Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter

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Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (1920)

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (also HT Lowe-Porter , nee Helen Tracy Porter; born June 15, 1877 in Towanda , Pennsylvania , † April 27, 1963 in Princeton , New Jersey ) was an American translator . She translated fiction from German into English. Her transfers of the works of the Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann are of particular importance .

life and work

On her father's side, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter came from a family of doctors who for generations had attached importance to giving their daughters a good education. Her mother was Clara Porter, née Holcombe, her father, Henry Clinton Porter, had studied pharmacy and ran a pharmacy. The couple had three daughters, Helen Tracy was the second born. Her role model was her aunt, the poet, translator and literary critic Charlotte Endymion Porter (1857–1942), who co-founded the literary magazine Poet Lore . Like her aunt before, she attended Wells College in Aurora , New York . She studied German for a total of eight years in school and college and pursued literary interests with the aim of becoming a writer. She graduated in 1898, and when she graduated , she received an excellent certificate. She then contributed to Poet Lore with translations and literary reviews . From 1900 to 1906 she was busy with translation work.

In 1906 she went to Germany to study theater studies in Munich. There she moved into a room in a boarding house where her older sister Frances had previously lived during her vocal training. Frances put the nurse in contact with Elias Avery Loew . He came from a Jewish family who immigrated to the United States from Lithuania , and changed his name to Lowe in 1918. She interrupted her studies from 1907 to 1908 due to financial difficulties, returned home and earned her living with translations.

In February 1911, Helen Tracy Porter and Elias Avery Loew married. The couple lived in Oxford from autumn of that year . Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter had three daughters, the youngest daughter Patricia was born in 1917. During the First World War , Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter went to the USA with the children, and her husband followed in 1917. In 1921 the family moved back to Great Britain. Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter translated works by Gerhart Hauptmann and Heinrich Sundermann, among others . By Frank Thiess she transferred the novel Das Tor zur Welt (The Gateway to Life) and Der Leibhaftige (The Devil's Shadow) and Abschied vom Paradies (Farewell to Paradise) , published in 1926 . Bruno Frank's exile novel Cervantes (1934) appeared in her translation under the title A Man called Cervantes in the United Kingdom. She also transferred works by Arthur Schnitzler and Hermann Broch . She translated letters and documents for Albert Einstein , whom she considered one of her personal friends. She made some translations from French, Italian, Dutch and Latin.

The London publisher William Heinemann commissioned her to translate the 1901 novel Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, but the translation of the work was published in the USA in 1924 by Alfred A. Knopf . In 1921, Mann's German publisher Samuel Fischer Knopf had granted the exclusive right to publish Mann's works in the United States. Hermann George Scheffauer would have preferred as a translator, who would translate some early stories as well as Herr und Hund (Bauschan and I) and Disorder and Early Sorrow (Disorder and Early Sorrow).

Even before the English Buddenbrooks edition appeared, Mann congratulated Lowe-Porter in writing on April 11, 1924, “on your work, which I find unusually sensitive and successful. How skillful and striking are z. B. transmit the verses that occur occasionally! And you knew how to overcome the difficulties that you mention in the preface, which concern the untranslatability of the dialect, in such a way that I did not feel deprived. ”He weakened his recognition towards his American publisher the following year. He tried to prevent her from translating Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) by pointing out Scheffauer's highly acclaimed translation of Herr und Hund and writing to him that “a book like 'The Magic Mountain' is better off with a male translator " be. In the essay On Translating Thomas Mann , she admitted that she was actually afraid of the translation of the magic mountain - because Mann did not trust her, but not because she was a woman.

Despite Mann's reservations, Knopf ordered her to be his official translator, and after Scheffauer's death her position was consolidated. Mann tried to win over his American patroness Agnes E. Meyer for the transmission of Doctor Faustus , but after an initial acceptance she finally refused. Lowe-Porter took over the transmission, whereby it made meaningful errors in the short time it took. He was also dissatisfied with the translation of the acceptance speech for the award of an honorary doctorate from Princeton University on May 18, 1939. He noted in his diary: “Distress and torment with the astonishingly poor Lowe translation [...] improvements with the help of Katia , Klaus and Annette . "

From 1937 Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter lived in the American university town of Princeton, where her husband had been doing research at the university since 1936. The Manns also came there in 1938. During this time, personal contact, which had begun in 1924 when the Mann couple visited her and her husband in Oxford, deepened. People met frequently, at social events, house warming parties, for lunch or dinner. In On Translation Thomas Mann , Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter stated: “I was able to see a good deal of the Manns.” (I've seen some of the Manns.) The personal relationship had become closer; When the Manns moved to California in 1941, Thomas Mann stated in his diary: "Farewell to Mrs. Lowe, who is a friend of mine."

