INTRODUCINC

COMPARATIVE
LITERATURE
New Trends and Applications

Csar Domnguez, Haun Saussy and

Doro Villanueva

E) Routledge
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Inrroducing comparative literature : new ends and applications /
Csar Domnguez, Haun Sausy, Daro Villanueva.
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6
COM PARATIVE LITERATU RE
AND TRANSLATION

If cornpalative literature is an account of the "foreign trade of literatures" (Wellek,

"The Crisis" 1(r3), tr:anslation is one thing it cannot do without. For by "foreign
tracle" we rncan especially borrowings ancl exports to ancl from other languages.
l)oes a Spaniard think of Borges or Cortzr as foreign writers? I suppose not, nor
do English-language reaclers requile a transltor's help in appr:eciating the work of
rrrost Atrstra.liarr or Ameicrn writers. IvIost, brt nor ail, for within a single widely
diffusccl langr-r:rge like English or Spanish thcre is a central zorre of e;rsy accessibility,
ancl nrany r:cgronal, historical, profcssional, clrss, or ethnic dialects. Ily force ofhabit
arrd exposure, (lhauccr's English is casier lbr most rerden today than his contemporary
thc l)e:rrl l)oet's, and :r film set in Scotlanci or Mississippi may adcl sttbtitles for
-fhe
the hcncfit of ils viewer-s who are accustoruecl to a standarcl variery of English.
rrecessity of such translation u,ithin t single lang'r-ragc alcr[s us to the icl that the bouncl-
lrjcs of lrry hngu:rgc are not clean lines, but glay zones. "As there rre no prccis.-
bounclrr:ies bctwcrrn hngrtagcs, [lbere can be] no fpreciscl subclivisions among the
tli:rlccts of thcsc llnur-rages [ ... ] Florn thc morrrent that there are only open dialects,
frrnnecl by lclcling cogethc'r the waves l'of linguistic variation] in which they
particip:rte, thcre rrc uo closccl languages" (Saussurc, Cours de lingistique 462; ttttr
tlanslatiol).
Noncthclcss, cornprr':rtivc litcmtr-re has llw:rys utrdentood itself to be conccrued
prirrrarily r,r'ith thc rclations arronfl iiteratulcs of lilftrut langr.rrucs. Its founding
priuciplc s that itcr:rr1 rraditions arc clillelcnt, jr-rst as languages are, ancl the acl of
comprrison colres t() blicge their difircnccs, as thc act of translation brclgcs thc
diflc-cnces uror)g lengu:rgcs. Cor-rtrbuting to this selt-clefnition of cotnparisotr :ts
culturrrl trnsl:rtion wcrc the political collditions of thc period of thc cliscipline's
frnrratirrrr, thc cadv nillctccnth centrlry, whcn:L "literltnre" w:rs supposed to bc thc:
sherccl posscrssion cf thc speakcrs of a sirrgle llnguage rrtl thrts, :rt leesr in aspiration,
thc crrltr.r':rl hcritrse of r single nation. (Thc celeels of thc rot-uautic poets o1'
 Comparative literature and translation 79

subordinated nations-Mickiewicz in Poland, Petf in Hungary-confinn the

r-r-rle. They consolidated a cultural heritage for their new nationl aucliences.) Since
most universiry-educated Europeans in the nineteenth celttury had a mastery of rrvo
or three languages (usually their own, plus [tin, and then French, Ger-man, or English),
writers could be expected to find thei^ intemational influences on their own, without
the help of scholars. For example, in some of his late poems, Shelley imitates l)ante
;.. f^-- ^-l *-r^-.
rrrdLrr, ).-^Ll.:- -^---,:L^^ PUclrr L--
uy IIl---- ---. l)---J-l-i-
Dauuclallc - -- --l -,, r
llr rurrl drlu f u)lrNll rwrrLJ tuti{Lc, LIllslaLcs roc,-
De Quincey, and Emerson. Today, with tire growth of translated literature, Coetzee
may write a novel about Dostoyevsky, Octavio Paz may dedicate poerns to 'Wang
.Wei,
and Haruki Murakami's novels can ssurne a detailed knowledge of Mozart's
Magic Flute and Kerouac's On the Roal. This is the orclinary cosmopolitanisnr of lit-
erature, whether vehicled by translation or tlrough acquaintance with the original
languages.

