தினசெய்தி – 4 6 2023
பக்கம் எண் : 4
அருந்தமிழும் அன்றாட வழக்கும் – 164
ஷேக்ஸ்பியரின்
நுண்மாண் நுழைபுலம் !
முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தில்லிப் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தில் யான் 28 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பு வழங்கிய
முனைவர் பட்ட ஆய்வின் பதினான்காம் பகுதி வருமாறு:
The first baby steps taken to accommodate Shakespeare within the structure of the Tamil world of letters, was a translation of “The Merchant of Venice”, which appeared in 1870 in the then Madras.
It has been observed that even as early as 1788, attempts were made to put Shakespeare on the Indian stage and since then there has been a spate of Shakespearean productions in Bengal.
And in 1883, the first translation of “The Merchant of Venice” into Bengali also appeared under the title “Bhanumati Chittavitas”.
But it is a matter of pride for the Tamils that as early as 1870, the first translated work of the same play in Tamil was published in the then Madras.
Since then not less than fifty translations and adaptations have appeared in South India and Sri Lanka.
Tragedy, as Shakespeare seems to have expressed, is alien to the Tamil World.
Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, the founding father of Tamil stage, records on more than one occasion in his Nadaka Medai Ninaivukal, that sometimes, even after having written plays in Tamil with a tragic ending, he has been compelled to alter the ending and give the impression of ‘lived happily ever after’.
The inflexibility of the Tamils in admitting the possibility of tragedy in the Shakesperean sense has been a major limiting factor and this explains the absence of sustained tragic intensity in most translations.
However, Shakesperean comedy seems to have been more acceptable to the Tamil audience.
There are approximately twenty five translations of his comedies.
Plays like “As you like it” have been put on stage fairly regularly.
Shakesperean comedy is neither satiric nor idealistic, but tries to strike a middle path by synthesizing the extremes.
This aspect seems to have been generally missed by a fair number of translators.
Hence, certain significant but disturbing passages have either been deleted or distorted in the translations, indicating that either the comic vision of Shakespeare has eluded many translators or they have taken the translator’s liberty to make it acceptable to the readers they cater to.
There is also the problem of metre, pointed out earlier.
Speculation about an adequate Tamil equivalent to blank verse has not yet ceased.
While generally, the traditional metre ‘akaval’ has been used for the entire translation of a play, T. Lakshmana Pillai, a well-known Carnatic music exponent, however, has employed a new type of metre.
His metre, according to him, was on all fours with the English pentameter and with its scope and easy flow was better suited for dramatic purposes than the ‘Akaval’ metre used extensively by other reputed dramatists.
Though his metre has not found the approval of some other scholars like S.Anavaradhavinayakam Pillai, there is great clarity of communication.
There are also translations which seem to have had the school students in mind and thus, one finds a variety of translations of Shakespeare, each one differing from the other depending upon the taste of both, the translators and the consumer.
While looking at the impact of Shakespeare on India and its various languages, it is also worthwhile analysing the issues around translation.
One can look at it from a critical perspective, and also look at it through the eyes of different Shakesperean scholars – from a professor’s point of view like that of Prof.A.Srinivasa Raghavan, from a translator’s angle like that of Justice Maharajan and from an actor/producer’s angle like that of Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar.
Many take the view that poetic drama is not just a mixture of verse and poetic imagination, while some have taken a contrarian view and have also done well.
However, the result of such an effort would be a work with neither poetry nor drama.
Shakespeare exploited poetry to create in his plays, such dramatic situations that were the natural outcome of character interaction and human experiences, and the many facets of the human mind.
The plays were such as could be written only in the verse form depicting the emotions, conflicts and the intellectual broadsides of characters.
Hence, barring a few instances, the plays and poetry were a perfect blend. It continues to baffle analysts as to how the playwright could achieve such a fusion between the form and substance.
Shakespeare’s articulation is as great as his imagination and his expressions are minute and fertile, and many of them have a bearing on the spirit of his times.
A single phrase has many reverberations and for various reasons, even in the original text, some words look deformed and do not seem to have a contextual import and this accounts for the various interpretations and different texts.
The issue becomes more complex when one takes into account culture, linguistic traditions/features and passing of times.
For example, something that fit in with the Elizabethan Age may appear incongruous and vulgar now and may have to be rejected or refined.
In doing so, the translator cannot lose major dramatic elements and this may not guarantee a cent percent capture of the spirit of the play.
However it is the duty of a translator to address such complex issues.
– முனைவர் ஔவை அருள்
தொடர்புக்கு dr.n.arul@gmail.com
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