CHAPTER-II. Translation as Reception Theoretical discourses

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1 47 CHAPTER-II Translation as Reception Theoretical discourses 2.1 Translation Theory Literal Translation One of the most important of all the critical-analytical works on the translation of non-indian poems by Rabindranath is Pashchatya Kabitar Anubade Rabindranath by Kalisadhan Mukhopadhay (1987). Most of the relevant critical writings on translations by Rabindranath are limited to the barren discussion of what George Steiner called the triad of literal, free and faithful translation. Kalisadhan in his analysis of Rabindranath s translation of Macbeth states that, firstly, the translation is not completely literal; the words have been chosen rather whimsically. A sailor s wife becomes majhir meye ; The rumpfed ronyon cries becomes poramukhi balle rege. These may be seen as instances of easy Bengali equivalents for the words and phrases but by no means as translations. Moreover, while we have words like Tatar and Turki unchanged, liver of blaspheming Jew has been changed into nerer piley, the justification of which is debatable. The translation of birth strangled babe into bhrun mara is not lexically consistent. Secondly, in the diction and rhythm of the translations, the spirit and sense of the witches words remain strangely alive. These sections of the translation do not suffer from the puritanical restrain that that we see in the later works of Rabindranath. Rabindranath uses such words as magi, benre, byang etc with ease and effect. It is the same poet who shied away from using the word bhatarkhaki in his Chhelebhulano Chhara. It s easily concluded that this translation has been inspired by western traditions of literary and linguistic usage and aesthetic indulgence. 1 It might be said that western translation theory till the twentieth century has kept itself restricted to discussions of literal, free and faithful translation. The practice of differentiating word-for-word (i.e. literal) translation from sense-for-sense (i.e. free) translation began with Cicero (first century BC) and St. Jerome (late fourth century AD) and it may be said to have continued till date. Cicero wrote, And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one might say, the figures of thought, but in language which conforms 1 Mukhopadhyay, Kalisadhan. Paschatya Kabitar Anubade Rabindranath. Kolkata: Tuli-Kalam, pp

2 48 to our usage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. 2 The interpreter mentioned in the first sentence is a literal (word-for-word) translator; whereas the orator composes lectures which touch his audience. For the orator, translation is the practice of finding the closest dramatic equivalent of every word and replacing it with that. While responding to the criticism of inaccurate translation directed towards him, Saint Jerome wrote, Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek, except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, wherever the syntax contains a mystery- I render not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense. 3 Jerome rejects the method of word-for-word translation because in his opinion, a close reading of the source text shadows the original and constructs a translation. A sense-for-sense translation, on the other hand, is more acceptable because it enables a translation of the sense or content of the source text. In his book The True Interpreter (1979) Louis Kelly has expressed the ancient western views on translation theory through three terms viz. fidelity, spirit and truth. The use of the word fidelity to mean faithfulness towards the sense conveyed by the source author instead of the words used by him is a rather unique one. In a similar way truth or the synonymous Latin word spiritus denotes creative energy or inspiration, which is especially used in relation to literature. St. Augustine, however, has used the word to mean Holy Spirit. St. Jerome, who was a contemporary of St. Augustine, used the word in either of the two ways. According to Augustine spirit and truth are intertwined words and the meaning of truth is content. According to Jerome truth stands for that which is authentic. It goes beyond saying that these three ideas have been put to use throughout Rabindranath s corpus of translational works. All the discussions revolve around the central questions of faithfulness, creative energy, inspiration and authenticity. Discussions on auto-translation occupy a major part of writings on Rabindranath s translations. Kalisadhan 2 From Cicero s De optimo genere oratorum (46 BC) translation by H.M. Hubbell (1960), as quoted in D. Robinson s Western Translation Theory from Herodotus to Nietzsche. Manchester: St. Jerome, 1997, p.9. 3 From St Jerome s De optimo genere interpretandi (395 BC) translation by Paul Carroll (1565), as quoted in Western Translation Theory from Herodotus to Nietzsche. p.25.

3 49 Mukhopadhay has thoroughly analyzed the translations of the poems to bring out the degree of faithfulness in them. The lack of faithfulness in some of the poems was justified in terms of creative energy or inspiration. The word transcreation which is often used in relation to Rabindranath s auto-translation may be accorded importance in this context. A systematic translation theory began in right earnest in the seventeenth century in the hands of Denham, Cowley and Dryden. Later Dryden s theory of the process of translation had great impact translation theory and practice. Dryden divided all translations into three categories. 1) metaphrase word by word and line by line translation. This corresponds to literal translation, 2) paraphrase this involves changing whole phrases and more or less corresponds to faithful or sense-for-sense translation and 3) imitation this rejects both word-for-word and sense-for-sense translation and corresponds free translation and is more or less adaptation. 4 There is enough scope to include the poems translated by Rabindranath from different non- Indian languages into Bangla into all these three categories. Equivalence After centuries of debate on the issues of literal and free translation, the theorists of the 1950s and 1960s become conscious of the necessity of more systematic analysis of works of translation. One of the issues that became prominent in these discussions were the ideas of meaning and equivalence discussed by Roman Jakobson in his 1959 essay. Considerable effort was made in the two succeeding decades to ascertain the nature of equivalence. Roman Jakobson spoke of three kinds of translation viz. intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic. Jakobson made an attempt to understand the nature of translation between two different languages in terms of meaning and equivalence. According to Jacobson in case of interlingual translation involves substituting messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language: 4 John Dryden s Preface to Ovid s Epistels (1680) and Dedication of the Aeneid (1697) are extracted in L. Venuti ed. The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2004 (2 nd ed.). pp

