Susan Bassnett Research Articles

Re-visiting <i>Sophocles</i>’ <i>Antigone</i>: Dr. Dina Amin’s 2022 Egyptian Version <i>Antigone’s Law</i>

This paper attempts to compare <i>Sophocles’ Antigone</i> to the Egyptian adaptation <i>Antigone’s law</i> (2022), to highlight the significance of intertextuality. The study entails contributions to intertextuality that will be integrated in analyzing the adapted discourses. It will also capitalize on the political and social dimensions illustrated in the adapted play. The study aims to explore the oppressed female voices in the concerned texts and how the adapted work is appropriating to any oppressed culture that suffers from the same sense of oppression throughout the ages. In this respect, the paper reflects the oppressed female character who defies her uncle who embodies the tyrannical figure that does not want her to bury her brother. In this respect, the paper rests on Julia Kristeva’s and Mikhail Bakhtin’s development of intertextuality. It will also rely on Lorna Hardwick’s and Robert Fraser’s reference to the use of verbal and semiotic techniques which give the audiences a new comprehensive meaning that could be linked to their real life. This paper will also explain Susan Bassnett’s concept of polyphony or plurivocality that is set in contrast to the earlier model imposed by the colonial power of univocality. In other words, the other voices can be heard rather than the dominant single or monolithic voice. Plurivocality is capitalized on as it is at the heart of post-colonial thinking. Therefore, the study aims at proving that the experience was not only limited to the individual, but also to a whole community and humanity as well, and that reflects and highlights the power and the wisdom of women through the ages with different manifestations in the examined discourse. The study therefore, attempts to prove how the notion of intertextuality is found deeply in the Egyptian adapted work.

Mythical Realities in Nepali Writings Mahabharata Mythic in Krishna Dharabasi’s Radha

This paper analyses Krishna Dharabasi’s Radha and zooms mythic realities of Krishna-Radha relationships. It is based on the Archeological study method of the Hindu scripture written on metallic plates and kept inside the iron box that was found in Braja. The plates can be unburied historical proofs of the buried memories. Written documents historicize Krishna-Radha relationships and Krishna’s Rasa Lila on the one hand and Kunti-Madri’s maternity on the other hand. Documents also historicize the love stories of Krishna on the one hand and war stories of Kauravas and Pandavas on the other hand, and so this paper is prepared in a comparative method. This paper makes a comparative study with an archaeological investigation in some mythical places of Eastern Nepal: Bhadrapur- Mechi and Keechak Badh Jhapa in connection to the mythic realities of Pandu’s wives Kunti and Madri’s experiences and myth makings. Claudio Guillen, Marshall Sahlins, and Susan Bassnett’s ideas are applied for theoretical support. The objective of this paper is to excavate on mythical realities of Radha-Krishna love, war, and renunciation. The finding of this paper is that Dharabasi’s Radha interlinks with conceptual knowledge of Ramayana and Mahabharata that can be studied from mythical and historical perspectives, too.

Self-translation, Rewriting, and Translingual Address: Li Kotomi’s Solo Dance

Abstract Drawing on Susan Bassnett’s critique of ‘self-translation,’ whereby the phenomenon is understood according to a binary source-target logic and the related notion of originality, this article examines three versions of a Li Kotomi novel: the Japanese original Hitorimai (独り舞, 2018), the Chinese self-translation Du Wu (獨舞, 2019), and Arthur Reiji Morris’s English translation Solo Dance (2022). Our focus is on how Li’s practice of self-translation and translanguaging muddles traditional boundaries between culture and language, and challenges binary notions of translation. Rather than viewing self-translation through source-target/original-translation binaries, we examine Hitorimai and Du Wu as a translingual, transcultural dialogue between Li (as author and translator) and her readers in a space of “translingual address” (Robinson). Furthermore, we discuss queer cross-cultural representations in Morris’s English translation and argue that, together, the Japanese text and the Chinese self-translation constitute the queer original of the novel.

