Ilona Duczynska Polanyi:
The Midwife-Translator
Marlene Kadar
Attila József was a contemporary
Villon, whose life and poetry revolved
around the two treacherous poles of this
age, Marx and Freud, and who died a
victim of both.
Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing.
Comparatists are, in general, as interested in the so-called "minor" literatures as they are in the "major" ones - that is, the literatures written in the languages of international commerce. In their view, whether a literature is major or not has nothing to do with the integrity of its language, or the value of its culture. Comparative Literature, then, also considers part of its purview the issue of translation, or how the minor literatures get translated into the major ones. For comparatists, "translation" does not mean only the sense of words expressed into another language. It also refers to the means by which the expression takes place.
Since the act of rendering a Hungarian poem into English in Canada, for example, is a cultural act, it is also an invitation to consider influences, and compare two separate though, we anticipate, complementary poems: the poem written in the original language, and the poem written in the language of the translator.1 Consider the influence on Earle Birney, Canada's poet-laureate, author of the poem, "David" (1941), and the political novel, Down the Long Table (1955), of the Hungarian poet, Attila József, whose intense life ended when Birney was only 33 years old (Birney was born one year before Attila József). Consider also that Birney's interpretation of Attila József would not have come to pass were it not for the work and influence of what I will call a "midwife-translator,"2 usually a very specialized intellectual with particular skills - some studied, and some acquired as a birth right, a language - and specific literary and political interests. The midwife-translator in this case is Hungarian-speaking, multilingual by training, living in Canada, but of international repute, and with broad literary tastes and knowledge of both Canadian men and women of letters, and of the free-thinking European intelligentsia. She is also someone who identified with the ethos of the thirties, and whose work reflects the original socialist spirit of 1919. Moreover, she and Birney could work together; he, too, was a socialist, having joined the International Left Opposition when he was a Ph.D. student in English at the University of Toronto in the early thirties. Such a tall order, requiring a unique confluence of circumstances, minds and pocketbooks: the only person who could fill the bill was Ilona Duczynska Polanyi.
Here we have a triangle of minds which somehow worked together to produce a new text, a new poem in 1960s Canadian English, though all of its soul rests in the Hungarian language and culture of the 1930s. The source head is the translated poet, Attila József, born in 1905, died in 1937. The midwife-translator, coincidentally living in Pickering, Ontario in the 1950s and 60s, was Ilona Duczynska Polanyi (1897-1978),3 author of Der Demokratische Bolshevik (1975) and other books; and editor, with her husband, Karl Polanyi, of The Plough and the Pen: Writings from Hungary: 1930-1956 (1963), one of the best anthologies of modern Hungarian literature in the English language. Finally the Canadian poet-member of the triangle, Earle Birney, born in 1904, told me in 1988 that he was still interested in his soul-mate, the great Attila József. (Birney died in September 1995 at the age of 91.) It was Duczynska who first brought them together - largely through personal correspondence, one of the important subgenres of what has come to be known as life writing. That is, letters are valuable forms of writing because they are personal and revealing compositions, but also because they are historical documents.4
Duczynska had lived all over the world - Budapest, Vienna, London, Montreal, Pickering - and had circulated with distinguished literati everywhere she went. Among her friends were W. H. Auden, Britain's poet-laureate of the 1930s, the distinguished poet who wrote the Foreword to The Plough and the Pen, a fact which we learn from the 1963 correspondence, "cheered" Earle Birney.
Auden postulates an intimate relation between ideology and translation. He writes that the act of translation is not only a practical or an artistic act; it is, finally, political. He says
the only political duty - by duty I mean an activity which [the author] might prefer to devote to his [her] own writing - which I can see as falling on a writer, in all countries and at all times, [a] duty, not as a citizen but as a person with literary talent, is a duty to translate the fiction and poetry of other countries so as to make them available to readers in his [her] own.5
Auden continues, and here lies the important criteria for establishing a sophisticated translation,
I consider translation a political act because the relations between any two countries are not determined by economic and political interests alone, but also by the degree to which the inhabitants of each are able to understand what the inhabitants of the other are thinking and feeling, and the novelists and poets of this country are the only people who can give one this understanding.6
Although such a commitment on the part of Auden was important to Birney as a contributor to The Plough and the Pen, he had a few comments to make about Auden's Foreword in a letter sent to "Mrs. Polanyi" on 28 January 1963 from London. To him the intrinsic value of the poet as poet was also important.
