From Meschonnic’s Passeur to Cronin’s Agent of Metamorphosis: A Preliminary Study of Selected Representations of the Literary Translator
This article sets out to examine a number of the more prevalent representations of the literary translator in theoretical writings. The literary translator, more so than the translator of pragmatic texts, is called upon to deal with the transfer of foreign cultural elements, or alterity, to the target culture during the translation process. Of particular interest in this paper is how the translator deals with cultural alterity (rejection versus acceptance) and the impact of his or her position on the translation product. At one extreme is Henri Meschonnic’s figure of the translator as a “passeur” of dead texts who have lost their cultural memory, and at the other is Michael Cronin’s figure of the translator as an agent of metamorphosis, who while enacting change also undergoes transformation. Figures of translators located between these two extremes occupy an in-between, or a third, space where two or more cultures come into contact and overlap. These translators are sensitive to the passage of time and are very aware of the degree to which national cultures can be an artificial construction. Thus, they are invariably aware of their position that is located both outside of and within binary oppositions of Self versus Other. Those literary translators who live in close contact with the linguistic and cultural Other tend to find it neither dangerous nor repulsive. As a result, the likelihood of rejecting the foreign in the literary translation is considerably reduced.