If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation

Literary translator Hahn (Catching Fire) shows how Shakespeare’s intricate wordplay is preserved and transformed into other languages in this lively exploration. Surveying works in dozens of languages, from Arabic to Yiddish, Hahn discusses the “big policy decisions”—to use verse or prose, rhyme or not— translators must settle before turning to finer points like word order, punctuation, and syllable count. Along the way, he demonstrates that all choices depend on what each language makes possible. For example, in Hamlet, a character makes a joke connecting the name Brutus to an actor portraying “a brute part.” The joke works because English happens to have a pejorative derived from the Latin brutus. Hahn relays the experience of a Korean translator who played with a Korean word that sounds similar to Brutus that means swollen and, when employed with a local idiom meaning “his liver is swollen,” achieves a stinging effect akin to the English joke. Hahn’s delight in linguistic possibility is evident throughout, particularly when he challenges the notion of “untranslatable words,” and he keeps the tone delightfully droll. (In a discussion of Shakespeare’s use of monosyllabic words to convey grief, he expresses worry for the translators tasked with more polyphonic languages: “I have not yet seen Hamlet in Greek but the idea worries me.”) This is a pleasure for scholars and hobbyist wordsmiths alike. (Apr.)