, unless they have been
commissioned to prepare a script for a company or theatre, as in the case of Pablo
Neruda and Nicanor Parra, who translated Romeo and Juliet5 and King Lear6 for

1
P. Pavis, Problems of Translation for the Stage: Interculturalism and Post-modern Theatre,
transl. L. Kruger, in: The Play out of Context: Transferring Plays from Culture to Culture, H. Scolnicov,
P. Holland (eds.), Cambridge 1989, p. 25.
2
Eadem, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, London 1992, p. 137.
3
S. Bassnett, An Introduction to Theatre Semiotics. Finding a New Language for the ‘Language’
of Theatre, “Theatre Quarterly” 1980, vol. 10, no. 38, p. 124.
4
Eadem, Still Trapped in the Labyrinth: Further Reflections on Translation and Theatre, in: Con-
structing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation, S. Bassnett, A. Lefevere (eds.), Clevedon 1998,
p. 107.
5
Eugenio Guzmán, director of the Theatre Institute at the University of Chile, asked the poet
to translate this Shakespearean tragedy in 1963/64. The text was published by Losada in 1964 and
staged at the Antonio Varas Theatre that same year, with Diana Sanz and Marcelo Romo playing the
leading roles. All the previous translations had been written in prose; Neruda translated the tragedy
in hendecasyllabic verse (11 lines).
6
Raúl Osorio, former lecturer at the School of Drama from the Catholic University of Chile,
commissioned Nicanor Parra to translate King Lear for the stage in 1991. The poet wrote a free ver-
sion called Lear Rey & Mendigo (edited in 2005 by Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, Chile). It
was staged in 1992 keeping the Shakespearean title: El Rey Lear (King Lear).
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 221

specific productions in 1964 and 1992 respectively. This fact introduces relevant
variables to the kind of texts that Chilean translators finally produce, since, when
they start translating, they usually do not know whether the text will be used for
performance or not. Reba Gostand refers to this translation dynamism when she
explains that “Drama, as an art form, is a constant process of translation, from
original concept to script (when there is one), to producer’s/director’s interpreta-
tion, to contribution by designer and actor/actress, to visual and/or aural images to
audience response […]. There may be a series of subsidiary processes of transla-
tion at work”.7
Despite the contextual facts already mentioned, the translation of Shake-
speare’s plays should always endeavour to be cultural, spatial, and collaborative,
even when the text is not written for a specific staging. Its performative potential
cannot be overlooked or denied, because that is precisely what defines it. There-
fore, the translator should imagine how individual words and verses will be deliv-
ered by actors onstage, and so take into account not only their meaning and literal
sense within the play, but also their rhythm and musicality. The awareness of
working with a theatrical script, as Rex Gibson states, “suggests a provisionality
and incompleteness that anticipates and requires imaginative, dramatic enactment
for completion. A script declares that it is to be played with, explored, actively and
imaginatively brought to life by acting out”.8
Taking The Tempest – a version co-translated into Spanish by Paula Baldwin
Lind and Braulio Fernández Biggs in 2010 – as a case study, I aim to show how the
knowledge of Elizabethan culture and theatre dynamics, expressed through
the inclusion of some notes in the text, may widen the interpretative choice of the
translator and the theatre director, as well as the development of a collaborative
working system, aspects that may both become key elements in the process of
translation for the stage.

2. Translation of cultural elements

“Culture” is a broad and complex term. Although my objective is not to define
the multiple connotations of this notion here, I will point out the dimensions of
culture that may be relevant when analysing the examples in the selected play.
“Culture’” comes from the Latin term cultura, meaning “the action or practice
of cultivating the soil”.9 During the sixteenth century, this late Middle English
idea of tilling the land was figuratively transferred to the “cultivating or develop-
ment (of the mind, faculties, manners, etc.)”.10 Later, around 1871, as E.B. Tylor
explains, “Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that

