Welcome to "Transparancy" a workshop on translation.
Taking its starting point with Mon Rêve Familier by Paul Valéry,
this webspace explores several possible modes of translation.

The main question which drives this site is, what does translation translate?
If to speak a sentence in any language is to speak that language,
how can a group of sentences be extracted and
plopped down in another language?

How does translation work to create something new?
Is the translator a poet or a linguist?
Is the value of a poem inherent in its paradigmatic
or its syntactic suit?

In other words, can we read Paul Valéry without
reading the history of French poetry? Or, without
even speaking French?

More important perhaps, to this space is,
can we translate Paul Valéry without speaking
any French?

In this space, please move the mouse freely,
and input when there is the opportunity to input.
I will use all the data I receive to create a new
poem and perhaps a new space and perhaps a new Paul Valéry.

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