Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology

Abstract

There is little doubt that Translating the Perception of Text: Literary Translation and Phenomenology will appeal more to scholars in literary studies than it will to translation scholars in general. This is presumably not something to which Clive Scott would object. He narrows the scope to literary translation in the subtitle, and the examples of translation discussed in the book are all literary-poetic. Throughout the book he draws on examples of translation of French poetry, which is his area of expertise (Apollinaire, Baudelaire, Mallarmé). The core theoretical literature for this volume will also primarily be familiar to colleagues in literary studies. The most obvious example is Merleau-Ponty, whose thought forms the backdrop and frame of the entire work, but one might also cite Barthes, Gadamer, Glissant, and Richard.In Translating the Perception of Text, Scott presents a theory and practice of translation that falls very much into what French (literary) translation theorists would call a “prospective” theory of translation. His theory emerges from the experience of translation practice; it is concerned with a literary-poetic practice; and it is essentially an interrogative act that does not start from the assumption that translation is communication. The main aim of Translating the Perception of Text is to answer a question that Scott asks on the very first page: “how should I handle language in such a way that the experience of (reading) the source text (ST) can emerge?” (1). The real achievement of this volume, I think, is that it pushes for an overhaul of current understanding of the task of the (literary) translator. Even readers and translators who reject some of his individual claims and particular ideas will find that the thrust of the work as a whole leaves a lasting impression. If all this does is serve to remind the translator not to translate as would a machine (word for word, from one language to another, searching for sameness), this is still a valuable contribution.The volume starts with an introduction and is then divided into two parts: “Part I: Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Language” and “Part II: Literary Translation as Phenomenology.” In the introduction, Scott touches on some tropes of contemporary translation theory, including the move away from the context of national standard languages, a recognition of multilingualism in both source and target texts, and the conception of translation as potentiality. At the same time, he has some very interesting ideas about what translation should be. For example, he insists here and elsewhere in the book that translations are not written for those with no access to the source language or source text (15–17), and he also argues that it is “translation's business to translate langue into langage” (10). We see an example of how this would work later in the book, in a discussion of the Zukofskys' translations of Catullus: “We begin to understand how the translator can begin to work towards the signifier of the source text, rather than towards its signified, and in so doing multiply the Englishes present in the text, in terms both of history and register” (100). Part I contains just one chapter (“Merleau-Ponty: Language, Painting and Translation”), in which Scott engages with the most relevant parts of Merleau-Ponty's writing for his own work on translation. This chapter is a necessary set-up for the rest of the book, but as such it is probably the least engaging for those interested in translation.Part II, on “Literary Translation as Phenomenology,” contains five chapters, which examine in turn “Overwriting and the Overwritten Text,” “Listening and Speaking: Sounds,” “Listening and Speaking: Rhythm,” “Writing and Speaking,” and “Translating the Time and Space of Languages.” These are the chapters that will be of most interest to the scholar and that I think will prove most inspiring to translators. Their titles alone reflect several key themes in Scott's translatory thought. The most obvious of these is the idea that translation responds to the reader's own synesthetic experience of the source text by translating toward other, or multiple, levels. Scott's text comes alive in these chapters because he is able to work simultaneously with the large theoretical toolbox he has set up, but also on translation itself. It is worth noting that it is not just phenomenology that informs his work. His interest in the materiality of language means that technical texts from linguistics provide him at times with analytical tools and terminology to discuss particular translation choices. This is done generally successfully, such as when he compares the formal properties of elle rougit and she blushed (63-4), but a linguist might question his selection of theoretical texts because it feels at times somewhat haphazard. Unsurprisingly, Scott is most insightful when reading his own translations, which often go through multiple versions in each discussion. This is not just because more abstract ideas become clearer through exemplification, but also because his conception of translation as “translationwork”—“the textual equivalent of the Pompidou Centre” (108)—rests on this process of opening up and transforming.To say that Translating the Perception of Text will appeal more to literary scholars than it will to translation scholars is not to say that translation scholars should not read this work. In fact, they will get a lot out of Scott's book if they can get past the particularity of this style of literary-theoretic writing. His own formal choices might feel particularly “foreignizing” unless they are understood to be reinforcing his argument; this includes his use of diagrams, tables, doodles, phonetic symbols, and the uneven use of abbreviations which might at first look like bad copyediting. Similarly, they will need to accept the significance he accords to certain translation choices, such as his fondness for the use of ▲ (104–5, 119–20). Finally, there are a number of unanswered questions that translation scholars are left to answer for themselves. This includes, crucially, how Scott's conception of translation really relates to imitation, and also what would happen if we tried to apply his theory and practice in a domain other than the literary-poetic.