According to the author Translation Studies can hardly be said to have occupied a central position in much theoretical thinking about literature. Indeed, the very possibility of their relevance to literary theory has often been denied since the heyday of the first generation of German Romantic theorists and translators. This article tries to show how a certain approach to Translation Studies can make a significant contribution to literary theory as a whole and how translations or, to use a more general term, refractions, play an important role in the evolution of literatures.