Poetry and translation

Over at Poetry Wales, there's a very interesting review of Matthew Francis's The Mabinogi, which considers wider questions about translating medieval poetry and prose.

The reviewer, Eurig Salisbury, says: "Pointing out that he is ‘neither a Welsh speaker nor Welsh-born’, Francis admits he cannot ‘claim the Mabinogi as part of my personal heritage’. His brief pitch for validation, however, ‘in the sense that the greatest products of the human imagination are the heritage of us all’, seems rather glib. A lack of natural affinity with a language or a country certainly does not disqualify anyone who wishes to get to grips with its literature, but an awareness of the wider factors involved is key. In the case of the Welsh language, it is essential, for its position as a minority language in relation to dominant English in its own land warrants understanding in any form of cultural exchange.

"The fact is that Francis’s version is no translation – it is not described as such except in Gillian Clarke’s quoted review on the sleeve – but rather a retelling. It was based solely on a recent English prose translation, and a casual reader might be excused for failing to realise that the language of the original is still spoken."

Is that fair? The Armitage versions of medieval poems mentioned don't seem that different, to me, being closer to retellings than actual translations, although maybe the Heaney version of Beowulf is a bit different.