If the interpreter’s goal is to capture the form and content as much as possible, then I feel we can call the result a translation. If the interpreter’s interest is only in certain aspects of the original— such as its imagery, à la Ezra Pound—then we could call the result a version. We could do the same with a poem put into another language’s prose or free verse: a prose version or free-verse version. And if the interpreter is using the original primarily as an inspiration, but effectively going off on his own, then we could call it an adaptation or simply say, based on. Robert Lowell called his adaptations imitations, and this word has been popular for centuries. However, imitation gives the impression of something closer than an adaptation: one who imitates tries to do the same thing. I think most readers would consider imitation just another name for a translation, especially since they rarely encounter the term today.
All of these are legitimate ways of dealing with a foreign poem, and I feel that all of them should be encouraged. However, fidelity tends to value only the translation, viewing the others as betrayals. As an ethicist, I too tend to see infidelity to form and content as betrayal. But the most ethical stance, I feel, is to make sure the reader is told what he is getting. If the reader wants something as close as possible to the experience of the original, then he can pick up a translation. If he wants a prose or free-verse version of formal poetry, then he can pick up something that is called that. Otherwise, he might end up reading a poem merely based on another poem, thinking he is getting someone’s best attempt at capturing that other poem. Or he might not know the original was originally in formal verse, or even verse at all.
Unfortunately, however, there is no reason, economically, for a publisher to give out this sort of information, at least in these prehistoric days before there is an appreciation of translation approaches. Such information will scare some readers away, especially from freer versions, because they’ll think they can get something more authentic elsewhere. It would have to be explained that the element of authenticity in a freer version involves not its equivalence to the original, but rather the translator’s response to the original, the preservation of its content and, possibly, the modernization of its form (authentic, in a sense, because the foreign
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