Intermediality and synaesthesia: Literary translation as centrifugal practice

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Abstract

Scott argues for literary translation as a centrifugal practice. This dispersal is also a proliferation, which looks to develop a prosthetics of language through the multiplication of sensory associations. But there are obvious limitations to overcome: the constraints of the alphabet parallel those of notation in modern music and require a new approach to onomatopoeia, which in turn gives fuller significance to the ambitions of Lettrism. The enterprise suggests a new role for the handwritten, too, as a trace of voice and the assimilation of language to graphic gesture. The author proposes that literary translation should imagine itself as an eco-activity and science fiction, as a record of a reading, as the dynamic of a consciousness, as psycho-physiological experience. The approach is illustrated through a sequence of translations of Apollinaire’s “Le Voyageur” (1913).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)153-169
Number of pages17
JournalArt in Translation
Volume2
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

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