The metamorphoses of the body in the space/time of literary translation

Tools

Scott, Clive (2022) The metamorphoses of the body in the space/time of literary translation. inTRAlinea (Special Issue). ISSN 1827-000X

[thumbnail of inTRAlinea_2022_The metamorphoses of the body in the space_time of literary translation]
Preview
 PDF (inTRAlinea_2022_The metamorphoses of the body in the space_time of literary translation) - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike.
Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Translation is less to do with the meaning of a text than with the body of the reader; translation is a reader’s psycho-physiological encounter with a text which is in turn embodied in language and the materiality of the page. Where translation-for-meaning eliminates the body and transforms text into image, translation-as-bodily-response reconstitutes text as a unique and autonomous object in the world. This article sets out from the relationships between body and language, between self and alterity, as we find these discussed in the work of Merleau-Ponty, where the notion of reversibility is complicated by necessary discrepancy (écart) and by a dynamic of becoming, of dialectical passage. This spatio-temporal morphing undermines both comparison and choice as concepts appropriate to the relation between source text and target text, and to the critical assessment of value. These arguments are played out in a heterostrophic translation of stanzas from Hugo’s ‘Booz endormi’ which attempts to capture the dynamic of the responsive body as it manifests itself in shifting stanzaic structure, acoustic porosity and mutating rhythmic phrasing.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Special issue: Embodied Translating – Mit dem Körper übersetzen
Uncontrolled Keywords: alterity,reversibility,ecart,dialogue,dialectics,the invisible,paralanguage,rhythm,stanzaic structure,situation of speech
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 01 Oct 2025 11:30
Last Modified: 01 Oct 2025 11:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100579
DOI: issn:1827-000X

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item