Translation in Comparative Literature: DR Sunitha Anilkumar

IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.

PP 32-33
www.iosrjournals.org
Translation in Comparative Literature

Dr Sunitha Anilkumar
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Pachaiyappa’s College, Chennai
I. Introduction
Translation, according to Dr Johnson, involves the process of “change into another language, retaining
the sense,” which is indeed the basic objective. Modifying this statement, A. H. Smith maintains that “to
translate is to change into another language retaining as much of the sense as one can.” Catford defines
translation from the linguistic point of view; translation may be defined as follows: The replacement of a textual
material in one language by an equivalent material in another language.
Translation has been described variously by several scholars from different places at different points of
time. For instance, Theodore Savory defines translation as an art, Eric Jacobsen defines it as a craft, whereas
Eugene Nida describes it as a science, borrowing this concept from the German. Susan Bassnett-McGuire
rightly observes that translation involves far more than the replacement of lexical and grammatical items
between languages, and as can be seen in the translation of idioms and metaphors, the process may involve
discarding the basic linguistic elements of the text. In the Indian context, the translator has a greater role to play.
Several regional literatures of the country can reach all the Indian readers only through translation. So to say,
India is a paradise for translators, and translation has a great scope in our original literature in the source
language. It is not reproduction but recreation. It has become “new literature” may be “literature three,” if you
will, thanks to the recent discoveries in the field of linguistics and literary criticism. With the “indeterminacy of
meaning of a text,” the need for translation in the modern world is now greater than ever before.
Translation comes after the original and is dependent on it. Comparative literature is a subject, and to
some critics, it is a non-subject, its existence depends a lot on translation. In the twenty-first century, the study
of comparative literature hinges upon the art of translation, and Translation studies as a discipline promotes the
cause of comparative literature in our time.
Comparative literature is a reaction against narrow nineteenth-century nationalism. The best example
of narrow nationalism and imperialism is evident in Thomas Babington Macaulay’s statement made in 1935:
I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was
worth the old native literature of India and Arabia. I have certainly never met with any oriental’s who ventured
to maintain the Arabic and Sanskrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. (Curtin 178-
79).
Comparative literature is a study of intertexuality For instance, if we have to compare a novel of
English with the Oriya novel, we have to use either English or the Oriya as the medium, but if we have to
compare a French novel, we have to read first an English version of the French novel, then compare it with an
Oriya novel and use either English novel or Oriya, the two languages we know as the medium of our
assessment. What I suggest here is that it is through translation that we read the literature written in a language
that we do not know, and therefore translation becomes tour for the study of comparative literature. Translation
brings intertextuality to our knowledge, and that intertextuality is the core of comparative literature. Having said
so, let us examine how translation theories and studies have altered our idea of the differences between the
original and the translated text in recent times. It is in the 1990s that translation studies gained momentum in the
U.S.A. and the U.K. In 1964, Paul Engle, director of Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, organized
the first translation workshop. In 1965, Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort founded Modern Poetry in
Translation, and in 1968, National Translation Center published its first issue of Delos—a journal devoted to the
history and aesthetics of translation.
During the postcolonial period, there was a shift in emphasis in the practice of translation in India. If,
during the colonial period, English texts and authors were frequently and even randomly translated into Indian
languages, in the postcolonial period, Indian bhasha language authors and bhasha language texts are being
translated into English with a view to reach a larger audience.
Here is a paradoxical situation. There is an inherent competition and even conflict between Indian
bhasha language writers and Indian English writers as to who represents true India in their works. Bhasha
language writers run down India English writers on the ground saying that the latter are inauthentic for they do
not represent the true Indian spirit and English is a foreign language and so on. And what is worse is that
according to bhasha language writers, Indian English writers write with the foreign readers in view, and they
tend to interpret India to the West. But this is not true. Indian English writers are as authentic and sensible as the
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Translation In Comparative Literature
Indian bhasha language writers are or supposed to be. They also write in a live idiom, and moreover, one cannot
be a lesser Indian if he writes in English—a language we have adopted as our own—and greater Indian if he
writes in bhasha language. What about the bilingual writers like Manoj Das, Kamala Das, Jayanta Mahapatra
and a few others? What about the self-translators like Rabindranath Tagore and Girish Karnad? Do they become
less authentic when they write in English and more authentic when they write in or transcreate into English?
II. Conclusion
The paradox is that most of the well-known bhasha language writers want to get translated into
English. As a result of which we have a vast body of literature called Indian literature in English translation in
our country. A. K. Ramanujan, an Indian English poet and a translator par excellence, has translated a vast body
of Kannada literature into English. The works of Prem Chand, Tagore, U. R. Ananthamurthy, Gopinath
Mohanty, Vijay Tendulkar, to name a few, are all available in English translation. The practice of translation in
India is now more from bhasha literatures into English than from English literature into Indian languages.
Works Cited
[1]. Arnold, Matthew. “On the Modern Element in Literature.” Inaugural
[2]. Lecture delivered in the University of Oxford, 14 November 1857.
[3]. Bassnett, Susan. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1998.
[4]. Bassnett, Susan and Andre Lefevere, editors. Translation, History and Culture. London: Pinter, 1990.
[5]. Chamberlain, Lori. “Gender and Metaphorics of Translation”. Rethinking Translation. Edited by Lawrence Venuti.
London: Routledge, 1992.
[6]. Curtin, Philip D., editor. Imperialism: The Documentary History of Western Civilization. New York: Walker & Co.,
1971.
[7]. Evan-Zohar, Itamar. “Translation Theory Today.” Poetics Today vol. 2, no. 4, Summer/Autumn, 1981, pp. 1-8.
[8]. Weisstein, Ulrich. Comparative Literature and Literacy Theory. Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1973.
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IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)

e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.

Translation in Comparative Literature

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