A methodology suggestion to look at three rewritings of Dracula

The three rewritings of Dracula in Turkish that will be covered in this essay are Niran Elçi's Drakula published by İthaki Yayınları, Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula published by Kamer Yayınları, and Ali Rıza Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da published by Kamer Yayınları. The version accepted as the original writing is the version published by Penguin in 1993.

I will try to form a methodology to follow for this kind of an analysis study. What I will look at through the essay consists of the different parts of the rewritten text, namely the publishing house, the re-writer, the context (i.e. the time and place), genre, number of pages, and pictures; and I will not analyse the texts line by line rather I will look into the context of the rewriting process.

Publishing houses: It would not be surprising at all to look at the publishing houses at first, since publishers are one of the most powerful components of the literary system. Because they hold the authority to publish, to censor, and to distribute the literary texts. They can be well defined as patrons with Andre Lefevere's terminology. In this situation, publishing houses "try to regulate the literary system and the other systems, which together, make up a society, a culture." [Lefevere, 15]. They have to regulate the literary system, because needs and preferences of the market are also defined by them. Thus, while analysing these rewritings a brief look into the publishing houses, their ideologies and preferences will be beneficial to find out the differences in the translations. The reviewer has to have some questions in mind: What kind of novels has this publishing house published so far? How have these novels been published, whether there are any abridgements, adaptation or so? What is the general pricing strategy of the publishing house for these novels?

The question about the pricing is also important; because this will define the reader profile, whether the novels are for professional readers or non-professional readers. For whom have these novels been published? Translations are a way of creating the communities imagined by the patrons. And these "imagined communities fostered by translation produce effects that are commercial, as well as cultural and political" [Venuti, 496] And most probably it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the main aim of the publishers would be creating a bestseller rewriting out of a original writing.

"To translate" and generically to rewrite "is to invent for the foreign text new readerships who are aware that their interest in the translation is shared by other readers" [Venuti, 495] and this interest of the readers will coincide with the interest of the publishers, thus with the market. And naturally the community built will be shaped by the reader profile.

Another important question would be: Why have there been two rewritings of the same original writing published by the same publisher, in our case by Kamer Yayınları?

Other works of the re-writer: Re-writers are another important factor, maybe a more important factor than the publisher, in shaping the text since s/he is the actual creator of the text. What this translator have translated so far? What is her/his approach to translation? What are her/his priorities while rewriting? What is her/his experience with the genre? Because if they are known well and respected, their work will be "propagated as an example for future writers to follow" [Lefevere, 28] and canonized by the system as the proper/accepted version of the original writing. Thus their names may be published on the cover. However, none of the re-writers is mentioned on the cover.

The context in which the rewriting was published: The year in which these rewritings published is also important. The political climate of the time, popularity of the genre in those days, and the novelty brought to the literature of the time by these publications, if there is any, are important criteria for the analysis. And whether the two different Dracula's published by Kamer Yayınları have any effect on the later publication by İthaki is also important. The publication date of Drakula İstanbul'da was 1997 and Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula was published in 1998 while Elçi's translation was published five years later in 2003. So Elçi's translation have the opportunity to enjoy the fame of the Drakula after two published books and the movie.

Front and back covers of the rewritings: Cover of the novel gives a clue about what is expected inside. If the commentary writings on the cover satisfies anticipation of readers, s/he buys it. So the blurbs are important. Generally the back covers are the place to print these blurbs. Elçi's Drakula and Akkuş' Drakula have blurbs. The former one has a direct quotation from the book while the latter has a promotional writing, the reason for which is promoting the first translation of Drakula in Turkish. And it also has supported the promotion by mentioning the movie, Dracula.

Another significant detail about the covers are the pictures. On Elçi's Drakula the only picture on the cover belongs to the Dracula himself. Seyfi's cover picture has Drakula in front of a city setting which is consistent by the name, Drakula İstanbul'da. Akkuş' cover, on the other hand, has Dracula and a woman bit on the neck by him. The way woman is exposed quite sexually with her dress and the way her breasts are shown may be appealing to some readers.

The genre in which the rewriting was classified: All three publishing houses classified the book as a horror book.

Number of pages and other parts of the rewritings: "Contemporary canons of accuracy are based on an adequacy to the foreign text: an accurate translation of a novel must not only reproduce the basic elements of narrative form, but should do so in roughly the same number of pages" [Venuti, 484]. When the first thing to look at is the number of pages of the three rewritings without paying attention to the names or cover pictures of them, it is easy , and maybe wrong, to assume Elçi's and Akkuş' rewriting, with pictures, are "translations" of Stoker's Dracula while Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da is an adaptation most probably for children.

Number of pages are one of the elements that shows our biases in our perception of translation. Because generally we tend to focus on the exactness of the rewritten text and closeness to the original. So the closer the number of pages to the original, the closer the translation to the original is. The others are more likely to be called adaptations.

While Kamer Yayınları has contents page for both rewritings, İthaki Yayınları prefers not to put a contents page on a novel.

Finally, the pictures inside the books create a difference. Akkuş' Drakula has pictures directly taken from the movie which is consistent with its promotion on the blurb. Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da has pictures looking more like sketches which supports the children's book anticipation. Elçi's Drakula has no pictures in it.

REFERENCES

Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.

Venuti, Lawrence 2004. "Translation, Community, Utopia" in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 482-503.

