On First Looking into Arden's Goethe: Adaptations and Translations of Classical German Plays for the Modern English Stage by Ewald Mengel (review)

Book Reviews93 EWALD MENGEL. On First Looking into Arden's Goethe: Adaptations and Translations of Classical German Plays for the Modern English Stage. Columbia: Camden House, 1994. 198 p. liiwald Mengel's informative and smoothly written book makes a notable contribution to the understanding and appreciation of a fascinating literary sub-genre, that of the adaptation and translation of classical German plays for production on the modern English stage. It is an area of literary criticism which has been widely ignored until now. The work reexamines the criteria by which translations and adaptations are judged, and formulates a critical approach which equally does justice to the source text and to the target text. The author anchors his study in recent theoretical works of scholars like Erika Fischer-Lichte, Theo Hermans, Gideon Toury, and André Lefevere, who have renewed theoretical interest in the transposition of texts from one culture and literature into another. Mengel adheres in his methodology to their broader or inclusive view of translation that focuses not only on the linguistic aspects of the transliteration process, but also on the relationship between the original literary work and its translation. In this approach, the literary, theatrical, and social norms which determine the reception of a foreign text in the context of another culture are given consideration. Mengel's own work expands on such theoretical reorientation to reevaluate the transpositional strategies and techniques of drama translation, a specialized form of translation with its own rules and requirements. Beginning with a lengthy introduction which is divided into three main parts, Mengel first summarizes the theoretical basis of his interpretative chapters. He refutes orthodox translation criticism which is typically "source text oriented, normative, and prescriptive" (3) in positing the idea that the original text provides the standard by which the translation should be evaluated. He argues rather for a non-normative, inclusive concept of translation which recognizes, in contrast, the necessity of "creative rereading or rewriting" (18) of the source text as the best, and often only, possible means of doing justice to the special characteristics of the original. Linguistic and cultural transformations are seen as the only means, at times, of enabling the target audience—in this case an English-speaking audience—to have access to the German drama. The introduction next applies this target-oriented approach to an overview of the authors and plays analyzed in the book, seeking out affinities and differences between the German-speaking dramatists and their English translators and adapters. Mengel draws the conclusions of his book before he begins the analysis of individual plays proper, using the body of his work as the means to illustrate and confirm his theories. In all, the work is made up often chapters, each taking up the comparison of a German play with its English translation . Since the translators or adapters of the selected plays are famous English playwrights, authors interesting in their own right such as John Arden, John Mortimer, Charles Marowitz, and Edward Bond among others, Mengel's discussion of the pairings of the German and English writers 94Rocky Mountain Review makes for compelling reading. Through careful analysis of technical features , such as the use of monologues and dialogues, strategies of comedy, the depiction of character, and the rationale for omissions, additions, and the reordering of scenes, Mengel elucidates the many problems of interlingual translation. These problems may be due at times to the age of the German plays or result from differing cultural traditions. His discussion illustrates the difficulties in embedding German plays into a new literary context with its different repertoire of theatrical conventions. Making use of lengthy and well chosen quotes to illustrate the transpositional strategies of the English translators and adapters, Mengel demonstrates how they often used their translations and adaptations to realize their idiosyncratic artistic aims or to actually give voice to their own philosophies. Mengel examines both comedies and tragedies that are arranged chronologically , following the publication dates of the English texts. It is an arrangement, as Mengel points out, that emphasizes the idea that a translation or adaptation, all too often viewed as an inferior hybrid-text, has to be analyzed and valued as a text in its own right. Individual...