《当代翻译理论》埃德温根次勒
Contemporary translation theories
超人集中营2
By Edwin Gentzler
1 The North American Translation Workshop
In many academic circles in North America, literary translation is still considered condary activity, mechanical rather than creative, neither worthy of rious critical attention nor of general interest to the public. Translators, too, frequently lament the fact that there is no market foe their work and that what does get published is immediately relegated to the margins
of academic investigation. Yet, a clor analysis of the developments over the last four decades reveals that in some circles literary translation has been drawing increasing public and academic interest.
In the early sixties, there were no translation workshops at institutions
of higher learning in the United States. Translation was a marginal activity
at best, not considered by academia as a proper field of study in the
university system. In his essay \Keeley, director of translation workshops
厦门白金汉英语first at Iowa and later at Princeton, wrote,\In 1963 there was no established and continuing public forum for the purpo: no translation centres, no associations of literary translator as far as know, no publications devoted primarily to translations, translators, and their continuing problems\1981:11). In this environment, Paul Engle, Director of the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, gave the first heave; arguing that creative writing knows no national boundaries, he expanded the Creative Writing Program to include international writers. In 1964 Engle hires a full-time director for what was
the first translation workshop in the United Stated and began offering academic credit for literary translations. The following year the Ford Foundation conferred a $150,000 grant on the University of Texas at Austin toward the establishment of the National Translation Center. Also in 1965, the first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, was published, providing literary translators a place for their creative work. In 1968, the National Translation Center published the first issue of Delos, a journal devoted to the history as well as the aesthetics of translation had established a place, albeit a small one, in the production of American culture.
The process of growth and acceptance continued in the venties. Soon translation cours
notonlybutalsoand workshops were being offered at veral universities-Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Iowa, Texas, and State University of New York, Binghamton among them. Advanced degrees were conferred upon students for creative, historical, and theoretical work in the field of literary translation. This, in turn, led to
the establishment of the professional organization American Literary
Translators Association(ALTA) in the late venties as well as the founding of the journal Translation for that organization. By 1977, the United States government lent its authority to this process with the establishment of the National Endowment of the Humanities grants specifically for literary translation. For a while in the late venties and early eighties, it looked
as if the translation workshop would follow the path of creative writing, also considered at one time a non-academic field, and soon be offered at as many schools as had writing workshops.
swjBut despite the increa in translation activity and its gaining of
limited institutional support in the sixties and venties, the process of growth plateaued. Many assu
mptions about the condary status of the field remained. Today, while many universities offer advanced degrees in creative writing, comparatively few offer academic credit for literary translation. One reason is surely the monolinguistic nature of the culture. Howerer, such typecasting is also due to socio-economic motives: labeling translations as derivative rves to reinforce an existing status quo, one that places primary emphasis not on the process but on the pursuit and consumption of \meaning.
The activity of translation reprents a process antithetical to certain reigning literary beliefs, hence its relegation to marginal status within educational and economic institutions and its position in this society as part of a counter-cultural movement.
havesupperIndeed, during the sixties and early venties, the practice of literary translation became heavily in reprentations of alternate value systems and views of reality. While not taken riously by academics, sales of translated literary texts enjoyed unprecedented highs on the open market. Perhaps no one articulated the political urgency and popular attraction of literary
translations during this period better than Ted Huges:
spontaneously
That boom in the popular sales of translated modern poetry was without precedent. Though it reflect
windelned only one aspect of the wave of mingled energies that galvanized tho years with such extremes, it was fed by almost all of
rheathem-Buddhism, the mass craze of Hippie ideology, the revolt of the young, the Pop music of the Beatles and That historical moment might well be an unfolding from inwards, a millennial change in the Industrial
West's view of reality. (Hughes. 1983:9)
For Hughes, the translation boom of the sixties was simply one aspect of a generational movement that articulated itlf in a variety of media. While his view of translation as anti-establish may not have been true of all
translation during this period, it did hold true for a large and influential group of contemporary American poets actively translating at the time:
Zdynas's notes em characteristic of prevailing assumptions regarding the teaching of translation in the United States. He shares the assumption that creative writing cannot be taught, that creative talent is something one is born with. Such a belief plagued creative writing for years before it was ac
cepted as an university discipline. Secondly, Zdanys reveals a prejudice for teaching students how to enjoy the original poem, one that is in keeping with New Critical tenets. His conclusion is not altogether surprising-although he argues against conventional wisdom that translation can be taught at the university, he does it not for reasons Ted Hughes suggested-that it may lead to a change in the West views reality-but becau it reinforces a fairly conrvative humanistic ideology. This is nowhere better revealed than in a contradiction within the essay regarding the theoretical basis of the cour. On the one hand, Zdynas hopes the cour will attract students interested in theoretical question; on the other hand, he argues that he himlf oppos the restraints of \Zdanys says that \the field. Although, ironically, Yale itlf hous numerous such critics who are in fact part of the same department (a special interdepartmental program) in which the cour was offered.