7
R. Gostand, Verbal and Non-verbal Communication: Drama as Translation, in: The Language of
Theatre. Problems in Translation and Transposition of Drama, O. Zuber (ed.), Oxford−New York 1980,
pp. 1‒9. The author is quoted in A. Peghinelli, Theatre Translation as Collaboration: A Case in Point
in British Contemporary Drama, “Journal for Communication and Culture” 2012, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 21.
8
R. Gibson, Teaching Shakespeare, Cambridge 1998, pp. 7‒8.
9
OED, culture. n., 2.a.
10
OED, culture, 4. fig.
222 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and
any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.11
To these definitions, we may add T.S. Eliot’s idea of culture, because this
critic incorporates the popular dimension, which is often present in Shakespeare’s
plays. In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, he suggests that culture can
be situated in refinement, learning and the arts, yet not in “any one of these per-
fections alone”.12 Thus, we should look for culture “in the patterns of society as
a whole”.13 What Eliot means is not a socially inclusive concept, but the idea
that any definition of culture should be broad. There is not one unified culture;
the notion entails a definition that is made of a variety of elements, such as per-
sons, buildings, music, historical events, and so forth. It is a combination of the
ordinary or banal and the sublime. Culture is therefore not necessarily the best of
human creative endeavours; it can be found in everyday activities, as well as in
long-standing traditions.
It is precisely because Shakespeare lived and wrote during a specific socio-
-historical and cultural moment that it is fundamental to understand the elements
that fashioned Elizabethan culture. To a certain extent, his plays are not isolated
artistic entities, but cultural products immersed in a context that, in turn, functions
as a referent for meaning. Cultural elements are not only present in all of Shake-
speare’s works, but they also contribute to their overall interpretation. According
to Peter Newmark, cultural terms are “token-words which first add local colour to
any description of their countries of origin, and may have to be explained, depend-
ing on the readership and the type of text”.14 These terms, he argues, pose difficult
problems when translating, because it is often impossible to find the equivalent
term or sense of the expression. In addition, linguistic systems are different and the
meanings of words associated with culture, which work in one language, usually
do not work in the other. Thus, translators sometimes use more general or neutral
terms to express a similar meaning or replace the original cultural element for an-
other that is part of the target culture.
In a strict sense, translating is always a cultural activity. Michael Neill points
out that translation entails “trading between cultures, between different ways of
imagining the world, involving both diachronic shifts and delicate synchronic
adjustments”.15 Years earlier, Pavis had also associated the art of translating with
an “intercultural practice [that] primarily involves a transfer of culture, in both

11
E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy,
Religion, Art, and Custom, London 1871, p. 1, quoted in: L. Campillo Arnaiz, Estudio de los ele-
mentos culturales en las obras de Shakespeare y sus traducciones al español por Macpherson,
Astrana y Valverde, Unpublished PhD thesis, Murcia 2005, p. 94; https://digitum.um.es/xmlui/bit-
stream/10201/178/1/LCampilloArnaiz.pdf (access: 16.04.2018).
12
T.S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, London 1948, p. 23.
13
Ibid.
14
P. Newmark, Approaches to Translation, Oxford 1981, p. 82.
15
M. Neill, The World Beyond: Shakespeare and the Tropes of Translation, in: Putting His-
tory to the Question: Power, Politics, and Society in English Renaissance Drama, New York 2000,
pp. 399‒418, p. 400. The author is quoted in: T. Hoenselaars, Introduction, in: Shakespeare and the
Language of Translation, idem (ed.), London 2012, pp. 1‒30.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 223

its textual and its gestural codes”.16 Commenting on Pavis’s theories of translation,
Margherita Laera states that by “construing theatre translation as a necessary yet
paradoxical task, Pavis suggests the image of the translator as a bridge between
two unmapped lands”.17 In a similar line of thought, Marta Gibińska discusses the
notions of “boundary” and “bridge” by applying them to the field of translation
and analysing the ways through which a reader of Shakespeare in the language of
the playwright may be bound to his/her own culture, whereas a translation
of that text into another language does not only open the possibility of survival of
that work, but also fosters new readings and interpretations; that is to say, it may
build bridges between two different cultures. According to her, “part of the prob-
lem of otherness and sameness is the bridge of translation, which means access to
both kinds of texts”,18 although she makes it clear that she is not asking readers to
learn two different languages to understand Shakespeare’s works better. On the con-
trary, the scholar argues that the translation of cultural elements should be possible,
even if cultural terms are not equivalent, because “translation does not change ev-
erything. When laughing at Bottom’s translated looks or watching Hamlet’s protes-
tations, we can still understand enough to be able to discuss, agree with, or disagree
on the issues that the original and the translated texts offer”.19 Furthermore, her
own perspective builds bridges between Shakespeare translators, since she demon-
strates how “translators over the ages have proved to what extent foreign languages
and cultures are hospitable to Shakespeare”.20 Finally, in her article on Shakespeare
translation, Inga-Stina Ewbank develops the idea of translation as a task that be-
comes a beneficial cultural exchange, thus reinforcing the possibilities of translating
the playwright’s works without eliminating cultural elements, but rather adjusting
them to another cultural context.21

3. Case study
In September 2010, Paula Baldwin Lind and Braulio Fernández Biggs, Chile-
an translators, wrote the first national translation of La tempestad into Spanish,
which was published by Editorial Universitaria, a prestigious academic publisher.
The following year, the text was adapted by its own translators and was staged by
students of the Academy of Scenic Arts at Universidad de los Andes in Santiago,
Chile. The source text for the first translation was the 1623 Folio as presented in