Women under the Panchayat Regime: Parijat’s Under the Sleepless Mountain as a Feminist Project

The representation of the female in Nepali fiction has been a fascinating subject for critics. This paper examines the representational position of the women as projected in Parijat’s Under the Sleepless Mountain. In this novel, the novelist critiques the patriarchal society’s treatment to women in a different social structure. Parijat’s female characters are projected as suffering and marginalized people of the Nepali society around the student’s revolution of the early 1980s. Other issues raised in this paper focus on students and subaltern characters who are treated badly as they raise voice against the oppressive Panchayat system and other kinds of dominance. She writes against social wrongs and ill intended human activities. She exposes the character’s desire for freedom, individuality and equal rights. Thus, the objective of this study is to find out the answers to whether the suffering of women, laborers and students are concretely represented in her novel or not. In this paper, this researcher explores the issues around the plight of the female, which are interpreted from the feminist perspective. The relevant feminist notions developed by the feminist critics such as Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson, Catherine Belsey and Susan Bassnett have been adopted for textual analysis as a methodological tool. This paper concludes that the gender discrimination and political disharmony are the major obstacles to women upliftment.

Confrontations in the New World: Grete Weil's Happy, sagte der Onkel (1968)

In her essay “Travel Writing and Gender,” the British scholar Susan Bassnett makes two points that are relevant in analyzing Grete Weil’s travel tales, Happy, sagte der Onkel (Happy, Said My Uncle). Bassnett remarks that “increasingly in the twentieth century, male and female travelers have written self-reflexive texts that defy easy categorization as autobiography, memoir, or travel account.” This observation certainly holds true for Grete Weil’s slim volume, and so does Bassnett’s gender-specific assertion that there is a “strand of women’s travel writing that has grown in importance in the twentieth century: the journey that leads to greater self-awareness and takes the reader simultaneously on that journey.”

In conversation: Susan Bassnett and Alicia Partnoy talk about translation, feminisms and survival

In conversation: Susan Bassnett and Alicia Partnoy talk about translation, feminisms and survival

A Study on Translation of Numbers in the Analects of Confucius from the Perspective of Cultural Translation Theory—— a Case study of the Translation Version by Gu Hongming

The language of the Analects of Confucius is concise, rich in connotation and highly abstract, so the problem of lack of meaning or semantic insufficiency is very obvious, and the numerical meaning is one of the most obvious examples. Based on Susan Bassnett view of cultural translation, this paper analyzes Gu Hongming’s translated version of Analects and finds that there are great cultural differences between Chinese and Western numerals in terms of definite reference and vague reference. In addition to definite reference, Chinese numbers also have the function of vague reference; In English, numbers are mostly used in definite reference, and vague reference is mostly based on larger numbers. This increases the difficulty for translators and readers to understand the original work. In addition to having a solid bilingual foundation, the translator should have a profound bilingual cultural knowledge to realize the translation of cultural information behind the language. The theory of cultural translation has certain feasibility in guiding the translation of Chinese classics into English, which can promote the foreign translation of Chinese classics and has certain practical significance in promoting the transmission of Chinese culture to the world.

Study on the Translation of the Key Terms of Chinese Culture in Insights into Chinese Culture

Insights into Chinese Culture, a book which systematically and comprehensively introduces the Chinese culture from four aspects, that is, wisdom and beliefs, creativity and exchange, art and aesthetics and folk customs, has played a pivotal role in spreading the brilliant Chinese culture to Western countries since its publication in 2008. The 21st century has witnessed the “going global” of the Chinese culture gradually developing into a national strategy. Under this overall background, this book has been studied from various perspectives such as Western rhetoric theory, audience awareness, the image of China it presents, the strategy of translating culture-loaded words involved and the complex philosophical thoughts explained within and so on, among which, however, a systematic study on the translation of its key terms of Chinese culture is in dire need currently in translation community since it is a book that aims to deliver the great and profound Chinese culture to Western readers. Therefore, following Susan Bassnett’s Cultural Translation Theory, from the perspective of cultural fidelity and the acceptability of English readers, this thesis discusses and analyzes the translations of the representative terms of Chinese culture, such as “仁(ren)”, “礼(li)”, “自然(zi-ran)”, “无为(wu-wei)”, “天(tian)” and “龙(long)”, to examine whether they accurately convey the cultural connotations or to some extent may lead to cultural misunderstandings. This study suggests that the accurate translation of key terms of Chinese culture, which is of great significance in promoting Chinese culture to go global, requires translators’ full and deep grasp of their philosophical connotations and cultural backgrounds instead of the superficial interpretation of their literal meanings.

