Literary Translation in Theory and in Practice

1

Pu Wang

COML 171 A

Literary Translation in Theory and in Practice

Class schedule: TuTh 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Classroom: Shiffman 125

Office hours: TuTh 10-11AM

Office: Mandel 118

This course attends to the topic of literary translation from several angles simultaneously. Students will be required to produce their own translations into English from another language, engage in peer critique of these translations. At the same time, they will think deeply about, and discuss, the problems of translation based on both this practical experience and theoretical readings. They will also delve into the history, norms, and significance of translation in several cultural traditions, including non-Western ones. While the craft of translation is a large part of the course, the primary emphasis is placed less on the final product of translation than on the range of issues that the process of translation raises. And this is where the practical and theoretical aspects of the course converge. Students will experience first-hand the challenges of literary translation and, with the help of the theoretical readings, reflect on what the process teaches us about linguistic, literary, and cultural difference. In this sense, this is truly a comparative literature and culture course rather than purely, or even primarily, a workshop or language course. In keeping with this emphasis, the course will also include a section on the rise of translation studies as a paradigm for understanding cultures and cultural exchanges in the age of globalization.

Course Requirements

1. Course readings & participation in class discussion;

2. Starting with the third week: a weekly translation manuscript to be submitted in LATTE by Sunday night, to give peers sufficient time to review it; each submission will consist of:

a. the source text in the source language: 15-20 lines of poetry or 1-1½ pages (single-spaced) of prose;

b. an interlinear, word-by-word literal translation typed directly below the original; and

c. literary translation, typed separately;

3. participation in workshop, including advance reading and constructive discussion of peers' manuscripts;

4. a5 pp. reflection essay on the problems of translation, based on your translating experience and making use of readings we have done so far; and

5. a final project, consisting of a revised, polished literary translation (about 150 lines of poetry or 10 pages of prose), plus a 3-4-pp. introductory essay presenting the methods and philosophy of translation you have developed to grapple with the translation project and placing your approach in the context of at least some of the readings we have done; it is expected that this manuscript represent the culmination and refinement of your weekly translation submissions.

It is recommended that each student also keep a translation journal, noting the problems and solutions you have encountered both in practice and in your readings; although this is not a graded requirement and need not be handed in, it will be helpful in recording and developing your reflections on the translation process.

Grading

10% Attendance

20% Class participation, including peer review

20% Weekly ms. submissions

20% Reflection Paper

30% Final project

Course policies:

1. Attendance: More than one unexcused absence will automatically lower your attendance grade. (Two late arrivals amount to one absence.) An excused absence is one due to illness or emergency, about which you inform me by email in advance or, if that is utterly impossible, as soon as possible thereafter.

2. Active class participation involves more than showing up. If you come to every class, but do not participate in discussion on a regular basis, you cannot earn an "A" for class participation.

3. Electronic communications:

The syllabus and other course materials, including some of the required readings, will be posted on the LATTE page for this course. Sign in to LATTE with your UNET username and password at and click the link for this course. Visit the site regularly for important course updates. The instructor will communicate with the class from time to time by email. You are required to check your email daily.

NOTE: Four-Credit Course (with three hours of class-time per week)

Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation for exams, etc.).

Statement on academic integrity:

Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis University. Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person—be it a world-class philosopher or your lab partner—without proper acknowledgement of that source. This means that you must use footnotes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another student.

Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section Three of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure of the course or on the assignment, or in suspension or dismissal from the University. If you are in doubt about the instructions for any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.

Required readings:

The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd ed., ed. Lawrence Venuti (Routledge, 2012) =TSR

Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications, 4th ed. (Routledge, 2016)

Excerpts from other sources, to be provided in pdf format on LATTE

Weekly schedule with readings:

Week 1: August 25 (NO CLASS, due to the instructor’s conference trip to Japan)

Week 2:

August 30: Introduction

Munday, Chapter 1.

Sept 1: Western Traditions of Translation

Munday, chap. 2; Jerome, "Letter to Pammachius" (TSR, 21-30); Dryden, “On Translation” (TSR, 38-42); and Goethe, “Translations” (TSR, 64-66)

Week 3:

Sept 6: Theory of Equivalence

Munday, Chapter 3; Jakobson, “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” (TSR)

Sept 8, which is Brandeis Monday, no class

Week 4: Sept 13 and 15

Collective Case Study I: the first poem in the Confucian Book of Songs
Selected poems from The Book of Odes, in Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. (in pdf).

Week 5:

Sept 20 and Sept 22: Collective case study II:Wang Wei’s poem in translation

Weinberger et al, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. 1987 (in pdf)

Week 6:

Sept 27: Poetic translation

Essays by Nabokov and Pound, both in TSR.

Sept 29: The German case

Schleiermacher, “On the Different Methods of Translating” (TSR)

Antoine Berman, The Experience of the Foreign (pdf)

Week 7

Oct 4: holiday, no class

Oct 6: The German case continued

Week 8

Oct 11: Workshop

Oct 13: Translatability and untranslatability

Walter Benjamin: “The Translator’s Task”(TSR)

Week 9

Oct 18: Collective case study III: Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon. Edited by Barbara Cassin; translation edited by Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra & Michael Wood

Oct 20: Translation and philosophy

Johnson, "Taking Fidelity Philosophically," in Graham, Difference in Translation (pdf)

Week 10:

Oct. 25: Brandeis Monday, Reflection essay due.

Oct. 27: Translation and religion

Seidman, Faithful Renderings, Intro, Chapts 1-3

Robinson, "The Ascetic Foundations of Modern Translatology: Jerome & Augustine" (both in pdf)

Week 11: November 1 and 3

Nov 1:Workshop

Nov. 3: Tropes of translation, feminism, and modern theory

Chamberlain, "Gender & the Metaphorics of Translation" (in TSR)

Munday chapter 7 and 9.

Steiner, “The Hermeneutic Motion” (in TSR)

Week 12

November 8: Workshop

Nov. 10: theory continued

Week 13

Nov. 15: Workshop

Nov. 17: The case of imperialism

Nietzsche on translation (in TSR)

Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility, chapter 2 (pdf)

Suggested reading: excerpts from Lydia H. Liu, The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (pdf)

Week 14

November 22: Workshop

Thanksgiving

Week 15

November 29: Workshop

December 1: The case of postcolonialism and world literature

Munday Chapter 8

Spivak, “Politics of Translation;” Darmrosch, “Translation and World Literature” (both in TSR)

Week 16: December 6

Wrap-up discussion and final project due.