16
P. Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, London 1992, p. 137.
17
M. Laera, Theatre Translation as Collaboration: Aleks Sierz, Martin Crimp, Nathalie Abrahami,
Colin Teevan, Zoe¨ Svendsen and Michael Walton discuss Translation for the Stage, “Contemporary
Theatre Review” 2001, vol. 21, no. 2, p. 213.
18
M. Gibińska, ‘Bottom thou Art Translated’: Translation as a Boundary and a Bridge,
in: Shakespeare without Boundaries: Essays in Honor of Dieter Mehl, Ch. Jansohn, L. Cowen Orlin,
S. Wells (eds.), Newark 2011, p. 289.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid., p. 286.
21
I.-S. Ewbank, Shakespeare Translation as Cultural Exchange, “Shakespeare Survey” 1995,
vol. 48, pp. 1‒12.
224 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

the Vaughans’ Arden Third Series edition of 1999 (reprinted in 2006). The trans-
lation was adapted for performance in 2011 by cutting a number of episodes,
but the Shakespearean use of verse and prose was preserved, although it was
not transferred into an equivalent Spanish metrical system. Incidental music and
songs were especially composed for the production and sung with a live orchestra,
with a circus-like staging and design, and actors doing acrobatics and choreogra-
phies. Despite the colourful and attractive production, critics agreed that its suc-
cess was due to the language of Shakespeare – translated, but not modified in its
poetic basis, and the human message of forgiveness the play discussed in depth.22
Going back to the first stage of the process: the translation for publication, one
of the most difficult tasks that Baldwin and Fernández faced, was the adequate
transfer of early modern cultural elements to the Spanish version of the play. The
source text was written many centuries ago in a language whose idiomatic expres-
sions, spelling, and socio-historical context – all elements that contribute to the
construction of meaning – have evolved. Translating into Spanish was especially
complex when dealing with puns, popular beliefs and proverbs or sayings, and
with the characters’ different linguistic accents; Elizabethan traditions, names of
food, garments, and trades that no longer exist, or measures that are not used at
present even in the source culture were also challenging elements. In addition to
the technical translation strategies of borrowing, adaptation, explanation, gener-
alisation, literal translation, and reduction23 that the translators applied for some
of these cases, they decided to explain the cultural terms by means of brief, but
complete linguistic, historical, and contextual notes, where both readers and ac-
tors could find information meant to help them to understand and interpret the
words or expressions that have no exact equivalent in the Chilean culture. Despite
the opinion of most scholars that a translation for the stage should function with-
out annotations or theatrical commentary, the Chilean translators of The Tempest
decided to include paratexts in the first stage, so as to facilitate the understanding
of cultural elements. When the play was adapted for the stage, these notes were
left out, but the whole team: translators, directors, producer, actors, and actresses
(during seminars of text analysis) read them and used them before rehearsals be-
gan. To an extent, paratexts had their own timing within the whole process of
translation.
Shakespeare’s plays have been translated and edited in most languages. The
playwright has undoubtedly become a cultural icon, whose plays and poems are
constantly being reinterpreted and recreated on the page and on the stage. His
texts are appropriated by translators and editors, who, regardless of their efforts
to remain faithful to the “original text”,24 are forced to rewrite his work and make

Cf. reviews: http://diario.elmercurio.com/detalle/index.asp?id={9c6bad11-6576-4f38-b2c6-

22

450c385c2066}; http://diario.elmercurio.com/detalle/index.asp?id={71cd2d00-b863-4f7e-affa-
f51d963bcbb1}
23
A. Fernández Guerra, Translating Culture: Problems, Strategies and Practical Realities, “SIC,
A Journal of Literary Translation, Art and Subversion” 2012, vol. 1, no. 3, p. 5.
24
When I speak about “original text”, I simply refer to the First Folio of 1623. However, Shake-
spearean textual scholars admit that the Folio is not necessarily Shakespeare in his original version.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 225

choices in order to become meaningful to contemporary readers and audiences, so

much so that either editing or translating has become a synonym of choice and, in
that sense, of the exercise of authority when dealing with the playwright’s works.
Evidently, textual authority lies firstly in the author, yet also in the translator
in collaboration with other translators, theatre directors, and actors, especially
through the choices they need to make during the process. Collaboration here
refers to a direct or virtual dialogue in which translators should listen to the au-
thor and deal with the text ad mentem auctoris; that is to say, making the effort
to express as much as possible what the author of the source text intended to
say and being always supported by an informed choice, a term that comes from
social and health care, an extra-literary discipline. In the case of Shakespear-
ean editions and translations, it presupposes, as I suggested at the beginning
of this article, the knowledge of the cultural context of Elizabethan drama, of
Shakespeare’s language and poetics, and the ability to collate and compare dif-
ferent editions in order to gather the information necessary for taking editorial
decisions. As Stanley Wells argued in one of the lectures given at the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. in 1984, editing is not only a matter of
presentation, but also of meaning, of establishing Shakespeare’s text. Moreover,
the critic insists that even though these issues may seem superficial,
they deserve more thorough consideration than they have received, and that such conside-
ration may have consequences of no less importance than those resulting from analyses of
the work of individual compositors, investigations of the kinds of manuscript underlying the
early printed texts, and other bibliographical and textual techniques to which more atten-
tion has been paid in recent years.25

