From “Purpurwort” to Forgiveness: A Tawadian Translation of Celan's “Psalm”

Abstract

Yoko Tawada's theory of translation positions the translator at a significant distance, both spatially and temporally, from the original text and its context. This essay offers a “Tawadian” translation of Paul Celan's poem “Psalm,” particularly the neologisms in the final stanza, into Chinese characters. In particular, the translation of “Purpurwort” as “yurusu,” a character that consists of the signs for “purple” and “word” but has the meaning of “forgiveness, amnesty, pardon,” brings forth the idea of “forgiveness” that may appear irrelevant to the original text. Drawing from Derrida's interpretation of The Merchant of Venice in “What is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” this paper relates “impossible translation” to “impossible forgiveness,” arguing that an “irrelevant” translation could shed a new light on the concept of forgiveness, and in doing so offers a dialogical response to Celan's original text.