American Literary Translators' Association 27th Annual Conference:
"Art Both Ways: Translation, Restoration, and Re-creation"
Las Vegas, NV.
October 27-30, 2004
"Making it Auld: Archaic Translation and Philology"
Emile Littre's historical _Dictionnaire de la langue francaise_, like the
Oxford English Dictionary, is a massive meditation on the relation between
language and history. Littre, however, would later turn this philological
expertise to a peculiar end: the rendering of Dante's _Inferno_ into the
idiom of the Troubadours: "En mi chemin de ceste nostre vie..." Littre's
approach to translation is equal parts assimilation and alienation: his
confidence in a European identity ("une grande conformite de pensee entre
les nations europeennes") is counter-balanced by a sense of the
historicity of taste and style ("le rapport necessaire entre les temps et
les formes"): "a writer of the thirteenth or fourteenth century neither
thinks nor expresses himself as we do." Littre's eminently logical
solution was to match the historical distance of the Italian original with
an historically distanced French; "at this moment of their evolution," the
two languages, writes Littre, were "nearer neighbors, more like sisters
than they have become since."
Almost thirty years ago, George Steiner judged this kind of translation
(which he branded "a refusal of latitude") unassailable in theory,
indefensible in practice. More recently, archaizing translation has been
incorporated into a broader movement to foreground the fact of
translation, to render the translator "visible." According to this view,
translation into contemporary language is no more "natural" than
translation into archaic language; in fact, the archaizing translation has
the advantage, in that it acknowledges its own artificiality, rather than
trying to pass itself off as the original. The modern position differs
from Littre's however: the modern, "visible" translator alienates his or
her language from normal usage in order to signify an "otherness" that
tends to be defined monolithically; Littre alienated his French from
contemporary norms in order to assimilate it to a specific period in the
history of Italian language and literature. The divide between these
positions might be summed up as that between poststucturalism and a
chastened humanism.
This panel will pursue and interrogate Littre's model as well as its
contemporary resonance. Panelists will present their own translations of
older literature (or of modern literature that incorporates archaic
language), using this work as a springboard for discussion and/or
critique of archaism and philology in translation.
Please note that ALTA insists that papers should not be read from the page;
each panelist will speak for 15-20 minutes. Please send a one-page
proposal, with a sample of the translation to be presented, to the address
below by July 1. Hardcopies, electronic attachments (in WORD), and queries
welcome.
Jamie H. Ferguson
Department of Comparative Literature, Indiana University
Ballantine Hall 923
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
jamiferg@indiana.edu
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From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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