Translation
Texts
-
Jean Paul: Schulmeisterlein Wutz
What wonders hide within your letters, what adventures within your words, mysterious Schoolmaster Wutz! Pompous and mocked you make your entrance: a rustic pedant with eyes on the greater world, re-imagining the wisdom of ages at the kitchen table. The volumes in your library bind fancied epics, elaborated rumours of ideas and histories—a matchstick model of the soul! Since that day when I was... -
Esoteric Translation: 1. The Oneiromantic Method
Ensure that the source text is in a language you do not understand. Go to bed early. Under moderate light, start reading the source text. Be sure to follow every word of the text; do not read it as a series of letters but allow your mind to parse the text as it would with a language you understand. Persevere until your eyes begin to feel heavy and your brain feels as though it is rubbing... -
Esoteric Translation: 2. The Thaumaturgic Method
Ensure that the source text is in a language you do not understand. Acquire a novena to Saint Jerome. If one is not available, adapt one intended for another saint. Choose a place and a time of day which will be available to you for nine successive days or nights. Recite the novena on nine successive days or nights. After your ninth and final recital, wait for up to one month. If the source... -
Esoteric Translation: 3. The Pareidolic Method
Ensure that the source text is in a language you do not understand Place the source text on a suitable piece of furniture at one end of the room Walk across the room to the other end. You should be far enough so that the letters are no longer distinct, but close enough to still see the shape of the words. Without forcing any interpretations on yourself, take note of the first image that comes... -
Esoteric Translation: 4. The Tasseographic Method
Ensure that the source text is in a language that you do not understand Place the source text on a suitable piece of furniture at one end of the room Obtain a manual of Tasseography, preferably illustrated Walk across the room to the other end. You should be far enough so that the letters are no longer distinct, but close enough to still see the shape of the words. Compare the “image&quot -
Esoteric Translation: 5. The Ekphrastic Method
Ensure the source text is in a language that you do not understand. If you are translating from a print edition, start by describing, in the target language, the physical appearance of the book. Try not to “read” the text: avoid the temptation of interpreting any words that seem familiar. If the book has any apparatus begin by describing its relative proportions. -
Esoteric Translation: 6. The Homeopathic Method
1. Ensure that the source text is in a language you do not understand. 2. Determine the precise length of the text. This can generally be estimated if the format and number of pages is known. -
Esoteric Translation: 7. The Hidden-Hand Method
Ensure the source text is in a language that you do not understand Decide on a price for the book Sell the book on Amazon Buy another book that costs the exact same amount. * You can also swap this at a second-hand bookshop but imprecision can easily creep in, leading to a less faithful translation. For a more precise translation, auction the book on Ebay, then bid for another book on Ebay. The... -
Einmal Ist Keinmal
Boasting about sales figures and large print-runs on book jackets is a vulgar practice reserved to airport blockbusters; but it is perfectly respectable for even the most “literary” of books to boast about the number of languages into which it has been translated. As if to say, “It’s so good, it addresses such universal concerns, that it works in nineteen languages!” The literary... -
Untranslatability
Untranslatability is a big claim frequently made. There are those who insist that a word is untranslatable because they are not sufficiently familiar with the target language. Then there are those who are too familiar with the target language, the bilinguals, for whom—since they never learnt either language artificially—the two languages exist in... -
The Peculiar Melancholy of Nations
The Portuguese are very jealous of their saudade and you will frequently be told that the word is untranslatable. Similar claims are made for Czech litost, Turkish hüzün, Ethiopian tezeta, German sensucht, Bosnian sevdah, and, for that matter, the blues. They all express some sort of melancholy at the heart of the national character. It is unsurprising that no satisfactory equivalent can be...