The (in)visibility of translation

Many of the most influential works in any tradition are ftanslarions, not "native"
compositions. English literature cnnot be imagined wichout the King James tsible
(76II),the Arabian Nrg/rts (tmnslaredn1706,1859, 1885, etc.), Don. Quixote (translated
by Shelton, 1612; Smollett, 7755, etc.), the C)rimm Brothers' Fairy Tales (7823), or
the Rubiy,rt of Omar Khayyam (translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859, 1868), to
mention just a few of the works that are taken for granted as part of the linguistic
and culturl background of everyone who uses English. Translations enrich and
enlarge every culture,
'We
usuallyforget translators'nanes. If the goal of translatingis to ef[ace itself, to
let the work being translated apper as if for the first time in the language of the
transla[ion, by forgetting them we do the translaton honor and acknowledge their
success, but at the cost of losing the ctual history of the circulation of works and
ideas. Lawrence Venuti has attempted to revene this habit of "the translator's
invisibility." Translators are not invisible by nature, but we expect them to create
for us the illu$ion that we are in direct contact with the author: who would not
prefer Lev Tolstoy's company to Constance Gamett's? If Constance Garnett makes
henelf too visible, we blame her translation as unidiometic, stilted, laden with
enors and paraphrases, and the like. But the truth of the matter is that, in reading a
trarulation of Tolstoy, \rye are always reading sorneone's report on what Tolstoy
said, formulated in the terms and with the preoccupations of the translator's own
tirnes: Victorian Britin in Constance Gamett's case, the IJS of our day in that of the
translating duo Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Thus, despite dreams of
'ldefnitive" translation, translations have to be redone every generation or two.
'V/hy
should the work of ttanslators not be honored as poetic craft and brought
to the front of the stage, rather than kept behind the curtain? Venuti suggests tht
traruladons should "foreigriz" the language in which they are written, rather than
"nativizing" the thoughts and expressions of the foreign author. Rather than "moving
the witer closer to the reader," translators should "move the reader closer to the
8O Comparative lteiature and translation

writer," Venuti puts it, reusing a formulation of the German theologian and
trenslaror Friedich Schleiermach et (The Translatot's In1,sibility 49),
Making traislation visible h cost. The readr cen nort\t no longer overlook
led to
the fact that he or she is reading a mediated, scond-hand text, and may be
question the accurary'of the rendition ot the compete1ce of the mnslatorer to
io ,o impatiently than does the reader of a smooth translation, where the
^o."
persuasive authority of the writine sweePs such doubts ide. A virtre in citical
ternu
*ho, on the cddcl front,tcn resist the call to make visible the mechnisms of
ifo.
production?) may be a drawback in terms ofpopular reception or aesthetic enjoyment,
Novelise seeking enry into the Engfish-speaking literary world (It is set up at
present, at least) would be justified in worrying if their translaton chose to
"for-
their worls, fot that is a sure wy to ddve away conventional readen.
"igrri"""
Poets, whose readen are perhaps readier to confront strarige uses of language'
rnay

be less automatically suspicious of the choice to foreground the labor of trenslation'

Where there are prejudices to counter, a smooth translation maybe fairer (in an ethial
serue) to the author than one that tteats the target language too roughly and suggese
that the originl w itself barbaric. Compe:

King speak: Sage! Not far thousend mile and come; also will have use gain
me realm, hey?
'WitneY 3il)

The king said, "Veherable sir, since you have not counted it far to come here,
a distance over a thousand fi, may I presume that you are provided with
[cowrsels] to profit my kingdom?"
[ge Da)

Given the sentiments cunent in the English-speaking world about China and the
Chinese in the later nineteenth century, Whitney's attemPt to show, "as nea
as

we can cter of the Chinese language

rea& as "nativization" of the foreigrer
into the ativizing" venus "foreignizing"
is not a one-dimensional issue, It always involves a context of reception.