Politics in Rewriting

As mentioned by Douglas Robinson in the introduction of his analysing of Lefevere’s book Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, translation studies has experienced a social turn over the last decades by including rich social processes into the field and this turn actually has turned translation studies into a field where politics is discussed, produced, and reproduced. System theorists, foreignists, and post-colonialist theorists are given as examples of those following this kind of an approach to translation.

Being one of the system theorists Andre Lefevere touches upon the role of the ideology, power and culture in “translation”, or rather in rewriting as defined by him. Rewriting includes translations, criticisms, historiographies, anthologizing, and editing; that is what is written over the original writing. Thus he made two distinct categories in literature: one being the original writing and the other is the rewriting.

In spite of the “power” of rewritings in literature (i.e. reaching more people than original writings, being produced as a service of a certain ideology), they tend to be treated more like ‘“ancillary” in kind’ [Lefevere, 4] by the professional readers. Non-professional readers, on the other hand, will probably tend to choose rewritings over the originals. This can be explained by the power relations between the professional and non-professional readers, similar to the relations between the patron and the rewriter. Power of professionals comes from the easier access to economic resources, to language, to transportation opportunities in order to get the original. And this will also give them the chance to manipulate the rewritings of these texts, since the rewriters of them will most probably be among the professional readers of the texts in the first place. This manipulation is a way to create, maintain and change the cultural system [Robinson, 28] requested by the patron in order to preserve the stability of the social system as a whole. Patrons in power want to control the literary production because their power is based on it [Lefevere, 17].

This power is also based on the consumption of these rewritings by the culture/society. Making such a deduction would not be wrong since the stability of the system both in economical and ideological terms depends on the reading of these rewritings by non-professional readers. As a result, these texts should be congenial to the public. While appearing to be produced for the public taste, these rewritings serve to a bigger objective, the maintenance of the system. It is part of the “naturalization” process, the process of making the artificial (seem) natural, the imagined (seem) real [Robinson, 27]. This is actually quite similar to the situation criticized by Spivak in translation of Third World literature into English, or into other powerful languages of the West. While taking Third World to the majority, the First World, there is nothing noble about the law of the majority [Spivak, 371]. Although the objective seems to recognize and/or promote Third World literature in West, it is merely the easiest way of being “democratic” with minorities [ibid, 371].

Since Lefevere wants to analyze the systemic functioning of power, but does not want his analysis to be (mis)taken for an indictment [Robinson, 31], he makes a decision on not to take part in this political process. However, when power relations, hence the politics, come to the scene of the literary production, the rewritings will differ dramatically from the original writings as they will be shaped according to a certain ideology. Thus, even not making an indictment will be a political choice.

REFERENCES

Robinson, Douglas 1997. What is Translation?. The Kent State University Press. pp. 25-42.
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 1992. “The Politics of Translation” in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 369-388.

Planning the Translation

Toury’s two papers, which are quite complementary to each other, mentions the ways by which translation and culture are affecting each other in terms of planning, that is, how culture planning affects translations and how translation planning affects culture. His general method of analyse is to give the description of past translational activities within these framework and explanations/observations on the cultural processes of the time. However, the problem is that Toury does not mention his perspective of the situation.

He defines planning as “any act of (more or less deliberate) intervention in a current state of affairs within a social group, i.e., making decisions for others to follow.” [Toury 1996, 151] and adds that it “[...], very often is performed for the very sake of attaining power rather than as bona fide attempt to introduce ‘desirable’ changes.” [Toury 1996, 152] Thus, he gives this power to translation and translators as well in the process of “invention of a culture, or cultural sector” [Toury 1996, 152]. He manages this by including pseudo-translations and genuine translations to the limits within the concept of translation. Because “[...] success of culture planning is often a result of certain flexibility whereas rigidity may well lead to failure.” [Toury 1996, 153] So by bringing the flexibility into the field of translation, he can count pseudo-translations as a type of translation. With the help of pseudo-translations, AGENTS OF CHANGE include translation into the general system, to the centre of the system.
The main deficient in Toury’s paper is the reactions of translators to have this kind of a pseudo power and to be taken into the centre rather than paving the way to the centre, and his side to the situation. Because I think that the so-called power in this situation is not in the hands of the translator most of the time, it is up to the market like in the example of the author who seeks a change and cannot dare to use his/her name, it is up to the ones who control the society, culture, and thus become planners like in the example of author’s fear of censorship. While Toury mentions the power of words and translation, somehow he includes the idea that “the presumed non-domestic origin of translations makes them less menacing” [Toury 1995, 42] and contradicts with himself. Besides, translation is never seemed less menacing than the “original” as it can be easily deduced form the Turkish and Kurdish translators brought to justice because of the Article 301.

However, he also gives translators the power by positioning translation differently from its previously inferior position to an equal position to the “original” text by defining his concept of norms and how they can help a translator to define his/her way in the process, i.e. whether s/he follows the “norms of the source text, [...] the pursuit of adequate translation” or “target norms and practices” thus an acceptable translation [Toury 1995, 56-7] And he gives the translator freedom to defence the end-product of the translation process, without disregarding the source text, better than most of the previous theories. This perspective will be more liberalizing than the above mentioned power given to the translators and writers as well in terms of translation decisions.

REFERENCES

Toury, Gideon 1996. “Translation as a Means of Planning and the Planning of Translation” in Translations: (Re)shaping of Literature and Culture ed. Paker, Saliha. 2002, pp.148-163.
Toury, Gideon 1996. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. 1995, pp.7-86.