I was most interested and cheered to learn that Auden is writing so forthrightly about the importance of translation. I think his phrase "political act" is too meagre, however; it is part of the motive, as I wouldn't be interested in Attila [József] if his poetry were fascist; but I'd still not be interested in him even if he happened to express my personal shade [of] politics unless he were writing fine poetry. One must believe in the poem as a work of art or there isn't enough incentive to drive through with a translation in the face of all the difficulties, the economic unprofitableness of the expenditure of time, vis-à-vis one's own work, etc....7
Birney was not the only Canadian poet (or scholar) Duczynska recruited into various Hungarian translation projects. She also recruited Louis Dudek, A. J. M. Smith, Margaret Avison, Raymond Souster, John Robert Colombo and Kenneth McRobbie, all of whom translated texts for The Plough and the Pen. Duczynska's letters to Birney reveal the processes through which Duczynska meticulously led these Canadian poets in order to get a suitable "English version" (the "new poem," not always called a "translation"). These letters, about 28 of them (not to mention drafts of revisions of translations) were exchanged between Earle Birney and Ilona Duczynska from May 1958 to September 1965, during which time they visited each other at least once.
In what may be called a complex "communication situation"8 Earle Birney rendered into English more of Attila József than he had bargained for. For The Plough and the Pen he translated - using the term loosely now - "Aki szegény az a legszegényebb" (1924) and "Áradat" (c. 1931).9 The first of his English versions, however, was presented to Canadian readers four years earlier in the September 1959 edition of The Canadian Forum (p. 130). There, he titled the latter poem "Five Poor Men Speak Up," and he added the line, always uncertain or, at least, respectfully tentative of how to describe this complex communication situation, "adapted from the Hungarian by Earle Birney." In 1962 the poem was published in Ice Cod Bell or Stone as "The Travelling Workers' Curse"10 to which Birney added "From the Hungarian of Attila József." The 1963 version of the poem was titled "Five Poor Men Speak," and is more confidently called "the English Version by Earle Birney." It is, too, more sober than the 1959 poem, and less punctuated. (It is interesting to note that Birney used a surfeit of exclamation marks in 1959.)
It is a matter of common knowledge that there are at least two poles of translation: the literal and the creative, or imaginative. Most scholars now believe that the poetic reconstruction (as opposed to "translation" as such) has been vindicated by the contemporary notion that all acts of communication are also acts of translation. Moreover, there are numerous phases of revision in the creative reconstruction in English of a poem written in another language, and each of these phases is represented in the correspondence we are fortunate to have between Birney and Duczynska. An examination of the revision of one poem will illustrate how the poem is reconstructed through correspondence.
The target of our scrutiny is "A város peremén," a poem written in 1932-1933, at least 28 years before the poet-translator began to revise the midwife-translator's literal version of the poem. Duczynska prepared what she called "red-and-black" sheets of "A város peremén." The poem was typed out in Hungarian (probably in black ink), and then she wrote in a literal translation of each line in red ink. Then Duczynska sent these sheets to Birney. About "A város peremén" she wrote that it "was prepared for The Plough and the Pen but, like many others (about half of the red-and-black) remained untranslated, though several attempts [she does not say by whom] were made."11
An investigation of both the correspondence and the revisions of "A város peremén," enables one to reconstruct the translation of the poem in 2 distinct phases.
Phase 1: a literal translation is accomplished by the midwife-translator as a primary working text for the poet-translator. Duczynska prepared the red-and-black of "A város peremén," she translated it into English word for word, line for line, in parallel texts, identifying the number of Hungarian syllables and the rhyme scheme in the margins.
Phase 2: the poet-translator mulls over the red-and-black and begins the process of revision, of draft-making, until a publishable version is achieved. Birney revised the literal translation in at least 4 drafts over a period of two years. The final version is published in Near False Creek Mouth,12 a book of poems which Frank Davey says marks the continuation of a new perspective which treats the poem less as "an aesthetic object" and more as "an avenue toward truth."13 In spite of this trend in Birney's poetry, Birney understands "A város peremén" as both avenue toward truth and aesthetic object. It is useful to take a closer look at what the Canadian poet thinks is important in the Hungarian poem.