When translating Shakespeare, informed choice is directly related both to the

election of words and accurate expressions in the target language, and to the ad-
dition of paratexts, mainly notes, that guide the modern reader throughout his/her
journey into the world of each of the plays and help theatre directors at the mo-
ment of recreating that world in the same or in another cultural context.
Notwithstanding that the presence of paratexts could sometimes force the
reader to focus on specific elements of the text or influence his/her interpretation
of it, their purpose in translations should be to offer the reader access to linguis-
tic, historical, and cultural information that may facilitate his/her reception and
understanding of the play. As Gérard Genette states, “more than a boundary or
a sealed border, the paratext is rather a threshold, or – a word Borges used apropos

Instead of speaking about an “original text” in the case of translations/editions of Shakespeare, I prefer
to refer to a “source text”. Despite the fact that textual studies have demonstrated that there is no evi-
dence to prove that the copies the publishers used were manuscripts from Shakespeare, shortly after
Blount and Jaggard entered the final copy of the plays in the Stationers’ Register, the First Folio of
1623 was published: Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies. According to John
Jowett, it became a revolutionary printing endeavour that made available most of the author’s works
for the first time in one volume (see: J. Jowett, The First Folio, in: Shakespeare and Text, Oxford
Shakespeare Topics, Oxford 2007, pp. 69–92).
25
S. Wells, Re-editing Shakespeare for the Modern Reader [electronic resource]: Based on
Lectures Given at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., Oxford 1984, p. 1.
226 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

of a preface – a «vestibule» that offers the world at large the possibility of either
stepping inside or turning back”.26 In other words, readers can take advantage
of them when they need contextual or extra textual elements for a more perti-
nent reading. Paratexts in a translation should be an invitation, not an imposition,
yet considering that Shakespeare’s plays were written more than four hundred
years ago within a distant and different cultural background, and in an English
that might be alien even to native speakers today, paratexts can certainly become
a compass to “travel” across the translated text.
The first Chilean translation of The Tempest (La tempestad) by Baldwin and
Fernández, which includes a critical introduction and notes, may be considered
as the raw material for performance, in Peter Blayney’s view. The British bib-
liographer analysed the First Folio of Shakespeare in detail and declared: “the
author’s final draft is essentially only the raw material for performance”.27 This
first created or translated text constitutes the raw material for the stage adaptation
and fulfils a similar function to that assigned by Andrew Gurr to the “maximal”
texts that theatre companies owned: “the original company’s own written play-
book” versus “the texts players performed”28 or “minimal” texts. Regarding these
different scripts, the early modern scholar explains that “the authoritative written
text was designed from the outset to be an idealized text, and that every one of
the early performances altered it into more realistic or realisable shapes, often at
a quite drastic remove from the ideal”.29
Authors such as Mona Baker, David Katan, Roberto Mayoral, Lucía Molina,
Peter Newmark, Sergei Vlakhov and Sider Florin30 have classified cultural as-
pects involved in translation. Based mainly on Newmark (1988),31 who follows
Eugene Nida (1964), Laura Campillo Arnaiz32 creates her own taxonomy of cul-
tural elements in the study of Shakespeare’s plays that includes: food and drinks,
clothes and fabrics, measurements, coins, locations, trades, games, laws, folk be-
liefs, references to people, and literary references. For the purpose of my analysis,
I will select some of these and suggest ways in which they can be translated into
Spanish, taking La tempestad as a sample.

26
G. Genette, Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation, J.E. Lewin (transl.), Cambridge 1997, p. 1.
27
P. Blayney, The First Folio of Shakespeare. The Norton Facsimile, 2nd edn. New York‒London
1996, p. xxx, quoted in: A. Gurr, Maximal and Minimal Texts: Shakespeare v. the Globe, “Shakespeare
Survey”, vol. 52, S. Wells (ed.), Cambridge 1999, p. 69.
28
A. Gurr, op. cit., p. 70.
29
Ibid.
30
These are the texts mentioned by Fernández Guerra, p. 2: M. Baker, In Other Words. A Course-
book on Translation, London 1992; D. Katan, Translating Cultures. An Introduction for Translators,
Interpreters and Mediators, Manchester 1999; R. Mayoral Asensio, La explicitación de la información
en la traducción intercultural, in: Estudis sobre la traducció, ed. A. Hurtado Albir, Castellón 1994,
pp. 73−96; L. Molina Martínez, Análisis descriptivo de la traducción de los culturemas árabe-español,
PhD diss. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona 2001; S. Vlakhov, S. Florin, Neperovodimoe v perevode.
Realii, “Masterstvo perevoda” 1970, vol. 6, Moskva, Sovetskij pisatel, pp. 432−456.
31
Newmark establishes five categories of foreign cultural words: ecology, material culture,
social culture, organizations, customs, activities, procedures or concepts, gestures and habits. See:
P. Newmark, A Textbook of Translation, London−New York 1988, p. 21.
32
L. Campillo Arnaiz, op. cit.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 227