Zdanys clearly finds translation a subjective activity, subsuming translation under the larger goal of interpreting literature. His argument
that the study of translation can lead to a qualitative %understanding reveals the humanistic agenda. His goal is more clearly disclod in a ction of the same essay in which he talks about the prence of a female linguistics students who, despite Zdany's \misgivings\about what she might contribute to the minar, actually brought a \Zdanyd contradicts his stated premi-a rejection of pr
edetermined aesthetic theories-when he concludes that although her approach was a \addition to the cour, he \hopes\that he \her during the cour. The lingering question is \her to what?\
Zdynas's notes em characteristic of prevailing assumptions regarding the teaching of translation in the United States. He shares the assumption that creative writing cannot be taught, that creative talent is something one is born with. Such a belief plagued creative writing for years before it was accepted as an university discipline. Secondly, Zdanys reveals a prejudice for teaching students how to enjoy the original poem, one that is in keeping with New Critical tenets. His conclusion is not altogether surprising-although he argues against conventional wisdom that translation can be taught at the university, he does it not for reason Ted Hughes suggested- that it may lead to a change in the way the West views reality- but becau it reinforces a fairy conrvative humanistic ideology. This is nowhere better revealed than
gazettein a contradiction within the essay regarding the theoretical basis of the cour. On the one hand, Zdynas hopes the cour will attract students interested in theoretical; on the hand, he argue that he himlf oppos the restraints of \that \essay unfortunately cannot consider\the contrition of deconstruction to the field, although, ironically, Yale itlf hous numerous such critics who are in fact part of the same department (a special interdepartmental program) in which the cour was offe
red.
Zdanys clearly finds translation a subjective activity, subsuming translation under the larger goal of interpreting literature. His argument
that the study of translation can lead to a qualitative %understanding reveals the humanistic agenda. His goal is more clearly disclod in a ction of the same essay in which he talks about the prence of a female linguistics student who, despite Zdanys's \misgivings\about what she might contribute to the minar, actually brought a \Zdanys contradicts his stated premi-a rejection of predetermined aesthetic theories-when he concludes that although her approach was a \addition to the cour, he \hopes\that he \her during the cour. The lingering question is \her to what?\
That unarticulated \with the North American translation workshop premi tend to claim that their approach is not theoretically preconditioned; this chapter attempts to formulate the non-dit prent in their works, to analyze tho underlying assumptions, and to show how they either reinforce the existing literary edifices or offer a counterclaim that derves further consideration. Through this
approach, I hope to show that the translation workshop approach actually does both, i.e., simultaneously reinforces and subverts, and that this dual activity, necessarily operative becau of t
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he methodology, is in itlf a
contribution to the ongoing investigation of not only translation phenomena, but of language in general.
2 Frederic Will: The paradox of translation
While Richards's work in translation might be charactererized as an extension of his literary criticism, Frederic Will's literary theory-
initially not unlike Richards's- has changed much becau of his involvement in translation. Will's work in translation theory is symptomatic of that of many adherents of the American workshop approach. Will first taught Classics at the University of Texas, where he founded the journal Arion with William Arrowsmith. He then moved to the forefront in translation by accepting the directorship of the translation workshop at the University of Iowa in 1964. In 1965, he founded Micromegas, a journal devoted to literary translation, each issue focud on the poetry of a different country. His first theoretical text Litersture Inside Out, published in 1966, raid questions about naming and meaning and indirectly suggests that translation can be viewed as a form of naming, fiction-making, and knowing(Will,1966:15). His next book, The Knife in the Stone, published in 1973, dealt directly with t
he practice of translation; and parts of it rearticulated his workshop experience at Iowa.
Although Will's early text did not specifically address translation problems, certain relevant theoretical assumptions are visible. Will's project picks up where Richards's left off: he us New Critical beliefs to try to reconcile recent critical theories. Will's first essay \Naming to Fiction Making\Literature Inside Out appears to agree with a theory of cultural relativism. Holding that different languages construct parate realities and that what any particular word refers to cannot be determined precily,Will calls into question translation theories bad on reference to a universal objective reality. Reality can only be learned, he argues, through the names we give it, and so , to a certain degree, language is the creator of reality. Will also distances himlf from theories that posit a notion of univeral themes or motifs, theories which do not view symbol-making as part of a human activity. At the same time, however, Will argues that knowledge of esnce is possible:\core of the lf, the theme of its efforts, is love,\which is a power unto itlf and can bring the outer reality\the focus of consciousness\