Mann's appreciation of her work also grew, and after her translation of Doctor Faustus was voted Book of the Month and the first edition of 25,000 copies had sold after a month, he saw this as a success for the translator. Your last translation of a literary work of Thomas Mann in 1951 was The Chosen One (The Holy Sinner). She refused to take over the cheated woman in order to have time for her own works like the story Sea Change - to Thomas Mann's regret. She initially decided against the confessions of the impostor Felix Krull ; when she agreed, another translator had already been hired.

In 1953, at a meeting in London in London, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter made a weak and frail impression on Mann. She suffered from a neurological disease and had been separated from her husband for years. Erich Kahler took them into his Princeton home. This was followed by stays in clinics and homes. Her last residence was the Merwick Home in Princeton. The former bishopric offered professors of the university and their wives a home for the last phase of life. At the Merwick Home , she received regular visits from her husband and three daughters.

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter died in 1963. Her daughter Patricia Tracy Lowe published A marriage of true minds. A memoir of my parents, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter and Elias Avery Lowe their memories of their parents.

Mann translations (selection)

literature

  • Heinz J. Armbrust: "She is unique and we have to give in". Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (1877-1963) . In: Ders .: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Vittorio Klostermann publisher. Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-465-03844-3 , pp. 165-193.
  • Lowe-Porter, Helen Tracy (née Porter). In: Heinz J. Armbrust, Gert Heine: Who is who in Thomas Mann's life? A dictionary of persons. Vittorio Klostermann publisher. Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-465-03558-9 , pp. 162-163.
  • Patricia Tracy Lowe: A marriage of true minds. A memoir of my parents, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter and Elias Avery Lowe. Tusitala. New Paltz NY 2006, ISBN 0-9642350-4-8 (English).
  • John C. Thirlwall: In Another Language. A Record of the Thirty-Year Relationship between Thomas Mann and His English Translator, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1966 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 165–193, here pp. 165–166.
  2. ↑ Christiane Zehl Rimero: Lowe-Porter, Helen Tracy. In: Barbara Sichermann, Carol Hurd Green (Eds.): Notable American Women: The Modern Period. A Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London 1980, ISBN 0-674-62732-6 , pp. 428-429 (English).
  3. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 165–193, here pp. 166–167.
  4. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 165–193, here pp. 166–167.
  5. ↑ Christiane Zehl Rimero: Lowe-Porter, Helen Tracy. In: Barbara Sichermann, Carol Hurd Green (Eds.): Notable American Women. Harvard University Press, pp. 428-429.
  6. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 165–193
  7. ↑ Timothy Buck: Mann in English. In: Ritchie Robertson (Ed.): The Cambridge Company to Thomas Mann. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-65370-3 , pp. 235–247, here p. 235 (English).
  8. ↑ Scheffauer, Hermann George. In: Heinz J. Armbrust, Gert Heine: Who is who in Thomas Mann's life? A dictionary of persons. Vittorio Klostermann publisher. Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-465-03558-9 , p. 247.
  9. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 168.
  10. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 171.
  11. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 173.
  12. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget : Thomas Mann, the American. Life and work in American exile 1938–1952. S. Fischer. Frankfurt am Main 2011, p. 179; Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 173.
  13. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Frankfurt am Main 2011, pp. 200-203.
  14. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: Thomas Mann, the American. Frankfurt am Main 2011, p. 285 (diary May 6, 1939).
  15. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust, Gert Heine: Who is who in the life of Thomas Mann? A dictionary of persons. P. 163.
  16. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 168–170.
  17. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 186.
  18. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 186 (diary March 15, 1941).
  19. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 182.
  20. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, pp. 183–184.
  21. ↑ Heinz J. Armbrust: "Dear friend, ...". Women around Thomas Mann. Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 188, p. 193.


personal data
SURNAME Lowe-Porter, Helen Tracy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Porter, Helen Tracy (maiden name); Porter-Lowe, HT (author name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American translator
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Towanda, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1963
Place of death Princeton, New Jersey