Article published In:
TargetVol. 29:3 (2017) ► pp.440–463
What kind of literature is a literary translation?
This paper is a kind of manifesto for a new conception of literary translation as a unique literary genre that is imitative but
qualitatively different from, and not necessarily worse than, the model it imitates. It explores this possibility by first interrogating
Gérard Genette’s model of literariness in Fiction and Diction – considering how literary translation as a unique genre
might fit that model – and then considering what the literary translator imitates, and the relationship between translation and the novel as
similar imitative genres. Key to this comparison is the novel’s early (and continuing) reliance on the “found-translation framing device,”
which is effectively what Gideon Toury calls a pseudotranslation but is not (necessarily) designed to hide original
creation – rather, to play with the illusion of reality. The paper ends with the suggestion that literature tout court might be reimagined
in terms of its transformative energies – and that translation might come to be seen as one of literature’s most definitive genres.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The different type of literature that is literary translation
- 3.Imitating what literary authors do in writing
- 3.1(Conditional) literary effects
- 3.2The found-translation framing device
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
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Cited by
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Morini, Massimiliano
2020.
Luciano Bianciardi.
Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 32:1
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Savchenko, Yevheniia & Anhelina Haishun
2020.
GRAMMATICAL PECULIARITIES OF BRITISH NOVEL TRANSLATION INTO UKRAINIAN.
Naukovy Visnyk of South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky: Linguistic Sciences 2020:30
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