Use of Culture-Specific Items and their Translation from Lithuanian into English and French in Ričardas Gavelis’s Vilnius Poker

Summary From the beginnings of translation studies to the present day, the theoretical and practical paradigm of translation has come a long way. Although it was closely associated with linguistics and the solution of linguistic problems of translation until the early 1980s, it was the first translation theories that drew attention to the cultural phenomena of texts and the challenges of translation. Translation scholars Susan Bassnett and André Lefevre (1990) wrote that translation's shift to cultural phenomena represented a significant cultural turn. This led to a paradigm shift in translation and a new view that translation is an intercultural act and a dialogue between cultures. Given the importance and relevance of research on cultural meanings in translation, this paper focuses on one type of cultural meanings – culture-specific items that sometimes become a cultural stumbling block for translators. The aim of the research described in the article is to analyse the peculiarities of the use of culture-specific items in Ričardas Gavelis's novel Vilnius Poker, to conduct a comparative study of the translation of culture-specific items from Lithuanian into English and French, and to determine the translation techniques, strategies and trends of cultural transposition used by translators. The methods used to achieve the aim of the study include synthesis of scientific literature, comparative, descriptive and quantitative analysis. The use and translation of culture-specific items does not raise the issue of equivalence and linguistic deficit. Culture-specific items are analysed not as a separate unit of the text, but as part of a holistic whole that is organically integrated into the text and contributes to its meaning. The use of culture-specific items in the research material has led to the identification of four thematic groups: social, political, and historical; folkloric and mythological; domestic; and geographical. The data obtained in the quantitative use of culture-specific items suggest that two-fifths of all the culture-specific items analysed belong to the social, political, and historical thematic group reflecting the social life, deformations, Soviet experiences, and worldview of the people in the Soviet period in Vilnius and Lithuania as a whole, as portrayed by R. Gavelis. In a comparative study of translating culture-specific items from Lithuanian into English and French, based on the translation techniques and strategies described by Andrew Chesterman, nine translation techniques and three strategies were identified: from the semantic translation strategy, synonymy, abstraction change, trope change, and paraphrase were used; from the pragmatic translation strategy, the techniques of translation were: explicitness change and omission; from the syntactic or change of form translation, the translation techniques were: literal translation, loan, and transposition. The evaluation of the different translation techniques chosen by the English and French translators to translate culture-specific items showed that the English translation adopted the tendency of foreignization in order to “bring the reader to the author”, i.e. to provide the readers of the translation with as much systematic cultural information as possible about Soviet and postwar Lithuania. In contrast, French translation showed the opposite tendency toward domestication, i.e. the abandonment, omission, or replacement of certain cultural meanings with French cultural meanings. In this, the translator's cultural transposition was shown to “bring the author to the reader”.

Exposition of Body Aesthetics: Reading Koirala’s Sumnima and Parijat’s Shirisko Phool

Sumnima and Shirisko Phool deal with the subject matter of body aesthetics. Koirala’s Sumnima exposes vivacious Sumnima body with ‘strong sense of heroism’ that she straightens in front of dry body, idealistic notion of Somdatta and Parijat’s Shirisko Phool reveals the causes and consequences of Suyogbir’s kissing that kills Bari. Suyogbir fails to preserve his military ethics and social prestige while he is mad in Bari’s bodily beauty and behaviors. Somdatta’s spiritual salvation of Khas-Aryan stocks in the name of achieving divinity by the power of penance makes victim to a Kirat girl, Sumnima, for a long and she ultimately marries with a village boy from Kirat community and gives birth to a daughter. Comparative study compares two or more than two people, places, things, arts, culture/religion and literature and this is a comparative study on Koirala and Parijat characters’ body aesthetics in Sumnima and Blue Mimosa. This comparative study’s objective is to bring prolong history of body aesthetics of Suryadatta, Somdatta, Bhilla, Puloma and Sumnima in Sumnima and Suyogbir, Shivaraj, Mujura, Sanu and Sakambari in Shirisko Phool for which I take theoretical support from Susan Bassnett, Charles Bernheimer, Jonathan Culler, David Ferry, Guillen Clandio, Jost Francis, Remak H.H.etc.’s ideas. Koirala and Parijat characters expose body aesthetics, experience ups and down of social practices and continue and/or break throw them from multiple aspects. The narratives in Sumnima and Blue Mimosa also focus on divine power for spiritual living, too but this study highlights an exposition of body aesthetics.

