George Steiner’s Metaphors for Translation: A Critical Commentary

Autor/innen

  • Brian O'Keeffe Barnard College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52116/yth.vi1.24

Schlagworte:

Translation, Metaphor, Eating, Fidelity, Echo

Abstract

George Steiner’s After Babel contains many riches, and many of these can be found in the chapter “The Hermeneutic Motion”. But that chapter has its chal­lenges and vexing provocations, and it therefore merits critical commentary. At issue, I argue, is the problematic elaboration of various metaphors for translation and a certain laxity in argument that is covered over by the fineness of Steiner’s writing style. The purpose of this essay is to offer such a commentary, and to do so by making two further propositions: firstly, that this chapter in After Babel stands to gain if it’s read alongside his 1989 book Real Presences; secondly, that it can be elucidated by way of a thinker who, despite Steiner’s own reservations, is quite per­ti­nent to the matters addressed in “The Hermeneutic Motion”, namely Jacques Der­rida.

Literaturhinweise

ABRAMS, M.H. (1953): The Mirror and the Lamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

BENJAMIN, Andrew (1989): Translation and the Nature of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.

BENJAMIN, Walter (1923/1996): Selected Writings. Volume 1: 1913–1926. Eds: Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

BOOTH, Wayne (1988): The Company We Keep. Berkeley: University of California Press.

CAPUTO, John (1988): “Beyond Aestheticism: Derrida’s Responsible Anarchy”. Re¬search in Phenomenology 18, pp. 59–73.

DERRIDA, Jacques (1981): “Economimesis”. Trans. by Richard Klein. In: Diacritics 11/2, pp. 2–25.

DERRIDA, Jacques (1982): Margins of Philosophy. Trans. by Alan Bass. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

DERRIDA, Jacques (1990): Glas. Trans. by John P. Leavey and Richard Rand. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.

DERRIDA, Jacques (1995): Points: Interviews, 1974–1994. Ed. by Elisabeth Weber, trans. by Peggy Kamuf and others. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

DERRIDA, Jacques (1998): Monolingualism of the Other. Trans. by Patrick Mensah. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

DERRIDA, Jacques (2009): “An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion”. Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson. In: e-flux 2, n. p.

DERRIDA, Jacques (2013): Signature Derrida. Ed. by Jay Williams. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

HEANEY, Seamus (2000): Sounding Lines. The Art of Translating Poetry (= Doreen B. Townsend Occasional Papers, Vol. 20). Berkeley: University of California Press.

HEANEY, Seamus (1966/1991): Death of a Naturalist. London: Faber and Faber.

HEIDEGGER, Martin (1996): Being and Time. Trans. by Joan Stambaugh. New York: SUNY Press.

KEARNEY, Richard (2003): Strangers, Gods and Monsters. New York: Routledge.

PYM, Anthony (2001): “The Return to Ethics in Translation Studies”. In: The Translator 7, pp. 129–138.

RICŒUR, Paul (1974): The Conflict of Interpretations. Ed. Don Ihde. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

RICŒUR, Paul (1991): A Ricœur Reader. Ed. Mario J. Valdés. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

STEINER, George (1975/1992): After Babel. New York: Oxford University Press.

STEINER, George (1989): Real Presences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

WALDROP, Rosemarie (2002): Lavish Absence. Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

WOOD, James (1999): The Broken Estate. London: Pimlico.

DOI: 10.52116/yth.vi1.24

Downloads

Veröffentlicht

2021-10-27