Transduction
 Comparative literature and translation al

Transduction gives the besr measure of a work's influence. A work with a long-
enough history (say, the Homeric epics) can stimulate many epochs gf "reprocesing,,'
aI ditrering from one another. one could say that those different rrodes of later
reception were potentially contained in the arcient epics, but that would be no
more than a haltnrth: the potential had to be crivared by rimes, languages, cuhures,
and ways of thinking that Flomer's contemporaries could never have imagined.
Translating is always an act of comparative Iiterary judgment. To choose a word,
a sentence pttem, a tone, a genre, and so forth is to offer an analogy between two
fields of culture and meaning. Like any analogy, it is bound to fail in solne respecrs.
But the worth of an analogy is what it succeeds in suggesting.
A2 Comparative literature and translation

no
This is rrtoLs aud ptrblics clo not rcally have the
of
optiotr o1' less stliurble "tnlllners."
lltloltg lllolL-
Tmrxlatiot tor's task is lo lnake a hotne for the work
in the ncrv language, ancl thcre are nlny kincls of holne to clloose xlllollg'

A broad rethinking of the feld of translation studies has been made possible by
the work of Itamar Even-Zohar ancl Gideotr Toury on the "liter:rry polysystem" as
r composite of works, modes, and potetials active al a given lloment in a given
'We
la'guage's literary ficld. now are able to soe a tratsltecl work as validated not
only by its relation to the originrl it represents, but also by r:efernce to notms of
the "trrget" lauguage ancl cttltute into wrich it cnters. Ever since the word
,,intertextuality" became comlnon currcncy in the t970s, critics have been acctls-
tomec to saying that language is always citationaL--but this thesis tends to bc
articulatecl broaclly (see l)err-ida "signature vnenent contcxte") rather than fol-
lowed ot in dctail. Translation aflol'c1s an opportrurily to test this assertion in parri-
cular contexts. More recently, machinc lratlslation has tken aclvantrge of vast
collections of digitizecl rnaterial to estblish corelat.ions betwe cn sequences in di
(lombining these three
ferent lauguages at scaes gretef than the individuai worcl.
points of view-a targe t odelltation, cirationality, and large-scale plttrel correla-
tions-with specific cxarnples shoulcl le:rcl to bettcr understanding of trrnslation,
t once forrnally ttrorc precise and culturally rnort- sttgrcstivc'
.wiren clescribing :r text :ts a cornposirr., a p:rtchwork put together frorn bits
of othcr texts, we often reach for sttch silulcs as the mosaic; br-rt to represent the
tlolrblc perspective put forrh here, wc wottld have to aclc'l tat cvcry piece of thc
rnosaic retrins a vestigial stritrg connecting it to its prcviotts horne in a sleb of stone
Iragine, then, that by tugging on thc strigs wc cgulc-l causc Che rlosaic picces
to p,rot betwee their tr,vo cottcxts. l-krwevcl: tecltuicelly irnpr<;b:rlric, rh:rt woulcl
-l-hc words iu
be what r corparltive lcacling of tmnslrred writitlq lvotrltl scek to clo.
the target langu:rge arc chosc-.n in olcler to itctivalc sonrc potctrtial that tht translatol-
lecogni2cs iu the sottl:c:c languagc lncl wishes to l-clctiv2te in thc tlew readcrship'
l,ikc an ctor- or a per:f-olmer of a nrusical cotrrpositiott, lhc trtlshtol' voices the
so-ce tcxt, choosing onc interpretation ovcr othcl-s. Thtrs
(liono's rcndering of
"Call re Ishmal" erph:rsizes the nal'r.ator's corrrr.t:ttrr cver thc fcts of tlc story,
which colcl be entirely rnacic-trp or-erbitrlly, attl tllc n.rt tctr''s aw:rreness trt this
is so; Gtrerne's rcnclcling, ",41)L)dtts-ttoi lstnhcl," s-ttlgcsts th:rt thc nlrr;tor and liis
hc,rrcrs arc itr sotnc way jcrirrtly t'cs.ousiblc trr- thc rv.ry thc story clevelops, rn
itplication th:rt l:rcks :r rucanitrgfu reltiorr to thc gctrrc rulcs that Gion< invokes'
Yct rnothcr lec'lition (say, nllp(:lfu f-i/rrrr,rr'1") riglrt cllPhasiz.c the tragic
"Or
abandonment lssocixtcc'l wirh the n:rnre "lshurrr1," rLrtcl lcld thc rtove in:r different
clircctic. 'fhe choicc of ;r singlc worLl clll clircct rvr.tl-k's "tl'rtrscltlclitltr."
tly choosing, tlc tt:rslator nrakcs cletcr rrilnrtc :tspccts oI thc-- text that hc]

rc'r:ri'ccl indcterri1tc' i thc origip:rl Aothct cx.tttrlrlc: Ivhctr translatirlg from a

hr-nlge srtch as (lhil'tcsc, wherc singtrl:l':lrcl [rlurl:ir-c rrlcly tnarkecf irlto n
 Comparative literature and translation 83

