SYLLABUS

THEORIES OF LITERARY TRANSLATION

This course focuses on the history, theories and practices of literary translation, to provide students with a comparative and international perspective. The course underlines the subjects of the different aspects of figurative and literary language; theories of translation and translatability; theories of semantic equivalence; alternative modes of translation including sound- and graph-translation; and the history of important moments of translation in shaping the literary imagination as well as emphasizing literary translation, a study of the theoretical and practical problems encountered in the processes of translation, transmission, and interpretation.

This course is also designed to be both a seminar on the theories of literary translation and related studies and a workshop, in which we will share, improve and upgrade our knowledge in translation studies and in our translations completed or in‐progress. We will read and discuss the major theoretical texts and reflect on the recent trends in the field toward the politics and ethics of translation. Our discussions will basically focus on the questions of translatability, fidelity, and the hierarchical division between original texts and their translations. Throughout the semester, we will compare different translations of literary texts in order to examine how each version works and discuss how translators make decisions of language, style, format, and cultural equivalency.

Dr. Aslı Özlem TARAKCIOĞLU

READINGS  LIST & ASSIGNMENTS

1.       INTRODUCTION

Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” and “Quest for the Essence of Language”

Heidegger, “Language”

Borges, “An Investigation of the Word”

Paz, “Translation: Literature and Letters”

Agamben, “The Idea of Silence” and “The Idea of Language”

**further reading:

George Steiner, “Understanding as Translation” and “Language and Gnosis” from After Babel:

Aspects of Language and Translation

2.       THE TASKS OF THE TRANSLATOR

Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet, introduction to Theories of Translation

Hugo Friedrich, “On the Art of Translation”

John Dryden, “On Translation”

Friedrich Schleiermacher, “On the Different Methods of Translating”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Translations”

Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”

**further reading:

Ezra Pound, “Guido’s Relations”

Walter Benjamin, “Translation – For and Against” and “The Knowledge that the First Material on Which the Mimetic Faculty Tested Itself”

3.        THE ETHICS OF TRANSLATION

Antoine Berman, “The Manifestation of Translation” and “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign”

George Steiner, “The Hermeneutic Motion”

Jacques Derrida, “Des Tours de Babel” and “What Is a Relevant Translation”

4.       THE POLITICS OF TRANSLATION

Gayatri Spivak, “The Politics of Translation”

Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Thick Translation”

Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard: Author of the Quixote”; “The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald”;  “The Homeric Versions”; “Word‐Music and Translation”

Efraín Kristall, Invisible Work: Borges and Translation

**further reading: Sergio Waisman, Borges and Translation: The Irreverence of the Periphery

(2005)

5.       CULTURE IN TRANSLATION

Dennis Tedlock, “Toward a Poetics of Polyphony and Translatability”

Henry Staten, “Tracking the ‘Native Informant’: Cultural Translation as the Horizon of Literary Translation”

Student‐selected works in translation that problematize how culture gets transposed.

6.       TRANSLATION STUDIES AT THE MILLENIUM

Emily Apter, The Translation Zone

Student‐selected work; analysis of published translations and discussion on translatability, fidelity, stylistic responsibility and decision‐making.

**THIS SYLLABUS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE**