Cover not available
Article published In:
Translation Spaces
Vol. 12:1 (2023) ► pp.124–143

Transnational wisdom literature goes pop in translation

ORCID logo | Kent State University
The genre of self-help often is nurtured – or hijacked – from highbrow literary traditions such as conduct literature and sacred texts. Translation is the mechanism whereby an ‘esotouristic’ or new-ageified text travels in ready consumability, a commercializing process that asserts forms that themselves are ideological, and dramatically shifts ‘mirrors for princes’ and works considered ‘high literature’ to works of mass marketability. The branding of yogic and Kabbalistic texts, and of authors Kahlil Gibran, Baltasar Gracián, Rumi, and Sun Tzu, is analyzed in this light. I object to the ‘timeless classic’ positioning of texts that deterritorializes, dehistoricizes, and deculturizes, and map these publications as forms of manipulation, especially exoticizing, genre shifting, radical recontextualizing, and allegorizing. The resulting hyper-acceptability of the distorted products for a self-helpified readership calls into question the translator’s complicity in appropriative, otherized cultural production.
Keywords: wisdom literature, self-help, new-age-ification, popularizations, esotourism
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Wisdom literature
  • The relationship of literature to self-help
  • New age-ification: Detraditionalization
  • Wisdom literature and sacred texts: Consuming enlightenment
  • Pocket wisdom
  • The reading subject: From ‘self-help for princes’ to magic mirror for strivers
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.21047.was
References (78)
References
Ali, Rozina, and Neima Jahromi. “The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi.” The New Yorker, January 5, 2017. [URL]
Argy, Anne-Gaëlle. 2016. “On the Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche in Self-Help Literature.” PhoenEx 11(2): 49–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arjana, Sophia Rose. 2020. Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
Bal, P. Matthijs, and Martijn Veltkamp. 2013. –How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation.” PLoS ONE 8(1): e55341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Balentine, Sauel Eugene. 2018. Wisdom Literature. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press.Google Scholar
Berrow, Terry. 2002. “Machiavelli, Politics and Modern Language Use in Modern Management.” In Machiavelli, Marketing and Management, edited by Phil Harris, Andrew Lock and Patricia Rees, 139–147. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bertman, Stephen, and Lois Parker. 2009. The Healing Power of Ancient Literature. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Blum, Beth. 2018. “The Self-Help Hermeneutic: Its Global History and Literary Future.” PMLA 133(5): 1099–1117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for Advice in Modern Literature. New York Columbia University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Translated by Susan Emanuel. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bradley, Ritamary. 1954. “Background of the Title Speculum in Mediaeval Literature.” Speculum 29(1): 100–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byrne, Rhonda J. 2006. The Secret. NY: Atria Books.Google Scholar
Carrette, Jeremy R. and Richard King. 2005. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chau, Simon S. C. 2001. “Translating for the ‘New Age’: Theoretical, Professional and Pedagogic Implications”. In Translation in Hong Kong: Past, Present and the Future, edited by Chan Sin-wai, 219–26. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Qimei and William D. Wells. 1998. “The Wisdom of Two Sages – A Strategic Advertising and Marketing Model That Combines Sun Tzu and Confucius.” Asian Journal of Communication, 8(2): 168–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Andrea, Anthony Albert Fischer. 1996. O self perfeito e a nova era: individualismo e reflexividade em religiosidades pós-tradicionais [The Perfect Self and the New Era: Individualism and Reflexivity in Post-traditional Pieties]. Masters Thesis. Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro.
Davis, Murray S. 1999. “Aphorisms and Cliches: The Generation and Dissipation of Conceptual Charisma.” Annual Review of Sociology 251: 245–69. [URL]. DOI logo
de Botton, Alain. 1997. How Proust Can Change Your Life. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Dhondy, Farukh. 2017. “Introduction.” In Rumi: A New Translation of Selected Poems. By Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Maulana, xiii–xxxix1. New York: Arcade Publishing.Google Scholar
Einstein, Mara. 2008. Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age. London; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes. 1983. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1997. “Boutique Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals are Incapable of Thinking about Hate Speech.” Critical Inquiry 23 (2): 378. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frigerio, Alejandro. 2016. “Logics and Limits of New Age Appropriations: Where Syncretism Comes to an End”. In New Age in Latin America: Popular Variations and Ethnic Appropriations, edited by Renée de la Torre, Cristina Gutiérez Zúñiga, and Nahayeilli B. Juárez Huet; translated by Nicholas Barrett, 29–54. Leiden; Boston: BINI.Google Scholar
Gibran, Kahlil. 1961. The Prophet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Gracián, Baltasar. 1653 [1647]. Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia. Madrid: Francisco Lamberto.Google Scholar
. 1892. The Art of Worldly Wisdom. Translated by Joseph Jacobs. London; New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
. 1992. The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle. Translated by Christopher Maurer. NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
. 1995. A Pocket Mirror for Heroes. Translated by Christopher Maurer. NY; London: Currency Doubleday.Google Scholar
. 2013. The Art of Worldly Wisdom. n.p.: Start Publishing LLC.Google Scholar
. 2015. How to Use Your Enemies. Translated by Jeremy Robbins. London: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
. 2009. The Lost Secrets of Fame and Fortune How to Get – And Keep – Everything You Desire. Translated by Joseph Jacobs. n.p.: Mega Niche Media.Google Scholar
. 1994. Practical Wisdom for Perilous Times: Selected Maxims of Baltasar Gracián. J. Translated by Leonard Kaye. London: Aquarian.Google Scholar
. 1967. The Science of Success and the Art of Prudence. Translated by Lawrence C. Lockley, San Jose, California: University of Santa Clara Press.Google Scholar
Grafton, Anthony. 1992. “Dressed for Success,” Review of The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle, by Baltasar Gracián. The New Republic (5 Oct.): 46–49.Google Scholar
Hassan, Waïl S. 2011. Immigrant Narratives: Orientalism and Cultural Translation in Arab American and Arab British Literature. US: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holder, Arthur. 2010. The Problem with “Spiritual Classics”. Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 10(1): 22–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huggan, Graham. 2001. The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing Margins. London; NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huss, Boaz. 2007. “The New Age of Kabbalah: Contemporary Kabbalah, The New Age and Postmodern Spirituality”. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 6(2): 107–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irwin, Robert. 2019. “Global Rumi.” In Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures and Politics, edited by Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick, 15–34. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
Iyengar, B. K. S. 2006. Light on Yoga. New Delhi: Harpercollins Publishers.Google Scholar
Jain, Andrea. 2014. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [URL]. DOI logo
Jauß, Hans Robert. 1977. “Der Text der Vergangenheit im Dialog mit der Gegenwart (Klassik – wieder modern?)”. Ästhetische Erfahrung als Verjüngung des Vergangenen, 787–812, München Fink.Google Scholar
Kenney, Jeffrey T. 2015. “Selling Success, Nurturing The Self: Self-Help Literature, Capitalist Values, and the Sacralization Of Subjective Life In Egypt.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47(4): 663–680. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kockum, Keiko. 2006. “The Role of Western Literature in the Formation of the Modern Japanese Novel.” Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, vol. 31, edited by Gunilla Linberg-Wada, 97–140, Berlin: Walter de Gruyer, 97–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lara, Marco A. Ángel. 2011. “Aphorisms and Philosophy: Contextualizing Aphoristic Texts – Assumptions about Subject-Matter.” Journal of English Studies 91: 29–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laozi. 2020. Original Dao de Jing: The Hidden Way to Success, Freedom, and Eternity. Translated by Jinchun Ye. Northbrook, Illinois: Jin Publishing.Google Scholar
Lefevere, André. 2017. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lewis, Franklin D. 2014. Rumi – Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings, and Poetry of Jalâl Al-Din Rumi. London: Oneworld Publications.Google Scholar
Losier, Michael J. 2003. The Law of Attraction: The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don’t. Victoria, BC: Michael J. Losier.Google Scholar
McAuley, Jordan. 2009. “Foreword.” In The Lost Secrets of Fame and Fortune, translated by Joseph Jacobs, n.p. Los Angeles: Mega Niche Media.Google Scholar
McCann, Dennis P. 2012. “On Reading Sun-Tzu: The Promise And Perils Of Appropriating A Chinese Classic In International Business Ethics.” Journal of International Business Ethics 5(2): 28–38.Google Scholar
McCreadie, Karen, Steve Phillips, and Steve Shipside. 2009. Strategy Power Plays: Winning Business Ideas from the World’s Greatest Strategic Minds. Petaling Jaya: MPH Group Pub.Google Scholar
McGee, Micki. 2012. “From Makeover Media to Remaking Culture: Four Directions for the Critical Study of Self-Help Culture.” Sociology Compass 6(9): 685–693. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meng, Hui. 2017. Migration of Text and Shift of Identity: Self-Translation in the Bilingual Works of Lin Yutang, Eileen Chang, and Ha Jin. PhD. Diss., University of Kansas.
