This book shows that translating is much more than a matter of transposing one language into another. At the very heart of language, translation is operative throughout human thought and experience. Sallis approaches translation from four directions: from the dream of nontranslation, or universal translatability; through a scene of translation staged by Shakespeare, in which the entire range of senses of translation is played out; through the question of the force of words; and from the representation of untranslatability in painting and music. Drawing on Jakobson, Gadamer, Benjamin, and Derrida, Sallis shows how the classical concept of translation has undergone mutation and deconstruction. Ultimately, he broaches a rethinking of the impossible possibility of translation by underlining the role that is played by imagination.