Paradoxes de l'étrange et du familier: deux traductions

Two recently translated poems seem to tie in with the topic of the conference through the very contrast in their respective difficulty. We have on the one hand a Scottish ballad on the clearances resulting from the enclosure movement, and on the other a poem by French Guyanese author Léon-G. Damas, Black-Label, translated into English. The ballad entitled ‘Glen Quaich’ is actually a contemporary piece of work but devised on a traditional form and using a local dialect. Damas’ poem includes terms that specifically relate to the Caribbean and plays on well-known nursery rhymes.
The paradox lies in the fact that the Caribbean text is easier to translate than the ballad, which raises a number of almost unanswerable questions such as the extent to which the translator should try and transpose dialectical forms.