Indo-European language, the trarulator must decide if the objects named ere one or
many. conversely, Indo-European languages often leave vague spects that need to
be specifiedin Chinese (such as which oftwo brothen orsisten is the elder). By conhasr,
American English of the mid-nineteenth century and 1930s French exhibit counrless
parallels io ryn lexicon, and felds of culnrnl reference, even when ir comes ro
whaling slang: chat is to say, the specifications ere by and large made in advance.
Trarulating between languages that have less hstory in common, or that are farther
epart in some other dimeruion of meaning, leaves more areas of indeterminary to be
filled in, possibly aitrarily, by the rranslator. These indeterminacies make it hard
to judge such a translation by its accuracy (someimes there rnay be no mark ro
miss), but likewise leave the standard of appropriateness open to individual whim.
If genius is (as Kant said) creativity unbounded by rules, some situarions leave
trenslators little choice but to re on genius.

Untranslatable?
Drawingattention to the "target" side of translation-to the effect a rranslacion has
upon a:rival-rnay seem to risk abandoning the translator's responsibility to offer a
feithful and accurate venion of the source. (For further exploration of the ethical
connotations of "faithfulress" and related nonns, see Bermann and v/ood.) It may
seem to promise a geme in which the translator can never lose. or to put it less
positive, iftranslation works by citation of pre-existing texts and contexts chosen
om tlre arget environment, it appean that, in the lest analysis, "nao:vizing;,,
hansltioris are the only kind-even that the "foreignizing" translatioru are just
ilnativizing" trasltioru in thin disguise (disguised, that is, in one of the recognized
for exoticism cunent in the language of anival). But is it impossible for
tianslations to fail? Cur nenslatiors fail, not in detail arid locally (as when one gets e
or an implication wrong), but globall when rwo languages are deeply
? h rt not possible tht two languages
nay be so different that no
ounsleticin om one rnto the other will accurately represent the content
be translted? Ae not some things generally held to be untranslaable? .And if so,
not comparative literahrre, as the theory of literary translaability, declare ieelf
offollowing the objecs ofis interest when they cross inro such a terrain?
The word "untranslatble" is used to meau different thin$, sometimes with cit
J[-45-9{ncone s,ays that a wod of a certain language "cannot be
f into English, one can alwan k,wh and get in retum a description of
nuns, the sp9cifics, the implicatioru that the word ca:ries in ie own lan-
The description is, then, a tnnslation, or ag let a paraphrase, so translation
in some degree posibl (cl Davidson, 'A Ne Denngement"; "On the Very
1'); wht 'lvts imposible lst perhaps, hanslation of the fore word rntO e singl
English word. Likewise, if e Pun' e book tide,{a line of vetser or the like
to be unoenslatable, it too can be e4plained, only not rendered in a form quan-
analogous to the origiual's. It is worth remembering that in translating we
not elwa)6 corutrained, as opera singen are, to get ecross the meaning with
84 Comparative literature and tnnslation

