Rumors of Nature: An Ecotranslation of Ulrike Almut Sandig’s “so habe ich sagen gehört”
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the idea behind this paper and feel like the chosen poem provides a compelling text for analysis. The paper makes a number of good points about the ways a different translation would better capture the complexities of the poem from an ecological perspective. I like that the paper puts the work of translation into practice as a means of demonstrating the theoretical idea.
I do think the paper has a number of ideas that need significantly more nuance. Taking the paper to the next level would rely on more engagement with contemporary thinkers and theorists—specifically those who address ecological issues. I included some suggestions for that in the notes below.
Line 36: dash instead of a semi-colon
Line 53: Clarify what you mean by “it disregards…” Does the previous translation not ‘silence nature’? If not, then what is the purpose of the new translation?
Line 56: The passive voice makes this confusing. I would suggest not shying away from the first-person in this paper, since it incorporates the author’s own practice of translation. Not doing so creates some confusion and reliance on passive voice sentences with an absent subject.
Line 70: It would benefit the paper to complicate its understanding of ecopoetry beyond issues of representation and into issues of poetics—process, structure, linguistic experimentation, etc. See Keller’s Recomposing Ecopoetics, for example. As I read further into the paper, I see that the reading of the poem does address such issues. That provides even more reason to discuss when defining ecopoetry.
Line 75: Omit “already cited above”
Line 86: I would avoid language that emphasizes binary thinking: “impressed upon nature by humanity.” Find a way to describe anthropogenic change that highlights human impact on ecological systems without language that feels like “man vs. nature.”
Line 93-6: Would it not make more sense to provide the quote when the paper first introduces these approaches and then summarize it when returning to the idea later in the paper? As is, it feels like a repetition of something that was already established.
Line 98-9: Clarify: “before the concept of ecology in literature existed.” Ecology, as a concept, dates to Humboldt in the western tradition. Is that different from its existence as a concept in literature? Is it more that the translator’s concept of nature does not match the portrayal of nature in the source text, perhaps due to a lack of ecological consciousness?
Line 107: It seems like some discussion of translation theory would be appropriate here, since the act of translation, in the third approach, veers from the first two. Translation, in the third sense, becomes a transformation or appropriation of the source text, whereas the first two seem to remain as faithful as possible to the source text.
One of the other tricky aspects of this argument is that you don’t want to get bogged down in issues of authorial intention—whether or not the poet has specific ecological values and is intending to communicate those in the poem. It makes sense to be wary of language in here that communicates overconfidence in ‘what’s really in the poem.’ This again gets into the theory of how we see the role of the translator and her/his relation to the poem.
Line 112: No new paragraph
Line 120: “natural, referring”
Line 142: Writing is confusing. “The poetry anthology includes three critical essays?”
Line 144: My examination (to avoid confusion with the previous sentences).
Line 145-6: Writing suggestion: “…thematic elements reflect the poem’s ecological concerns.”
Line 160: And also nature and culture, right? It seems like the list suggests a “natureculture,” to use Donna Haraway’s term. (It looks like you touch on this below, so maybe first suggest it here.) Clarify Line 172. In lines 186-7, try to avoid binary language. A naturalcultural entanglement is a sort of relation, rather than a human subject imposing itself upon a nonhuman object. Obviously, the idea of the Anthropocene highlights human alteration of climate and the environment. But some critics argue that the term also lures us into anthropocentrism and binary thinking. The argument in this paragraph works, but create a bit more nuance in the language.
Lines 188-95: Same as above. Is the loss of the cultural separate from the loss of the natural?
Line 213-14: Or the way that humans’ perspective on/understanding of nonhumans is mediated by knowledge structures (taxonomy, maps, poems)? Do we know that order is inherent to nature?
Line 238: So, is Sandig lamenting the loss of the mystical/mythical forest? It doesn’t seem like that’s the sort of forest that exists in the poem.
Line 248: Isn’t repetition structural?
Line 249: displays
Line 256: Read through the paper to revise passive language: “can be categorized.” I marked a few instances, but it’s something that can be revised throughout the paper.
Page 7: I’m having a hard time following the organizational logic of the paper. It seems that the paper discusses the first vanished item on the list, and then there’s a long detour that gets into structure, etc., and then we return to the list.
Line 272-93: The discussion of the loss of gods would work better if it were more clearly connected to what that might mean in a contemporary context. And I’m not sure the section on name changes in Greek myth adds much here (especially since Greek names re-emerged).
Line 364: Passive voice: “was completed”
Page 12: I would like to see the Leder translation in here as well, since the premise of composing a new translation relies on making choices that are different from hers. Organizationally, it might also make sense not to separate out the critique of Leder’s translation. Instead, the paper could take use through the choices in the new translation, comparing them to Leder’s choices. Again, this would emphasize the ecotranslation approach that identifies a need for a more ecological translation based on what already exists.
Page 12: Did you mean to keep ‘guten’ in the new translation?
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1 7: em dash after Crutzen not comma
1-2: good summation of Anthropocene and ecocriticism
2, 47 add comma before “yet”
2 74: perhaps a comment on how an ecotranslation of a Romantic poem could enhance the biocentric perspective
2 75-6: add comma between that and when AND between combined and ecotranslation
3 84: comma between authors and two
3 88: no comma
3 92 I would put it, “three different ways:” [cut “as”, instead include the colon]
3 97 Comma before there
3-4 119-120: tweak sentence—not quite grammatical. I would say
The word “paddock” references a manmade fenced-in field, while in contrast the word “grass” is natural, referring to a grassy field or meadow.
4 131 add comma between text and their
5 excellent first full paragraph—fascinating re lack of title
5 2nd full paragraph: the author should look at Andrew Marvell’s The Mower poems, particularly The Mower Against Gardens where the speaker rails against grafting
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48333/the-mower-against-gardens
6 196: add comma between items and the
6 203 add comma between length and the
6 excellent evocation of fairy tale and saga—just a comment, fairy tales are famous for the thick forests that can contain promise or menace—is that the case here?
8-9 the loss of names is intriguing—is there a suggested loss of the GDR alluded to here? After all, maps no longer show the GDR
10 typo in Leeder translation: “he old varieties of apples” should be “the old varieties of apples”
10 368 2nd reference to Dr. Karen Leeder should just be “Leeder”
11 discussion of apple—surely there is an implication of a lost Eden—the first problematic apple was with Adam and Eve
13 I agree: leaving Braunkohledörfern untranslated works perfectly here
13 480 comma between Anthropocene and literary
13 492 change comma to semi-colon
13 492 add comma after however
15 558 “CULTURAL UNTRANSLATABILITY: A STUDY ON THE RAINBOW TROOPS” Should NOT be all caps—use normal capital and lower case letter
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author addressed the comments made on the original version and improved many aspects of the paper. I do think the paper has been improved and commend the author for conducting a serious revision.