a) Food and drinks that were usually consumed in Elizabethan England

In the second act of The Tempest, Trinculo finds Caliban and describes him:
“A fish: he smells like a fish, a very ancient and /fish-like smell, a kind of – not
of the newest/ – poor-John” (2.2.25‒27). It would be quite difficult for a modern
reader to know what the character is referring to if there’s not a note explaining
the meaning of “poor-John”: dried, or long-dead fish, as the editors of the Arden
third series edition point out. This diet was very common among homeless and
poor people in early modern England. In Baldwin and Fernández’s translation,
the solution was to replace the proper name with both an explanatory name and
a note:
A fish: he smells like a fish, a very ¡Un pez! Huele como a pez; un aroma
ancient and fish-like smell, a kind of / a pescado rancio, como de merluza salada,/
– not of the newest y no de las más frescas
– poor-John. A strange fish! que digamos. ¡Extraño pez!
(2.2.25‒27, emphasis mine).

The Spanish word merluza in the text becomes the cultural, not literal, trans-
lation of the expression “poor-John”, since a Chilean audience will be familiar
with the characteristics of this fish, which are similar to the ones described by
Trinculo. Then, its meaning was explained in a brief note: “Se llamaba poor-John
a la merluza seca y salada, dieta bastante común entre los más pobres de aquella
época”.33 These lines could be back-translated in the following way: poor-John is
the name of dry and salty hake. It was quite a common diet among the poor at that
period in England.
If the text is adapted for performance, directors and actors could look for an
equivalent expression or should try to show a similar dish or food onstage. In
Chile it would probably be merluza, one of the most traditional species in the
country,34 or jurel, a very cheap tinned fish with a strong smell.

b) Clothes and fabrics that generally identify people’s status and/or trade
In the third act, when Ariel speaks in Trinculo’s voice, calling Caliban a liar,
the monster asks: “What a pied ninny’s this? Thou scurvy patch!” (3.2.61): “¡Qué
tonto colorinche es éste! ¡Tú, patético bufón!” (What a silly colourful thing this
is, you pathetic fool!).35 Again the Arden editors provide some information in
note 61, in which they explain that pied ninny (“tonto colorinche”) is a “reference
to the jester and his costume”,36 a parti-coloured garment, which in this case is
worn by Trinculo. Unfortunately, real jesters have disappeared from our society.
Moreover, there is no tradition of jesters in Chile, at least not in a strict sense, so
the translators of the play needed to include a note with a clear description of his

33
Paula Baldwin Lind and Braulio Fernández Biggs, transl. William Shakespeare. La tempestad.
Santiago (Chile) 2010, p. 83, note 26.
34
This fish is not as cheap now in Chile as it was when first commercialised in the country.
35
P. Baldwin Lind, B. Fernández Biggs, op. cit., p. 97.
36
V. Mason Vaughan, A.T. Vaughan (eds.), William Shakespeare. The Tempest, The Arden Shake-
speare, Third Series, London 2006, p. 228.
228 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

clothes: “ropas multicolores utilizadas por un bufón; en este caso, Trínculo”37;

that is: very colourful clothes, usually alternating red and yellow, which Trinculo
wears as a jester. Nevertheless, the local character that would be more similar to
a jester, would be a payador, a kind of folk-song singer, who usually plays with
words, making fun of people and situations; or a payaso, a character that is similar
to a clown and is linked to a circus-like culture.
A theatre director or the costume designer could decide to dress the actor/ac-
tress in garments that identify this character with a more Chilean tradition, but this
would depend on the type and context of the performance. For the 2011 staging at
Universidad de los Andes (Chile), Trinculo was dressed as a traditional European
jester and the audience was captivated by his somersaults, cabrioles, songs, and
sense of humour, thus showing that the notion of “jester” was culturally more
universal onstage than the translators thought after the first translation of these
lines of the play.

