Mad Woman in the Attic

George Steiner characterized the history of translation until Jakobson/structuralism, as “a constant rehashing of the same formal versus free theoretical distinction. Early translation theories used concepts like “literariness”, “primary”, “secondary”, “estrangement”, which reveal the hierarchical nature of a culture. Thus, translation always has been a device in the hands of the canon and victimized by the canon for its own purposes (post colonial theory critiques in the same manner). It is imperative to remember that all theories of translation evolved reflected the political and social turmoil of the age. The ages have reflected theories of translation. It was not until the 60’s that translation as a scientific activity was thought of. Translation was a marginal activity. But with the North American Translation Workshop, the practice of literary translation got recognition as alternate value systems. Scholars as Ted Hughes and Jonas Zydnas, the propagators of the workshop m...

Philosophy of translation: The process of translation is very well equated to the process of transmigration of the soul, the Indian traditional concept of “Parakaya Pravesha” (entering of the soul into another body) or the ‘metempsychosis’ of Pythagoras. Schopenhauer maintained that in translation no less labor is needed that the ‘transference of the soul’. Here, the meaning is the inner content or the soul often text, and style as the outer aspect, its clothing. This would be an all-inclusive and most apt paraphrasing for TRANSLATION. This embraces varied ideas such as “translation is the unification of cultural contexts”, “translation is an interpretation”, “translation is the communication of meaning”, and “translation is about equivalence in meaning and style”, as G. Gopinathan in his essay ‘The Nature and Problems of Translation’ points out. PSYCHOLOGY OF TRANSLATION: Translation theories, from antiquity to date have been ‘product-oriented’. Nevertheless, it will also be ...