The literary canon and translation in cultural space Cover Image

Literárny kánon v prekladovom a kultúrnom priestore
The literary canon and translation in cultural space

Author(s): Katarína Bednárová
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Aesthetics, Translation Studies, Theory of Literature
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: Literary canon; Literary translation history; Draft translation; Aesthetic authority; Classic work; The functions of translation; Selected works; Historicity; Publishing practice; Reader;

Summary/Abstract: The article’s focus is the perception of the literary canon in relation to translation. It analyzes the modes of the canon (text corpus, aesthetic authority, writing modifier, “classic” work) in the history of literary translation on the axis of translation draft → translation → retranslation → no translation, while paying attention to the issues of text fixation, text variability and a text’s loss of receptivity and currency in translation. The cultural aspects affecting translation are the institutional selection and instrumentalization of the canon, the influence over selection, and the conditions of translation canon-creation on the axis of the cultural and representative function of translation → literary tradition in translation (at the intersection of the sending and receiving literature) → literary education → translation as an event. The article problematizes the status of the canon from the point of view of selecting texts for translation, the encounter of the local and foreign canon, their synchronization and possible incompatibility and analyzes the identity of the canonical text and foreign text acting through the prism of the canon with a view to the historicity, interpretation and literary-historical context of a translation. The examples are drawn from the history of literary translation from French in Slovakia.

  • Issue Year: 11/2019
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 15-41
  • Page Count: 27
  • Language: Slovak