Brian Friel's "Translations" Essay

While reading the write up of this play, students are in a constant state of confusion with the complicated language used. “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou

Have you ever read something that didn't make any sense to you? Well that happens to almost everybody when they read Shakespeare. While Michael Mack gave a speech to incoming college freshmen telling them that Shakespeare is remarkably difficult to read he makes his point stand out even better. Mack develops an effective argument that explains to the readers that just because you may not understand something at first doesn't mean you shouldn't try again. He learned this through his use of past experience of working with Shakespeare’s work, and appeal to audience.

Sophocles and Shakespeare were both literary artists that published works that have been respected and relevant centuries later. The unique language in historical literature assists in their interpretation and their relevance to modern understanding. The masterful wielding of language, diction, and metaphor contribute to various aspects of their work, adding both elements of drama and realism. By incorporating significant words and lines into their writings, Shakespeare and Sophocles create consistent and fluid plays and stories throughout their lives that offer timeless entertainment. The manipulation of speech seen through various characters such as Teiresias, Oedipus, Margaret, Richmond and Anne play a substantial and crucial role in

The language of Old English, a harder language to understand than modern day English, makes people work harder to figure out what it means. Doing this will help people understand the harder papers, essays, and books they read later on in their lives. So, if people ever read more challenging texts than Romeo and Juliet, they will prepare them to take on the challenge. Also, with the tough vocabulary that occurs throughout the story, it helps enhance students’ vocabulary usage from using mono-syllable words to tri-syllable words. “Tempering extremities with extreme sweet” (Shakespeare act 2 prologue). This sentence, filled with difficult words, shows how great this story can help people strengthen their vocabulary. This also helps them seem more prepared for the future; by understanding words that people speak and able to have an intelligent

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is one of the better known, yet lesser understood theater installments by William Shakespeare in the Sixteenth Century. The play was first performed September 21, 1599 in the Globe Theatre in London, England. In the play there are many different and unique characters, some complex, some simple. Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, better known as Brutus, is one of the characters in the play and the protagonist of the play. Brutus is introduced fairly early in the play, Act I, Scene II to be specific. Brutus is one of the characters on the more complex side. Shakespeare developed the character of

With most lexile levels above 1200, Shakespeare’s plays are too difficult for high school audiences who have lexiles far below that. These plays also consist of words that cannot even be found in a dictionary anymore, therefore students do not have the possibility to look up their definitions and struggle to understand their context. Not only do the plays’ lexiles tower over those of students and the language made to seem aristocratic, but Shakespeare mainly sets his plays overseas within a series of abnormal events, incomprehensible to those who have never experienced these setting types before. With the use of technology to modernize William Shakespeare’s plays, students may find there to be less hatred towards these dramas because of the difficulty to understand and more enthusiasm about reading this legendary playwright’s

Repetition is typically used to help an illiterate audience better remember the plot. On page 163, King Alfred repeats the word “translate” five times in six consecutive sentences. The King wants to translate the most valuable books known to man into Latin, a language that everyone can understand during the Anglo-Saxon period. Alfred justifies his idea by repetitively explaining the process Romans, Christians, and Greeks took to translate their own books and laws. It is obvious that King Alfred is using repetition of the word “translate” to explain and validate his most valued ambition, the spread of literacy through Christianity.

The need to make a work such as Fuente Ovejuna accessible to modern audiences is apparent in Boswell’s non-literal translation, done, according to the translator, to avoid a dry text (Stratford Festival). Boswell did not alter the plot or the time period: the rant about printing presses in Act f, Scene f remained as such, and Mengo’s song in Act II, Scene V, was thematically constant as the comic relief, in which the gracioso ridicules poets by comparing them to pastry chefs (de Vega 37, 60). However, the language was what evolved to be appropriate and entertaining for a 21st-century audience; a webcast presented the process for this adaptation presented, demonstrating how composer Ed Henderson and Boswell experimented with lyrics in a collaboration session for music in the production (Stratford

  There is not unanimity among Beowulf translators concerning all parts of the text, but there is little divergence from a single, uniform translation of the poem. Herein are discussed some passages which translators might show disagreement about because of the lack of clarity or missing fragments of text or abundance of synonyms or ambiguous referents.

To which Jack replies that he knows nothing. Normally, the audience would think that Lady Bracknell would be displeased by his answer but she isn’t. She’s happy that he knows nothing as she doesn’t approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Irony seems to be the running theme within the play.

Othello’s language is very important in understanding his character. Despite his obvious eloquence, Othello protests: ‘Rude am I in my speech/ And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.’ He uses false modesty in order to underline his inferior speech. A critic A.C. Bradley views Othello as ‘the greatest poet of them all’.

The passage to be studied is from Act 3, scene1, from the play, ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. The importance of this passage, and where it fits into the play, is explained in the first paragraph. The following paragraph will highlight some of the distinctive features of its language, starting with the beginning of the passage and comparing it to the end of the passage. The analysis of the text will cover rhythm, sounds, punctuation, repetition, alliteration, enjambment and caesura. Using these techniques Webster helps the reader to extract meaning, characterisation and the themes of the play. Finally, the third paragraph will show how the distinctive features of the language can be translated into performance using lighting, tone of voice, props, costume, sound and space. The language used in the text of the play is the source to its meaning and performance.

Translation can now be seen as a form of response that ‘recognizes, preserves, and even multiplies the ambiguities of the original text’ (Beals 2014: 288) and offers contemporary outlook or even solutions. The radical departures of Césaire’s translation from lexical and content equivalence can therefore be seen as a form of dialogue with Shakespeare’s original (ibid: 293). Indeed, traces of ambiguities being attended to and modern viewpoints regarding colonialism being inserted can be detected within A

The play ‘Translations’ is set in a Gaelic-speaking, Hedge school in Northern Ireland, 1833. Brian Friel explores the modernization affect individuals and communities that occurred as a result of the conquering English language. He examines how language shapes reality, whilst questioning the assumption that any two people can share the same reality; ideas can be translated between cultures without necessarily being altered. The play offers a parable about the fate of a parochial attitude for those who are not familiar with Irish history. Brain Friel is considered to be “concerned with the nuances of both personal and cultural-national identity and its relation to colonial dispossession, issues of home, language, tradition…’ (Bertha 2006, 154). Friel writes a story of how one nation lost its language, culture and literature as a result of being conquered by another. He explores the reasons behind this loss and the ways in which society can overcome this sense of isolation.

In a genre that contradicts a novelist's affluence of narrative explication, the language in its purest form becomes Shakespeare's powerful instrument, wherein he controls it with the unusual combination of force, subtlety, and exactitude”