Bellos Reading

     This is kind of a rant that doesn't fully connect to the actual reading, but i'm conflicted about the preamble, more specifically the part about how "translation keeps literature alive"...  While I agree that translation makes literature more accessible globally, it most certainly doesn't keep it "alive". I think this statement is heading towards a sort of empowered feeling amongst translators, which is honestly valid considering the level of work that they do, but I think we need to come to terms with the limits of translation. Like we've spoken about before in class, yes, every translation is an "original" work, especially in poetry, but we still take those ideas and prose from somewhere. There is a reason the original author is still on the front cover and the translator is in the first few pages, it's because they didn't write it, they recreated it in a different language. "Translation is change and motion; literature dies when it stays the same, when it has no place to go."

    I think the overarching theme here ties in with what we've been discussing in class so far: The balance between the original and target languages/cultures. I think that the "clumsiness" of works that try to retain some "foreign-ness" is critique that the target audience of the translation would likely never notice/understand. Most of this kind of critique seems to come from other scholars in the field. I do agree, however, that the level of "foreign-ness" that is kept in the work should change as our collective knowledge of those cultures change. For example, since the understanding of every-day French phrases is lessening as we get farther away from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the expected understanding of them in translations should lessen accordingly. Though, I do think there is some value in keeping it in, with moderation, to preserve this knowledge, as well.

Madison