Literature in Translation: Teaching Issues and Reading Practices

Introduction

Introduction Carol Maier and Françoise Massardier-Kenney The last several decades have seen college and university students across the United States reading a wide variety of literary works from around the world, as literature in English translation has made its way onto the reading lists of courses in such disciplines and interdisciplines as anthropology, creative writing, ethnic studies, gender studies, philosophy, world literature, and sociology. On the one hand, this is cause for rejoicing. Students in this mostly monolingual society, which often forgets its own plurilingual origins and development, are still not learning foreign languages in sufficient numbers; but through translation, they are at least becoming acquainted with the multilingual world in which they live and in which they will work. Moreover, many world literature courses have expanded their reach. Starting from a conception of world literature as the teaching of “great books” culled from the literary canon of Europe and America, world literature is slowly becoming what David Damrosch has referred to as “a mode of reading” (281) that will allow students to engage with worlds that are beyond their own time and place. This expansion, which enables readers to become aware of other cultures and to connect them with their own, cannot but lead to an appreciation of “linguistic diversity and alterity” (Pizer 7). However, the positive impact of reading books from other countries is not alwaysmaximized,becauseliteratureinEnglishtranslationisoftentaughtasif it had been originally written in English. This means that students may not be familiarized with the context in which that literature was produced and thus not made aware of the cultural, linguistic, and literary effects that translation involves.Althoughstudentsmayreadforeignworks,theysubmitthemtotheir own cultural norms. If, as Roland Greene has suggested, we must “learn ‘to live with translation strategically,’” it is crucial that instructors and students 1 2 introduction understand both the context of the original work and the principal issues of literary translation (Feal 5). Without such an understanding, students read translated material, but they do not read in translation, and the benefits of intercultural communication may be jeopardized. It is not enough for books from other languages and countries to be available in translation; the positive contactthatliteratureintranslationcanoffermustbefullyexploitedifreaders are not, in the words of William Deresiewicz, to impose their own image on the world (23). Here a true challenge arises for an instructor. All too frequently, books in translation contain no introductory information about the mediation that translation invariably implies or about the stakes involved in the transfer of another culture into English. Nor can one count on finding suggestions for further reading about the author or the culture of the source text. Instructors are often left on their own; lacking the appropriate pedagogical tools, they may find themselves unable to provide information about either the original work or about translation itself. They may also feel uneasy about teaching material for which they lack adequate preparation; in fact, they may believe thatitisneitherprofessionalnorethicaltodoso(seeArrojo,Rose,andMaier). Consequently, they may restrict themselves to teaching well-known works in translation with which they are already familiar, or work originally written in English, when available (as in the case of literature from Africa or India). The purpose of Literature in Translation: Teaching Issues and Reading Practices is to address this pedagogical lack, which is seldom addressed in discussions about comparative literature, world literature, or translation pedagogy. The isolated treatments of this subject that do exist are found in collections of essays (Dingwaney and Maier; Venuti,“Teaching in Translation ”; White), journals (Maier, “Teaching Monolingual Students”), book chapters (Venuti, “The Pedagogy of Translation”), or essays about teaching specific works (Maier, “Teaching the Literature”). In addition, most current instruction-related research in the area of translation is devoted to translator training. (See, for example, Sonia Colina’s Translation Teaching: From Research to the Classroom). Our volume is not intended for instructors who train translators but for both undergraduate and graduate instructors across the curriculum who use in their classrooms literary material that has been translated into English. It is our hope that this collection of essays will provide a substantial introduction to the varied and complex issues involved in reading and teaching a work in translation. We have chosen contributors introduction 3 who reflect the wide range of scholars, practicing translators, and translation theorists currently working in the field; all of them are actively engaged in translation and have experience teaching literature in translation. They were asked to draw upon examples of both well...