"A város peremén" is a poem in which "the workers are regarded both as the heirs to all civilizations before them and as a unique class born with the machine and alone able to 'civilize' it and so to rescue mankind from the chaos of its uncontrolled use by capitalism."14 Quoting Ilona Duczynska, Birney writes, the poem is "a cry from the depths of Attila's sufferings. It was written not only under the terror of fascism and the shadow of personal isolation from the revolutionary movement, from which the doctrinaire communists had hounded him, but also in circumstances of poverty, ill-health, and a depression which was, within two years, to drive him to suicide."15 Birney rightly says these complexities of feeling in the poem alone make translation difficult.16 He adds that "there are also the difficulties in form," identifying them thusly: translation of "A város peremén" is made difficult by
1. a "rigorously precisioned verse," that is
2. "a rhythm marvellously rolling", aided by the above wave-like syllable pattern, and, furthermore, by
As far as content goes, although Earle Birney is a conservative
translator, he does not subscribe to the now dated view that poetry is essentially
untranslatable (i.e. that cultures cannot communicate and poetic thought is
circumscribed by political and linguistic borders). He says, "I have not
consciously distorted or added to basic meaning, so far as I understand it."
At the same time, however, he writes, "I am all too aware how much of the
strangeness and power of Attila's poem has proved beyond my reach to reproduce."
As recommended by translation theorist and literary critic, Rainer Schulte,
"In practical terms, the concern about the reconstruction of the translation
process will require the collection of the various drafts that a translator
has prepared in the course of reaching a final, publishable draft."18
It is revealing to examine the changes in one unit of "A város peremén," and most appropriately, the final and powerful stanza #16. First, the verse will be presented in the original Hungarian version; then in the literal translation; then in drafts A to D; and, then, in the final published version, all of which can be called "Primary Texts." Birney and Duczynska think that "A város peremén" is one of Attila József's greatest poems and in one letter to Birney, Duczynska writes "its theme is the natural history of the modern working-class, in Hesiodic terms, as a new race of men."19 This poem is too long to treat in its totality, so stanza 16 is being used here as symbolic of the entire poem, the entire communication situation, the entire reconstruction of the translation process:
PHASE ONE:
Poem published by poet, Attila József, in Budapest in 1933, and recorded, with marginalia, by Duczynska.
Literal translation by midwife-translator, Ilona Duczynska, Pickering, Ontario, c. 1960:20
The poet - words clatter on his lips,
yet he (engineer of the given world's
magics and enchantments)
looks into a conscious future
and constructs within himself, as you
once shall outside, harmony.
PHASE TWO:
Poetic "translation" reconstruction by Earle Birney in Toronto, Canada, c. 1960.
DRAFT A: Birney is tinkering with different words here, especially in the last couplet.
Though words merely clatter on the poet's lips
it is he who animates
this world's magics and enchantments;
he perceives our conscious fates,[typescript version]:
shapes within - as you may yet beyond
the self - and harmony creates.[manuscript version]:
and, within himself - as you may yet
beyond the self - a harmony creates.
DRAFT B: Poetic "translation" reconstruction by Earle Birney, in which he experiments with various arrangements of syllables.
Typescript version unless otherwise marked [ms.].
Left Column: original number of syllables per line according to Duczynska's marginalia.
Right Column: number of syllables per line in Birney's draft.
10 Words are a clatter on the poet's lips; [10]
7 it's he who animates engineers [6]
8 this world's magics and enchantments; [8]
7 he perceives our conscious fates [7]
9 and within himself - as you may yet [ms.] beyond the self
[8/9]
7 beyond the self... a harmony creates [10]
[ms.] Your world - the hopes of a harmony here [10]
DRAFT C: Birney accomplishes the desired rhyme scheme.
10 Words on the poet's lips are a clatter,
7 yet it's he who engineers [from Duczynska's original literal
translation: see PHASE ONE]
8 this world's magics and enchantments;
7 he foresees mankind's career;
9 within, as all shall beyond the self,
7 he creates a harmony.
DRAFT D: In his correspondence with Duczynska, Birney calls this the "final" version, but we see that he still tinkers with the comma in the last line of the poem. He crosses out the comma on the typescript copy, and then removes it for publication in Near False Creek Mouth, 1964, and for Selected Poems, 1966.
Words on the poet's lips are a clatter,
yet it's he who engineers
this world's magics and enchantments;
he foresees mankind's career,
constructs a harmony within himself
as you shall, in the world's sphere.
Once the comma is removed, this version of the last stanza is printed in Near False Creek Mouth. The title of the poem is "On the City's Rim," and is described as "(translated from József Attila, with the collaboration of Ilona Duczynska...)."
