Rap battle in Hades : on the loss and recovery of humor in Aristophanes' Frogs

Abstract

In modern English translations of the comedies of Aristophanes, much of the humor is lost simply as a result of cultural distance. To attempt to regain this humor in the Frogs, I want to present the jokes in order to make my modern audience react in something like the way that the Athenians might have reacted to each joke of Aristophanes. Thus, I propose a translation that makes use of dynamic equivalence, a method formulated by theorist Eugene Nida. Dynamic equivalence emphasizes phrasing a translation in such a way as to hit the target audience with the same force with which the original words hit the original audience. In my translation, I have, among other things, replaced Athenian celebrities with figures in my culture that parallel them; defined particular cultural references of the original more specifically in the dialogue; and broken the fourth wall in alluding to the distance of Aristophanes' original humor. I think that, compared with other translations, of which most are not nearly as liberal, the result is funnier for a modern audience.