Stuck in the Funicular: the Deceptive Levity of Translating Poetic Stoppages of Imagery
Stuck in the Funicular: the Deceptive Levity of Translating Poetic Stoppages of Imagery

Summary/Abstract: The process of translating Estonian literature into English that has rapidly accelerated since the beginning of the twenty-first century has shown its benefits and its drawbacks. Like a funicular railway offering views above the panoramas of the voluminous literature of the small Baltic nation, the translations carry the messages of Estonian poets and prose authors with apparent levity and smoothness. All the same, it is not quite clear how much those messages are expected at the other end of the funicular. And there remains the danger of a shaking halt high in the air during the transmission process. One may find oneself thinking once in a while whether instead of English, another language of wide international spread would not better serve the purpose of acquainting the world with the works in the Estonian language, a lingua franca that would be less overloaded with masses of translations and original writings, both popular and literary, to such an amorphous extent as English is.

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