Truly, Duczynska acted as the midwife here and elsewhere, bringing new life to Hungarian poems both she and Birney loved, and also new life to Near False Creek Mouth. As Dalos and others have remarked, Duczynska was an internationalist in her heart and in her practice, and the translations of Attila József are just one example of her commitment to internationalism and its representation in a major Canadian collaborative translation project like The Plough and the Pen.
The author wishes to thank Richard Teleky for instructive comments made on an early draft of this paper. A later version of it was delivered at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada at the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, on 3 June 1988. It was dedicated to Earle Birney and Wailan Low, and was published in Hungarian Studies Review in the fall of 1988. The present version is a revised and slightly expanded rendering of the 1988 article.
1 For more on current translation theory see Joseph F. Graham's Introduction
to Difference in Translation (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
1985), and Barbara Godard, Translator's Preface to Nicole Brossard, Lovhers
(Montreal: Guernica, 1986), pp. 7-12. Some Montreal feminist writers, such as
Gail Scott, make a political point of not translating all French words into
English in their fiction. See for example, Gail Scott, Heroine (Toronto:
Coach House, 1987).
2 The actual term "midwife-translator" was suggested to me by Wendy
Waring in April 1988. We were discussing the balance between theoretical and
raw, practical concerns in translation.
3 Ilona Duczynska was born in Eastern Austria of a Polish-Austrian father and
a Hungarian mother. Her father was a nobleman of modest means; her mother's
family owned estates in Hungary. (For details on Duczynska's youth see Kenneth
McRobbie's essay in this volume.) When she married Károly Polányi (known outside
Hungary as Karl Polanyi), Duczynska married into one of turn-of-the-century
Hungary's illustrious families. Karl's father, Mihály Pollacsek, was a contractor
and entrepreneur, and his mother, Russian-born Cecile Whol, was "a high-spirited,
energetic woman with a great interest in Hungary's intellectual life" (Lee
Congdon, "Polanyi and the Treason of the Intellectuals," in the fall,
1975 issue of our journal, p. 80.). For more information about the family and
about Michael Polanyi in particular, please refer to Congdon's article. Duczynska,
her husband, their daughter Kari Levitt (formerly of McGill University), and
Michael Polanyi's son, the Nobel-laureate chemist John Polanyi of the University
of Toronto, all emigrated to Canada.
4 Life writing encompasses diverse genres, from diaries and letters to autobiography
and certain kinds of metafiction. For more information see the collective volume
DATA and ACTA: Aspects of Life-Writing, ed. Evelyn Hinz (Winnipeg: University
of Manitoba Press, 1987), or Essays on Life Writing, edited by Marlene
Kadar (Toronto: UTP, 1992). For more information about Duczynska, see A század
nagy tanúi (Budapest: Minerva, 1978), 57-81 and György Dalos, A cselekvés
szerelmese: Duczynska Ilona élete (Budapest: Kossuth, 1984).
5 The Plough and the Pen, Foreword by W. H. Auden, p. 10.
6 Ibid.
7 From the Ilona Duczynska Polanyi manuscript folder, Earle Birney Papers, Thomas
Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto, by permission of Wailan Low
and Earle Birney, and Kari Levitt, George Beckford Professor in Caribbean Economy,
University of the West Indies.
8 This term is borrowed from J. L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words
(Boston: Harvard University Press, 1962) and Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader
(London: John Hopkins University Press, 1974).
9 Under the titles "Nobody's As Poor As A Poor Man" and "Five
Poor Men Speak," respectively.
10 Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1955, pp. 26-7.
11 Earle Birney Papers, c. May 1962 (the date in not clear from the manuscript
itself, but it must have been written in this period of the their communications).
12 Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1964, n.p., poem no. 30.
13 Earle Birney (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1971), p. 56.
14 Cf. Birney's published endnote in Near False Creek Mouth, poem no.
30 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1964).
15 Ibid.
16 "Rendering Attila József's Poems in Italian," New Hungarian
Quarterly 3, 6 (April-June 1962): 183.
17 Near False Creek Mouth, poem no. 30.
18 "Translation Theory: A Challenge for the Future," Translation
Review 23 (1987): 1.
19 Earle Birney Papers, October 3, 1962, p. 2.
20 It might be noted here that Duczynska's syllable count (in the left margin)
appears to be incorrect here. But this is because of an error in transcription:
"varázslatainak" should be "varázsainak," thereby making
the line 8 syllables long. Credit for this correction goes to János Szanyi of
Radio Canada International in Montreal.