Translation often proceeds as if languages already existed, as if the task of the translator were to make an appropriate selection from available resources. Clive Scott challenges this tacit assumption. If the translator is to do justice to himself/herself as a reader, if the translator is to become the creative writer of his/her reading, then the language of translation must be equal to the translators perceptual experience of, and bodily responses to, source texts. Each renewal of perceptual and physiological contact with a text involves a renewal of the ways we think language and use our expressive faculties (listening, speaking, writing). Phenomenology and particularly the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty underpins this new approach to translation. The task of the translator is tirelessly to develop new translational languages, ever to move beyond the bilingual into the multilingual, and always to remember that language is as much an active instrument of perception as an object of perception. Clive Scott is Professor Emeritus of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Acknowledgements viii
A Note on the Text ix
List of Illustrations x
Preface: A Brief Declaration xi
Introduction I
Part I Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Language
1 Merleau-Ponty: Language, Painting and Translation 26
Part II Literary Translation as Phenomenology
2 Overwriting and the Overwritten Text 62
3 Listening and Speaking: Sounds 90
4 Listening and Speaking: Rhythm 111
5 Writing and Speaking 133
6 Translating the Time and Space of Languages 154
Conclusion 178
Bibliography 185
Index 193
Overview
Translation often proceeds as if languages already existed, as if the task of the translator were to make an appropriate selection from available resources. Clive Scott challenges this tacit assumption. If the translator is to do justice to himself/herself as a reader, if the translator is to become the creative writer of his/her reading, then the language of translation must be equal to the translators perceptual experience of, and bodily responses to, source texts. Each renewal of perceptual and physiological ...