PICARESQUE NOVELS IN CANNERY ROW, CANDIDE OR OPTIMISM, AND DON QUIJOTE

The research compared rascals in three Picaresque novels: Cannery Row, Candide or Optimism, and Don Quijote. It used Picaresque theories from Clarence Hugh Holman (1972), as well as Gustavo Pellon and Julio Rodriguez-Luis (1986), that specified rascal or rogue. This understanding explains how some Picaresque novels feature rascal characters who are silly, stupid, reckless, rude and have other negative traits, but they also have qualities of kindness, a good heart, and attentiveness hidden behind them. Mack and the boys, Candide, and Don Quijote are all depicted as rogues. The Picaresque element is used as a formula in the story to determine and exemplify rascal values. The researcher stated two problems related to Picaresque rascal: what are the similarities between Picaresque rascals in Cannery Row, Candide or Optimism, and Don Quijote? In addition, the purpose of this research is to identify Picaresque rascals in three objects. Furthermore, this research utilizes Ian Dey's (1993) literary criticism method, namely qualitative analysis. It is used to decipher the data of each object one by one and to obtain information about the Picaresque. The researcher then used Susan Bassnett's (1999) comparative method to compare topics. The similarities between the three objects are the results of this research. The similarities are rascals, education, instability of personality, criminality, and themes. Keywords: Comparative Literature 1; Elements 2; Novel 3; Picaresque 4; Rascal 5

Perspectives on translation and world literature

ABSTRACT This article presents an overview of world literature with regards to comparative and translation studies, notably through the publications of André Lefevere, Susan Bassnett and Edwin Gentzler, as an introduction to this thematic special issue, which showcases the variety of approaches and interests in literature by translation scholars. Although literary translation accounts for a small percentage of all the translation work carried out in the world, it continues to attract considerable attention on the part of academics and researchers. This interest is partly a result of the change of status of translated works since the mid-twentieth century, as translation research was gradually accepted as crucial by comparatists. The articles selected for this thematic issue, which look at literary translation in China, Latin America, Europe and India, analyze some important topics such as the role of translators as initiators of the translation process, the imprint they leave on the target texts and on the target cultures, the translation of gender and the significance of translation projects.

Susan Bassnett’s Philosophy in Translation Studies: A Corpus-based Analysis

As a well-recognized scholar in translation study, Susan Bassnett is known for her proposal of cultural translation which claims a turn from linguistically textual analysis to more sociologically cultural study in translation discipline. Susan Bassnett’s philosophy in translation studies, however, is far beyond the proposal of cultural turn. Based on a corpus analysis on the text of Translation Studies, one of Susan’s popular scholarly books, this study is expected to identify more data proofs of Susan’s contributions, especially those ideas of translation history, translating process and translators’ subjectivity, which will bring significant inspirations for those in translation explorations.

FitzGerald’s Translation of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr: A Colonial Approach towards Metrics, Textual Rhythm, and Rhyme Translation

The Mantiq-Ut-Tayr[1] is a collection of mystical poems composed by Farid ud-Din Attar in 1177 in Iran. He was a doctor, druggist, perfumer, and at the same time a Sufi in his ideas. In 1857, the British poet and translator, Edward FitzGerald, introduced this collection of couplets to England for the first time. As a Victorian translator, he attempted to colonize the Persian text and recreate Attar’s rhythmic pattern in his translation. In other terms, he tried to introduce the Persian Metrics of the twelfth century into English literature of the nineteenth century.
 By introducing Persian fixed metric patterns into English literature, one may wonder how FitzGerald’s invention affected the norms of the Victorian poetry. Has the British translator become successful in recreating the close correlation, which exists between rhythm and the underlying significance of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr in his translation?
 By applying the theories of scholars in linguistics and translation studies, such as Derek Attridge, André Lefevere, Antoine Berman, Susan Bassnett, and Harish Trivedi; this research seeks to investigate the way FitzGerald rendered the Persian Masnavi—rhyming couplets—and the genre in established English norms. Thus, the present study might provide an interesting research field for developing a postcolonial methodology with regard to the rendition of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr’s rhythm and rhyme in English. In fact, this research attempts to evaluate the change of meaning, comprehension, and above all the reception between the Persian text and the English translation of Attar’s masterpiece.
 Keywords: exception, metrics, rhythm, colonial approach, translation, Mantiq-Ut-Tayr.
 
 
 [1] The conference of the birds.