c) Measurements, specifically those related to the division and length of time

Particularly in the case of The Tempest, the passing of time is crucial to the
quick development of the plot and Prospero’s final act of forgiveness. In this
romance, Shakespeare adheres to the unity of time and compresses the events to
one afternoon. The problem for a cultural translation is that the characters meas-
ure time in a very specific way, following the codes used by sailors during the
Elizabethan period.
In the second scene of the first act, Prospero asks Ariel for the time of the day
and the spirit replies: “Past the mid-season” (1.2.239). The magician amplifies
Ariel’s time when he adds: “At least two glasses” (1.2.240). Apart from explaining
that early modern sailors usually measured time using half-hour glasses, Baldwin
and Fernández preferred to avoid a literal translation, which would have been ei-
ther: “Al menos la medida de dos relojes de arena” (At least the measurement of
two hourglasses), or “Al menos la medida de dos vasos” (At least the measurement
of two glasses). Instead of choosing the literal translation of this expression, they
preferred to refer to time in a direct way, so as to make it more understandable:
“Dos horas más, a lo menos” (At least two more hours, 1.2.240). The note in the
text explains: “At least two glasses: expresión que alude a la medida de los relojes
de arena. A diferencia de la media hora por ampolleta que utilizaban los marineros,
cada lapso equivale aquí a una hora. Por tanto, si se suman two glasses al tiempo
indicado por Ariel, serían exactamente las dos de la tarde”.38 In a back-translation
it would read as follows: “At least two glasses”: expression that refers to the mea-
surement of time with hourglasses. Unlike the half hour per glass used by sailors,
each lapse is equivalent to one hour here. Therefore, if two glasses are added to the
time indicated by Ariel, it would be exactly two o’clock in the afternoon. An actor
onstage could say “two hours at least” and show either an hourglass or any other
local objet related to time; nevertheless, this choice would result from a previous

37
P. Baldwin Lind, B. Fernández Biggs, op. cit., p. 97, note 61.
38
Ibid., p. 56, note 240.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 229

discussion and consensus decision of the whole team − translator, theatre director,
and company − regarding the symbolism and relevance of time within the play.

d) Popular beliefs, either related to religious matters or superstitions, as well as local

traditions
In the scene discussed in letter a), when Trinculo meets Caliban in Act 2,
he wonders: “Were I in England now (as/once I was) and had but this fish
painted […]” (2.2.27‒28, emphasis mine). The expression “a fish painted”
would not mean much to a Chilean or Latin American audience, apart from the
literal sense: “un pez pintado” (a fish that is painted), simply because this is not
part of our cultural context. The Arden note explains that products were “painted
on a sign to attract the notice of passers-by” (note 28). The Chilean translators
changed the verb tense to the Spanish imperfect subjunctive,39 as marked in bold
letters in the following line: “Si estuviera ahora en Inglaterra /(como en cierta
ocasión) e hiciese pintar este pez […]” (2.2.27‒28). The back-translation would
be: If I were now in England (as/I was in one occasion) and I asked to paint this
fish […]. Then, the translators wrote a note similar to the Arden explanation, yet
adding an interpretative comment which are in bold letters in the text to differenti-
ate it from the rest of the information: “Como una forma de publicidad, en la era
isabelina se solían pintar diferentes artículos de venta en letreros o carteles, gener-
almente de madera, para ser colgados tanto fuera de los negocios como a la entra-
da de las ferias, para atraer así a los clientes. En Londres, las mejores novedades
se exhibían en Fleet Street. Al querer pintar a Calibán como un pez, Trínculo
pretende mostrarlo como un producto exótico y sacar provecho económico
de él” (During the Elizabethan era different items of sale were frequently painted
on signs or posters, usually made of wood, to be hung both outside the shops and
at the entrance of the fairs, as a form of advertising to attract customers. In Lon-
don, the best products were sold on Fleet Street. When Trinculo says he wants to
paint Caliban as a fish, he tries to present the monster as an exotic product,
so as to obtain economic profit out of him).40

f) Wordplay, puns, and proverbs

Wordplay, puns, and proverbs are another vast area of cultural translation,
perhaps the most challenging, since transferring comic references, reproducing
the phonetics of another language, and finding an equivalent common saying is
almost impossible. The Tempest if full of references to proverbs; for example, in
2.2.69: “that ever trod on neat’s leather”, or “Here / Is what will give language to
you, cat” (2.2.81–82). Baldwin and Fernández first explained the original sayings
in different notes: “del proverbio As good a man as ever trod on shoe (neat’s)

