Theoretical challenges for a genetics of translation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translation archives are sources of insight into the creative processes of literary translation. This article examines the challenges of using the methodology of genetic criticism, which was devised for studying literary composition through archival evidence, for research in translation. It identifies conceptual limitations in this theory’s consideration of translated texts and their specific ontology, and it assesses the applicability of genetic criticism’s primordial categories – literary exogenesis and literary endogenesis – to translation. This paves the way for the construction of a methodology and a conceptual vocabulary for genetic process research in translation studies. It is argued that this new methodology can alleviate certain ambiguities or anxieties in current debates relating to the capacity of the translator to exercise their creativity and perform acts of writing that some would equate with authorship. Finally, adopting a translation studies perspective is suggested as a way for genetic criticism to shed its untenable Romantic heritage.