Miller, Lucien. 1996. “Postscript: East-West Literary Relations: The ‘Wisdom’ of the ‘East’. Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative Perspective, n.p., edited by Barbara Stoler Miller. Delhi: Sri Satguru.Google Scholar
Moezzi, Melody. 2021. The Rumi Prescription. New York: TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.Google Scholar
Nehring, Daniel, Emmanuel Alvarado, Eric C. Hendriks, and Dylan Kerrigan. 2016. Transnational Popular Psychology and the Global Self-Help Industry: The Politics of Contemporary Social Change. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK: Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nord, Christaine. 2016. “Skopos and (Un)certainty: How Functional Translators Deal with Doubt.” Meta, 61(1), 29–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ohebsion, Rodney. 2005. The New Art of War: A New Rendition of Teachings from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, Baltasar Gracian’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom, and the Works of Han Fei Tzu. US: Immediex Pub.Google Scholar
Orsi, Robert A. 2006. “2 + 2 = Five, or the Quest for an Abundant Empiricism,” Spiritus 61: 113–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Patañjali. 2005. The Yoga Sutras. Translated by Charles Johnston. Ottawa: EBooksLib.Google Scholar
Percy, Allan. 2009. Nietzsche Antistress: en 99 pilules philosophiques. Paris: Éditions de l’Opportun.Google Scholar
Phillips, Tim. 2008. “Introduction”. In Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince: A 52 Brilliant Ideas Interpretation, edited by Tim Phillips, 1–4. Oxford: Infinite Ideas Limited. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Review of The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho and translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Kirkus Reviews (1 July 1993). [URL]
Rindfleisch, Aric. 1996. “Marketing as Warfare: Reassessing a Dominant Metaphor.” Business Horizons 39(5): 3–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Romano, James Vincent. 1997. Baltasar Gracián and the Fabrication of Subjects: The Oráculo Manual as ‘Self-Help’ Writing. PhD. Diss., University of Minnesota.
Rumi. 1993. The Love Poems of Rumi. Translated by Deepak Chopra, ed. and Fereydoun Kia. London: Rider.Google Scholar
. 2003. Rumi: The Book of Love. Poems of Ecstasy and Longing, edited and translated by Coleman Barks. New York: Harper San Francisco.Google Scholar
Rush, Ormond. 1997. The Reception of Doctrine: An Appropriation of Hans Robert Jauss’ Reception Aesthetics and Literary Hermeneutics. Roma: Editore Pontificia Università Gregoriana.Google Scholar
Sadler, William. 1996. The I Ching of Management: 64 Days To Increase Management Success. Boca Raton, Florida: Humanix Books.Google Scholar
Smiles, Samuel. 1986 [1859]. Self-help: With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Smith, Richard J. 2012. “How the ‘Book of Changes’ Arrived in the West.” New England Review 33(1): 25–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Suoqiao, Quian. 2011. Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity. Leiden; Boston: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sun Tzu, Lawrence Kane, and Kris Wilder. 2020. Sun Tzu Said: Classic Warfare for the Modern Mind. Burlen, Massachusetts: Stickman Publications.Google Scholar
Swirski, Peter. 2019. “That’s Artertainment! (No, It’s Not a Typo).” The Art of Artertainment: Nobrow, American Style, edited by Peter Swirski and Tero Eljas Vanhanen, 1–14. Wilmington, Vernon Press.Google Scholar
Weir, David. 2011. American Orient: Imagining the East from the Colonial Era through the Twentieth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Young, Stephanie L., and D’Arcy J. Reynolds, Jr. 2017. “’You Can Be an Agent of Change’: The Rhetoric of New Age Self-Help in Enlightened .” Western Journal of Communication 81(1): 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar