The Mayor Of Zamalea Analysis

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This essay focuses on how the works “Life is a dream” and “The mayor of Zamalea” written by one of the most famous writers in the Spanish Golden Age, Calderon de la Barca, have been translated into English. Basing in the sentence given in the essay title: “A play should breathe for a modern audience; they are not watching some fusty museum piece” I will explain the importance of adapt a work to the modern audience, especially in performing the work and the main difficulties that a translator must deals with to achieve a good theater translation basing in the society and cultural background. In addition a work must achieve fidelity to the original text but without be translated literally, word by word.
According to the methods of translation …show more content…

ROSAURA:
Let us turn and fly. The risks of this enchanted tower.
CLARIN:
For one, I scarce have strength to stand, much less to run.
ROSAURA:
Is not that glimmer there afar, that dying exhalation, that pale star. A tiny paper, which, with trembling blaze flickering “twixt” struggling flames and dying rays, with ineffectual spark. Makes the dark dwelling place appear more dark? Yes, for its distant light, reflected dimly, brings before my sight. A dungeon’s awful gloom, Say rather of a living corse, a living tomb; and to increase my terror and surprise.

In this extract from the First Act, we can notice that the language is not adapted for modern audience, he uses a lot of complex and old words. This is a direct translation, the translator have a knowledge of theatre and Spanish. The author can translate the metaphor into the target language creating a new work with sense. Although comparing with the original text we can notice that there are several elements or phrases that have been deleted because they have no sense when you translate into the target language.
This second one was translated by Michael Kidd in 2004.
Act 1.

SIGISMUND:
Oh, what a miserable, unlucky wretch am I! …show more content…

The society, especially young people, does not want to watch a performance which uses an old language and a lot of metaphors. A play can be adapted without losing the essence that the author wanted to transmit. As the title of the essay says “A play should breathe for a modern audience; they are not watching some fusty museum piece” am completely agree with this, the times are changing and a work can transmit the same using a different style and register.
To conclude this essay, I have compared two works of the Spanish Golden Age, “the mayor of Zamalea” and “life is a dream”. Analyzing two versions of “life is a dream” translated in different ages we notice that the style and the register is changing using not so complex words and how each translator has adapted the work. The play “the mayor of Zamalea” the translator decided to create a literal translator choosing to preserve the bases of Caleron de la Barca.
For creating a work and analyze it, is really important to know the different theories of the translation studies with the aim of understand how each translator create his own work. Studying the translation studies theories we can notice the quantity of problems that a translator has to deals with. It is not easy to create a translation and focus it to a specific

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