39
The imperfect subjunctive tense is very often used in Spanish. This tense is also known as the
Spanish past subjunctive, but its real name is the preterite imperfect tense of the subjunctive mood.
The subjunctive does not express time. It reveals the point of view of a speaker.
40
Ibid., p. 53, note 28. The corresponding lines are in bold letters in Spanish and in English.
230 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

leather (as ever went on legs). Alude a utilizar zapatos de cuero, finos y suaves.
Para fomentar la industria nacional, los ingleses promovían el uso de cuero de
vaca y de este modo relegaban el producto español” (From the proverb As good
a man as ever trod on shoe (neat’s) leather (as ever went on legs). Alluding to the
use of thin and soft leather shoes. To encourage the national industry, the English
promoted the use of cowhide and thus relegated the Spanish product)41; and “del
proverbio Liquor will make a cat speak: “La buena bebida hace hablar hasta a un
gato”. En este caso, la bebida hará hablar a un monstruo” (From the proverb
Liquor will make a cat speak: Good drink makes even a cat speak. In this case,
the drink will make a monster speak).42 In the first case, the translation of the
lines in the play was literal, because the meaning could be well understood and
represented by actors: “digno presente/será para cualquier emperador que haya
caminado en cueros de/vaca” (worthy present / will be for any emperor who has
walked in cowhides; 2.2.68–69). For the second case, the translators resorted to
the original proverb and made the connection with the liquor that Stefano gives
to Caliban, so that his tongue becomes loose and he can tell them more secrets
about the island: “He aquí / lo que te hará hablar, gato” (Here’s / what will make
you talk, cat; 2.2.81–82). If the actor who delivers these lines shows a bottle of
liquor, the audience might understand even better the sense of the whole passage.

4. Translation as collaboration
The objective of presenting a few textual examples in the previous section
was meant to show that when transferring cultural elements from one language
to the other it is always advisable to work collaboratively, since there are relevant
semantic and interpretative issues to discuss before deciding how to communicate
the culture portrayed in a specific play: either to make the translation mirror that
worldview or to transform it into something more familiar to the new readers and
audience.
Collaboration in translation does not go against individual creative autonomy;
we can take Shakespeare’s own experience as a collaborator in twenty per cent of
the plays in the Shakespearean canon.43 Both for Shakespeare and for other Eliza-
bethan playwrights, as Gary Taylor argues, “collaboration cannot be explained
by simple economies of time or personnel. The motive cannot be quantitative.
It’s not about the numbers. It must be qualitative, and therefore phenomenologi-
cal. Collaboration in some way improved the quality of the human experience”.44
Moreover, in the case of translation for the stage, collaboration can be practised
at different levels; it does not mean that translators must be forced to work with
other translators, which anyway, is a very fruitful exercise; but that at some phase

Ibid., p. 85, note 69.

41

Ibid., notes 81−82.

42

43
G. Taylor, Why did Shakespeare Collaborate?, in: Shakespeare Survey, vol. 67: Shakespeare’s
Collaborative Work, P. Holland (ed.), Cambridge 2004, 1‒17, p. 1.
44
Ibid., p. 4.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 231

in the process of translating, s/he should be able to generate a dialogue with thea-
tre directors, actors, other translators, linguists, and sometimes even historians, if
needed, and very often with publishers of the text. As for the last ones, Umberto
Eco clearly explains that dialogue should be promoted with them too:
Numerous are the elements that come into play in the process of negotiation; on one side,
there is the original text, with its own rights, sometimes an author who claims rights over
the whole process, along with the cultural framework in which the original text is born;
on the other side, there is the destination text, the cultural milieu in which it is expected
to be read, and even the publishing industry, which can recommend different translation
criteria, according to whether the translated text is to be put in an academic context or in
a popular one.45

Consensus in translation should occur at different levels: “a consensus about

the nature of the world of the play”,46 and about the meaning of it. In this way, it
will certainly improve the quality of the translator’s work and the human experi-
ence of the audience when the play is performed. David Johnston highlights the
importance of consensus in the process of translation, when he argues that
[…] the collaborative work undertaken by the translator is invariably three-fold: a strategic
engagement with the receiving theatre system, from which the translation derives its overall
shape and pitch; a simultaneous engagement with both original and new texts that allows
the product that emerges from that readerly and writerly doubleness to work on stage, both
within the conventions of that system and in response to the contingencies of the theatre
event itself; and, of course, a professional engagement with the creative team whose task
it is to draw out all the potentials for performance that are encoded within that new text.47

Collaborative dialogue and the use of paratexts are not the only elements that
translators should take into consideration at the moment of translating Shake-
speare for the stage. Taking into account my own research, I argue that when
translating for the stage, the notion of space also needs to be considered in the
process because plays are written to be performed in specific stages. In fact,
Elizabethan dramatists worked and played with the notion of space when writing their
scripts and at the moment of performance so as to create a sense of place and space on page
and stage. They probably had in mind the specific characteristics of theatre companies, the
type of audience, and the constraints and resources of the stages where their plays were
represented. Even though Shakespeare and his playwright-contemporaries shared a set of
generic conventions, the ways in which play and space were related in performance varied
not only from one playwright to the other, but also from play to play, from season to season,
and, certainly, from stage to stage.48

