Translation between Poetics and Ideology

Abstract

Andre Lefevere's is a familiar name in Translation Studies. He has been around for some twenty years, publishing furiously and often provocatively. He has changed over the years, too, and his career mirrors some of the paradigmatic sea-changes in the field. His first book, Translating Poetry: Seven Strategies and a Blueprint (1975), still viewed literary translation as a loss-making business and tried to distil the optimum strategy from among a number of available options. He would soon shake off the normative touch, and in Literary Knowledge (1977), probably his least-known book, went in search of a new conceptual framework for the study of literature and translation. This was the time when the descriptive, target-oriented, polysystem-based approach was rearing its head, and Lefevere, together with scholars like Gideon Toury, Raymond van den Broeck, and Jose Lambert, proved one of its most polemical and effective voices. During these years he also brought out his best-known collection, Translating Literature: The German Tradition (1977), and collaborated with Van den Broeck on a Dutch-language Invitation to Translation Studies (1979). He went on to carve out his own niche, moving from the Low Countries to Austin, Texas, and gradually devising his own concepts and