Gothicism in Postmodern Anglo-American Narratives and Media

[Dave Monroe]

>From Jacques Derrida, "Des Tours de Babel," in
Difference in Translation (ed. Joseph F. Graham,
Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1986, pp. 165-248) ...

1. The translator's task is not revealed by any
reception.

2. Translation has not as essential aim to
communicate.

3. Translation is neither an image nor a copy.

4. Translation has no obligation to transport
contents, yet must evidence the affinity between
languages, must exhibit its potential.

http://www.logos.it/pls/dictionary/linguistic_resources.cap_3_28?lang=en

Discussing, among other things ...

Benjamin, Walter.  "The Task of the Translator."
   Illuminations.   Trans. Harry Zohn.  New York:
   Schocken, 1969.  69–82

http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/benja.htm

And see perhaps also ...

de Man, Paul.  "'Conclusions' on Walter Benjamin’s
   'The Task of the Translator.'"  Trans. William D.
   Jewett.  YFS 69 (1985): 25-46.

__________.  "Conclusions: Walter Benjamin's 'The
   Task of the Translator.'"  The Resistance to
Theory.
   Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.  73-105

Though it's been a very long while, and I don't have
it at hand.  This, however ...

http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/663/663_humphries.html

... looks interesting, at least.  Let me know.  But I
am in general reminded here of comments made in a
Lingua Franca (R.I.P.) article on one of Jorge Luis
Borges' translators, remarking on how he had sort of
flipped the switch on certain ambiguities that might
have been better translated had they retained said
ambivalences ...

That perhaps is the greates challenge to translation,
not to shut the production of meaning down by
deploying "perfect," "literal" (though perhaps
Derrida'd've argued the "literal" is anything but a
one-to-one correspondence of signified and signifier)
univocal equivalencies, but rather to continue to
enable the production of meaning by at elast
attempting to render resonances, allusiveness,
ambiguities, whatever ...

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