45
U. Eco, Saying Almost the Same Thing: Experiences in Translation, Milan 2003, p. 18.
46
M. Laera, op. cit., p. 221. The author follows the opinion of Zoë Svendsen, theatre director,
dramatist, and researcher.
47
D. Johnston, Narratives of translation in performance: collaborative acts, in: Adapting Trans-
lation for the Stage, G. Brodie, E. Cole (eds.), New York 2017, p. 236.
48
P. Baldwin Lind, The Film Industry Woos Shakespeare: Theatrical Space versus Cinemato-
graphic Space in the Adaptations of Hamlet and Henry V by Kenneth Brannagh, in: eadem (ed.), Tell-
ing and Re-telling Stories: Studies on Literary Adaptation to Film, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2016, p. 79.
232 PAULA BALDWIN LIND

The notion of space is definitely bound to culture, and in the case of Shake-
spearean drama, to a very specific kind of theatrical performance. I am not claim-
ing with this that performances of Shakespeare’s plays should imitate early mod-
ern staging, but that space as a dramatic category should be especially translated
for the stage. In practical terms, this means that the ideal condition for a translator
would be to know in advance the characteristics of the stage where the play will
be performed in order to be able to adapt the length of verses, so as to make sure
that the actor or actress delivering that speech will have enough time to say it if
s/he, for example, has to cross the whole stage.
In the case of La tempestad, space was particularly relevant in the translation,
not only because the plot develops in an island (an enclosed space), but also be-
cause of the circus-like performance: many characters were doing acrobatics
onstage. The case of Ariel was very meaningful in this respect. Being “an airy
spirit”,49 he literally flew all over the stage and even up, when he hung from the
stage ceiling, holding to a hoop or rope. These movements did not imply modifi-
cations of the text regarding words or expressions, but they did produce changes
in rhythm, especially when the character was singing. Baldwin and Fernández
introduced a different punctuation than the source text into the Spanish version in
order to create the pauses that were necessary to interpret the songs while making
acrobatics.
(Canta y lo ayuda a vestirse.) (Sings and helps to attire him.)
Donde la abeja liba libo yo, Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
Tendido en una campanilla de primavera: In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
Allí me escondo cuando los búhos ululan. There I couch when owls do cry.
Sobre el lomo del murciélago vuelo yo, On the bat’s back I do fly
Persiguiendo alegremente al verano. After summer merrily.
Alegre, alegre viviré ahora, Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Bajo las flores que penden de la rama. Under the blossom that hangs on the bough
(5.1.88‒94).

The changes in punctuation may seem very subtle in the text, but they respond
to the movements of Ariel onstage, to the space the character occupies, and to the
musical rhythm and chords.

5. Conclusion
The number of examples related to paratexts or to the use of space in the
process of translating Shakespearean drama for the stage exceeds the limit of this
article. It is clear that translating and editing Shakespeare for the stage is not only
a linguistic process, but also a collaborative enterprise, in which many social and
cultural agents participate. In terms of the book market, it means that to an extent,
each translation of a play is a recreation of the original in another language, and,
at the same time, it is a revision of previous translations that constitute a linguistic
tradition or history of that play. As Wells claims, “it would, of course, be absurd to

49
V. Mason Vaughan, A.T. Vaughan, op. cit., p. 140.
Translating Shakespeare, Translating Culture: Text, Paratext, and the Challenges... 233

suggest that a new edition should be prepared every time someone proposes a new
emendation or offers a fresh interpretation of a particular passage. The process
is cumulative”,50 and it is precisely through this process that textual choice and
authority are exercised. Once the text is set, theatre directors can make their own
choices, so that words are put to action onstage.
Understood in this way, translations may contribute to maintain certain works
within the literary canon of each country and its culture, since they keep on be-
ing rewritten, and consequently printed, published, and adapted for performance.
Translations also widen the scope of the local canons, as they open up the possibil-
ity of reading foreign authors in the peoples’ native language; moreover, accord-
ing to Wells, “the editor’s most basic task lies in the establishment of a text, edi-
tions properly serve many other purposes for a constantly changing readership”.51
One of these other purposes is the performance of the translated plays. If we want
the words we have chosen in translation to be preserved by theatre directors, we
need to build a bridge between translators and theatre professionals, so that, out
of a fruitful dialogue, more and better translations of Shakespeare can find their
place on the stage. In Eco’s words, in the process of translating a work of literature
into another language, translators should be aware that “even though knowing
that one never says the same thing, one may say almost the same thing”52; that
“almost” may produce a significant difference between one translation of Shake-
speare and another.

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