The World as India, Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was born on January 16, 1933 and died on December 28, 2004. She was an American literary theorist, novelist, filmmaker and human rights activist.

Best known works: Against Interpretation (1966), Styles of Radical Will (1969), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978), The Way We Live Now (1991), The Volcano Lover (1992), In America (1999) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003).

Honours: 2001 Jerusalem Prize, 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). 

“The World as India”

Translation - Tentative Definitions 

Susan Sontag defines translating as “to circulate, to transport, to disseminate, to explain, to make (more) accessible” (219). As a strong “evangelical incentive”, translation aims to make a book/text reach as many people as possible. Sontag discusses the presupposition of a pyramid on translation: a sort of hierarchical relationship in which the most important texts stand at the very top of the pyramid. This hierarchy tends to be modified over the years, as the paradigm is never the same. On ethical issues, no matter how literal the translation is, there will always be some unavoidable change.

Sontag defines, therefore, two different points of view in translation:

• A new/modern perspective, which deals with translation as a problem to which translators find solutions;
• An older perspective, where translators would choose consciously in their activity; translators wield a certain knowledge which helps them making their choices. Then, it is implied that they carry a sense of culture and duty to literature itself. Values of integrity, responsibility, fidelity and humility are considered part of their job.

The text’s inherent quality, also called translatability (term introduced by Roman Jakobson), defines the translation’s difficulty in degrees or stages. This doesn't only concern the transposition to another language, but also to the (in)transigence of a text “which points to something inherent in the work quite outside the intentions or awareness of its author” (220).

Any comparison of two languages implies an examination of their mutual translatability; widespread practice of interlingual communication, particularly translating activities, must be kept under constant scrutiny by linguistic science. On linguistic Aspects of Translation, Roman Jakobson (1959)

The Translator's Fidelity in the History of Translation

Fidelity and accuracy regarding the original text has been one of the greatest issues in translation. Sontag refers two opposite theories, regarding translation as a practice (223):

St. Jerome was a Catholic priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church and translator from Hebrew and Greek to Latin whose theory claims translation is always an impoverishment of the original; the elegance and lyrical aspect of the original text isn’t translatable to a target language. Literal translation isn’t the proper method to proceed with; one should worry about the sense conveyed by the original text to its audience and preserve it, but change the words and metaphors to the ones that suit the target audience and its language. Hence, the person becomes a translator and a co-author.

It is hard to follow another man’s lines… It is an arduous task to preserve felicity and grace unimpaired in a translation.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity, whose theory claims the value of translation is connected to the knowledge of something beyond our own country and culture. Translation should keep “the spirit of the language” of the original (223). It should be read as a translation, not as if the book was written in the target language. Otherwise, the reader won’t recognize the foreignness that could enrich him/her. To be “well read” shouldn’t be a standard in literary translation, especially if the translators seek merit.

…the aim of translating in a way such as the author would have originally written in the language of the translation is not only out of reach, but also null and void in itself, for whoever acknowledges the shaping power of language, as it is one with the peculiar character of a nation, must concede that every most excellent human being has acquired his knowledge, as well as the possibility of expressing it, in and through language, and that no one therefore adheres to his language mechanically as if he were strapped into it… (223)

According to Walter Benjamin in The Task of the Translator (1923), a preface to his translation of Baudelaire’s Tableux parisiens, translators have the obligation to keep the effect of what is written, even if it sounds different than what the target audience is used to from their authors (225). Even the original text contains difference itself; it’s not about meaning, but translating this difference. Difference will have people think and theorize about the literary work.

It is not the highest praise of a translation, particularly in the age of its origin, to say that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language.

Globalization, the Dominance of English, and Ethics of Translation

Globalization and technology have surely brought some changes for translation. Therefore, we cannot, as Schleiermacher, argue so easily that a spirit of a language resides in its originality. Some argue English is a lingua franca, since it serves as means of communication between people with different languages. Such is the case in India, where different languages are spoken (222). Sontag uses India’s case as an analogy to what’s going on in the world today, using it as a tittle for this essay as well: we all have different languages and it’s important to preserve them, but English tends to be our first choice when communicating with people from a different culture.

Weltliteratur or World Literature was a concept proposed by Goethe in the 19th century. He envisioned the circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, which would allow readers/scholars to access translations and book/text’s discussions that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them. In the 20th century, an International Parliament wanted to make this happen for the whole world, an idea in which all the nations would stand as equals. Translators would become even more important, almost as if couriers who permitted everyone to read each other’s books. Although this equality never came to pass, since some languages are given more importance than others, the idea of a circulatory literature brings forward what Sontag affirms to be one of the most important reasons behind literature and translation: to know the existence of other people and cultures and, therefore, to educate one another.

Translation is the circulatory system of the world’s literatures. (226)

Catarina da Silva C.

Paula Vanessa Varela