exactly the same notes. The tequirement that tanslations be equivalent in outer
form puts exceptional demands on translators, some of'whom, much of the time,
are able to ftlfill them. But for the theory of translation, the deman! of fomal
equivalence is insuffigiently motivated. Where incomensurabiliry migt seem't
pose the greatest daer--that is, in trenslting berween languages with ltde shaed
history and few precedent translations-indeterminary is'also greatest, making it
almost certein that the person who uncove$ n inconmeniutability will be the
t'Ale" as "riline"
person taking the fint steps to solve it. Tnnslating the wOrd for
might be a mistake in some circurrstances (mi"di"g a bar, for enample), but might
be appropriate in othen where it is desirable to signal something like the upper-cmst
connotations of "wine" (see Liu, The Att 59). Rendering it ','dcoholic liquor
otherwise unspecified" presewes a slice of indeterminary large nougb to at least
save the translation om incorrectness, though it would uttedy laclc the vivid
reference of the originat. Whn we hea talk of incommenunbility, it is usudly a
rnatter analogous to "winej' being replaced by "ale" and the customer f""li"g
cheated. But as Davidson would Poirit out' the faa that there is enough concord
on the difference berween the no is a precondition for the problem ofreference being
staigtened out: disagreement, not incornmensurability ("4 Nice Dengement").
At least in the US, the difference between comparative literature and wotld litere'
ture comes down to trenslation. Scholan of comparative litetature pride themselves on
reading works in their original languages, for reasons both of critical probity (one
can't just take a translator's word at face value) and of the need to distinguish their
enterprise from that of Wodd Literature in English Translation. But the insistence
on language masiery yields to calculations of what is feasible or advisable. Ear in
the history of the field, the standard of language attainment could be upheld
because the great majority of scholars (in the US at any rate) were comparing
works written in the major, familiar, European languages. The rare comparatist with
an interesr in Japanese, Chinese, Aabic, Sanskrit, or the like would have acquired
the European langages as well, Multiculturalism, when it came in the 1980s'
encouraged the criticism that the language requirements of comparative literailre
were borh geographically provincial and intellectually litist. In response, leading
figures in the feld recommended that works in non-European languages, read in
translation, could be made part of the compatatist's stock-in-tmde ("Bemheimer
Report" 44). This solution allowed litism to be hidden av/ay, that is, reinscribed
in the syllabus: there were languages worth knowing, and there were lenguages
worth knowing about. A more thorough response to the lopsided development of
topics of comparative research in diferent linguistic and cultural areas would insist
on rhe Value of primary texts, i whatever language, and particularly those texts
written in remoter, older, more difrcult, or institutionally fossilized forms of a lan-
guage, for it is these rhet pose the greatest challenges to trenslalion. Their challenges
to cultural appropriation are even greater, A novel by Banana Yoshimoto needs no
strenuolrs mediation for North ,\nrerican readen-it has already appropriated itself.
A Veclic hymn that has given rise to a dozen discrepant undentandings over the
cenruries will take the reader father off the beaten Path.
 Comparative literature and translation 85

World Literature has often asserted-pour la besoins de la cause-the availabiliry,

which is ro sey rhe translatebiliry, of all literature for che properly situated obsewer.
Those for whom creation in foreign languages is not just a document of World
Literature in the waiting rn:ry insist on the irreplaceable poetry of the original
and

its loss in translation. "severed from place, thlown into the maw of the global

culre industry or survey course, and subject to pedagogical transmission by

istructors with low levels of cultural literary and nonexistent knowledge of a trans-
lated work's original language, local or native literature relinquishes is self-defining
properties once it is e:ipoted and traficked like an tn|fact" (Apter 326). What
resists being "severed," "exported," and "trafficked," what must be
protected from
,,the entrepreneurial, bulimic drive to anthologize and curricularize the world's
cultural resources" (3), is the intrinsic, the idiomatically Untranslatable. What word
in any language but Russian can teke the place of prauda (33-34)?'Where but in
'Walter Benjamin cen we seek the meaning of the
Jetzet (66)? "There is a qualiry
of militant semiotic in6ansigence attached to the lJntranslatble," says Apter (34), a

nade negotiatioru, for protecting t}re "appellaton conille" of champagne or Pont

l'vque have also been used to asseft the uniqueness of this or that country's
cultufe and political system, sealing them off om outsidets' concern. American,
Japanese, German, Chinese, Russian
(etc.) exceptionalisms all,have a dubous pt.
For Apter, .the value of universal translation is commercial, nd thet of non-
eanslaAbility the contrary of commerce: home, identity, the sacred. "The diffrculCy
remains conceming how to tke secral untrenslatability at its word without secu-
laist condescension" (14). But the very eccounts (sometimes philologically ques-
tionabte) offered on behalf of the UnnanslaAble to demonstrete how the keywords
of a particular Ianguage and time emain indissolubly rooted in the siruation of
their emergence ee, in Engfish, French, or_ whetever fnedium parapbrases, cita-
tions, and trnslatioru. To call something Untralrslatble is all very well' but the
moment one bs begun to explein why it is so, one has begtrn to move it over into
the nenslation poe. An acceptance of the inevitabiliy of translation would have
allowed for a more precise charaerization of the s-called Untranslatables. For
these ae not simply terms intinsic to a particular language; they get their name as
a result of mqltiple attempted, but not perfecdy successful, acts of trarslation, acts
that leave a rerirainder rlnt is ibelf a\rilble to descrption (Casin). There is nothing
sanl'aUt thefr\ if bt thai tenn we mean whl and immune to the workings of
substitution.
Pethaps the fiction taken as refening to what
of the Untranslaable should not be
unnot be tra9slate4 but tsls a distinion between what has tot been nanslated (yet