Introduction

Introduction

El traductor visible de literatura poscolonial ante la tentación del exotismo

Building upon The Translator’s Invisibility by L. Venuti and related work by Susan Bassnett, Ovidi Carbonell, Anuradha Dingwaney, Samia Mehrez and Mahasweta Sengupta, among others, this paper argues for the visibility of the postcolonial literature translator and draws a carefull line between proper visibility – as we define it – and a counterproductive exotism that may arise as the side-product of a poorly understood visibility. Our discussion focuses on the particular case of postcolonial lusophone African literature. In particular, we analyze the translation strategy adopted by the author of this paper for the translation from portuguese to catalan of A Varanda do Frangipani, a novel by Mia Couto from Mozambique.

Notícias

Notícias

Orality, Literacy and Translation

Though translation activities are more than two millennia old, the most significant activities in this field took place in the 20th century. To be specific, contradictory theoretical positions were taken and entirely new kinds of questions were asked in the second half of this century. Scholars like Susan Bassnett (1998) even claimed that a translation should be treated as an independent and original text. But a number of writers, translators and scholars hold an opposite view. If we consider the translation activities of the ancient western civilizations of the world, we notice that those were mostly commissioned and literal in nature. Contrary to it, the situation in India was different. Though Valmiki and Vyasa composed the Ramayana and the Mahabharata respectively for the first time in Sanskrit, the Ramayanas and Mahabharatas written later in various vernacular languages of India are adaptations or transcreations. A careful analysis of the European, Arabic, and Chinese traditions show that those were literate in comparison with the vernacular Indian tradition that was predominantly oral. This orality gave a lot of freedom to the writers in the vernacular languages in ancient India to be creative and compose new texts. Therefore, orality was the driving force for this creativity and some western scholars’ proposal that a translated text is an original text in not a new concept. The other point I would like to make is that contrary to the popular belief, a literal translation of a literary text is also appreciated more (Newmark 1988:70-71). This position is validated in two of our case studies, i.e. Mohanty et al. (2008) and Mohanty and Sarath Chandra (2014). Therefore, I want to argue that ‘free’ translation was the mainstream in the climate of orality and not in literacy. This free trend endorsed by those scholars who treat translations as original texts is peripheral in the contemporary literate societies in which translations are usually commissioned. I will also argue that the differences between the free and the literal trends in translation are primarily due to the oral and the literate traditions that prevailed in India and in the other parts of the world mentioned above in the olden days.

Translating the queer body

Abstract The objective of this study is to enlarge the concept of translation with the theoretical basis of the proposals from Edwin Gentzler’s “post-translation studies” (2017) and Susan Bassnett’s “outward turn” (2017). These contributions represent a turning point in the field of translation studies due to the opportunities they present to discover new discursive limits in the rewriting process. Based on this extended concept of translation, this article analyzes the body as a text which is determined by acts of rewriting and, at the same time, as a subversive element that allows us to bring into question the social and cultural rules that define the normativity of sexuality. This article refers to feminist currents including LGBTIQ studies and queer theory, in order to build the necessary theoretical structure to analyze the power of (translated) discourses in the construction of the body and its sexuality. Finally, this article applies this proposal to the analyses of specific cases of non-normative bodies so as to observe the power and the influence of translation on the definition and classification of sexual identities.

THE COMPARISON OF CHARACTERS, SETTING AND CHARACTERIZATION ANALYSIS BETWEEN NOVEL AND FILM OF PAPER TOWNS (A STUDY OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE)

ABSTRACT This thesis examines the comparison between film and novel of Paper Towns by John Green. In both novels and films, has two elements, namely the intrinsic element and the extrinsic element. In this thesis, the researcher focuses on the intrinsic elements, there are in characters, characterization, and setting. The comparison between novel and the film version of Paper Towns. The method used by researchers is a qualitative method. Researchers used the original novel in English, as well as watched the film on Netflix. To include a table in the form of snippets of scenes from Paper Towns film. The theory used is the book Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction by Susan Bassnett. The characters in the novel are diverse, when the novel become a film, many of these characters disappear. Usually the characters that are not used in the film are characters that do not have an impact on the threads of the story. The setting in the novel is presented in a more complex and detailed manner than in the film. The characterization in the novel is also complex, but it does not mean that after being a film the characterization that is already in the novel changes.Keywords: comparative literature, novel, film, Paper Towns