suctsfully) and what ,J not beng translei, a difference tt Ieast oPen to

empirical study. When fore vords apPear in a text, they make it mcaronic: a
tnixture, a multiple. The act being performed.y the macarouic writer is not one
8 Comparative literature and translation

ences Stephen Dedalus i F och synecdoches

of Francl. Citing them n, but a bypassing of
translation. It is not that for the two terrru (the
dictionary proffen "popovet" ard "cstad"), but Stephen prefers not to. l

Non-translation, the exlreme or "forcignization," does more violence to the

target lenguage than even rough

influences are wielded by a non
witness the dassical-Aabic Qura
Medieval European literature. can hatdly be disctrssed without its Latin models
(Curtiu$. Diglossia, as this condition is called, asstlles knowledge of at least two
languages whose relationship, mediated by social aion and'context'
ury nevet
Diglosia puts ceftin realms of
allow them to be found in trhe same,uttefance,
language outsid*-usually above--ordinary speech. If diglossia is strati$ing, i coun-.
,".f,*, *""".onic, inslls a camival, mixing sacred and profane (Baktin)' Some'

ti*"s, in Rabelais, the macatonic diglosia wos to make th inferior language

",
(French) a sarcastic commentary on the superior one (I-atin):

Et [Pangruel] trouva la librairie de-sainct victor fort magrr.ifique, mesmement

d'aulcuns liwes qu'il y trouva, comme Bigua salutis, Bragueta iuris, Pantoufla
decretonrm, Malogranatum viciorum, Le Peloton de theologie [ ... ] L"
moustard.ier de penitence, Les Houseaulx, alias les bottes de patience,
Forrnicarium artium'
(Rabetais,cEuwes 195-96)

e very stately
fPangmel] found the library of St. Victor
In his abode there -especially
and magnific one, in some books which wete there, of which
followeth the Repertory and Catalogue' Et primo, The for Godsake of
Salvacion. The codpiece of the Law. The Slipshoe of the Decretat. The
Pomegranate ofVice. The Clew-bottom of Theology [ .''] The Mustard-pot
of Penance. The Gamashes, alias the Boots of Patience. Formicarium artium'
(Rabetais, Gargantua 200-0 1
)

Here vemacular and LaCin, vulgar and erudite, are mashed together joyously' Yet
rhe poetic effect of thei combination depends on the rwo registen being kept
distinct, in the eader's nrind if not on the page.
Macaronic writing accelerates the process of mixing at work in all languages over
rime. The French and Latin that noble houses, law courts, churches, ard univenides
used in medieval England sank into the vocabulary of the common langaage;
Chinese adopted words from neighbon, conquerors, and Buddhist missionaries;
 Comparative literature and translation 87

contemporary Japanese is extraordinarily hospitable to

words from elsewhere.
Diglossia maintained over time tur into macaronics,
into creolity (Bemab,
pages i a kind of
Ctiamoiseau, and Confiant)' Indeed, we are wdting these
macaronic-in an Engliq that h been eniched by bonowings, echoes' calques'
and creoles
msundenAndings from abroad. To think for too long about macaronics
poles between which translation is sup-
cuses one to doubt that languag, those

territory. Ianguages are, rather, alwap ovdaid" locked in stnrggles for do[rinance,
agmenting, occarionelly brought to musical and political harmony'
The existence of tianslations should never be an excuse for maintaining mono-
lingualisrn On the map of comparative literature, monolingualism is a blank' Through
a6ention to multilingualism, code-mixing, and creolity, compararists can make
translation something other than e connector between two blank zones.

r".