4 50 The translator records and transmits a message received from another source. Thus translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes. 5 Even if the messages of ST and TT are equivalent their code units will be different because they belong to two different sign systems. Instead of being concerned about the difficulty in rendering a message written in a certain verbal language in another language, Jacobson s discussion emphasized the role played by differences in the structure and terminology of language by focusing on meaning and equivalence. In his opinion, cross linguistic differences are created due to obligatory grammatical and lexical forms. Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey. 6 Since, according to Jacobson the sense of a poem is expressed through its form, and since phonemic similarity becomes comprehensible through semantic relationship, he considers a poem untranslatable. However, he thinks that a poem may undergo creative transposition. In the 1960s the questions of meaning, equivalence and translatability became central to translation studies. Eugene Nida was among the foremost of those who looked at these questions from a scientific approach. The systematic approach of Nida derives its theoretical concept and terminology from syntactic, pragmatics and Noam Chomsky s syntactic structure from which Chomsky had created his famous theory of generative- transformational grammar. Nida tried to come out of the concept that an orthographic word had a fixed meaning. Instead he gave the functional definition of meaning as something that a word acquired from its context. This meaning may produce varied responses depending on the culture of the respondent. Nida used two kinds of basic orientations or types of equivalence to reject the ancient concepts of literal, free and faithful translations. 1) Formal equivalence, Nida writes, focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content one is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language. 7 Formal equivalence or formal correspondence is oriented towards the ST structures in this way. Usually such translations are supplemented with footnotes and the reader or better still, the student (since this kind of translation is 5 From Jakobson s On Linguistic aspects of translation (1959), in Venuti ed. The Translation Studies Reader. p On Linguistic aspects of translation, in Venuti ed. The Translation Studies Reader. p Nida, E.A. Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: E.J. Brill, p. 159.

5 51 practised mostly in academic ambiences), acquires a good deal of idea about the language and customs of the source culture. 2) Dynamic or Functional equivalence is founded on what Nida calls the principle of equivalent effect. According to Nida, in this case, The relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. 8 The message has to be tailored to the receptor s linguistic needs and culture, expectations and aims at complete naturalness of expression. Naturalness is a key requirement of Nida. Indeed, he defines the goal of dynamic equivalence as seeking the closest natural equivalent to the source language message. This reception oriented approach considers adaptations of grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in order to achieve naturalness; the TT language should not show interference from the SL, and the foreignness of the ST setting is minimized in a way that should now be criticized by later, culturally oriented translation theorists. 9 According to Nida, the success of translation depends on the achievement of equivalent response. The basic requirements of this translation are 1) making sense; 2) conveying the spirit and manner of the original; 3) having a natural and easy form of expression; 4) producing a similar response. Nida especially states that correspondence of meaning is of greater importance than correspondence in style for the achievement of equivalent effect. The actual achievement of Nida lies not in moving away from word-to-word equivalence but in his introduction of the concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence. He was crucial in introducing a receptor-based or reader based orientation to transmission theory. System Theories The model based on linguistic theory was further extended in the 1960s, initially with the skopos theory 10 and later through register and discourse analysis 11. As a result of 8 Toward a Science of Translating. p Toward a Science of Translating. pp Hans Vermer introduced the technical term for the purpose of a translation and of the action of translation in 1970s. Skopos is the Greek word for aim or purpose.

6 52 this it becomes possible to view language in relation to its socio-cultural function. In the 1970s the polysystem theory was developed in response to the static prescriptive model. Polysystem theory views a work of translation as part of a larger social, literary and historical system of the target culture. The Israeli scholar Itamar Even- Zohar borrowed a few important ideas from the Russian Formalists who worked on literary historiography in the 1920s to develop the polysystem theory. According to this concept, a literary word is read not in isolation but as part of a literary system. Tynjanov defines literary system as a system of functions of literary order which are in continual interrelationship with other s order. 12 So, the social, cultural, literary and historical frameworks are part of a system. His system is characterized by an ongoing dynamic of mutation and struggle for primary position in the literary canon. Even Zohar emphasizes the importance of viewing translation literature as a system. This is done in two ways: 1) In the way the TL selects works for translation. 2) In the way translation norms, behavior and policies are influenced by other co-systems. The relation between these systems is called polysystem. Shuttleworth and Cowie define the polysysem as, a heterogenous, hierarchical conglomerate (or system) of systems which interact to bring about an ongoing, dynamic process of evolution within the polysystem as a whole. 13 While polysystem plays an important role in translation studies, a few ideas derived from the concept of polysystem may be seen as the interface between translation and reception. 1) Literature itself is studied alongside the social, historical and cultural forces. 2) Even-Zohar moves away from the isolated study of individual texts towards the study of translation within the cultural and literary system in which it functions. 11 Discourse and register analysis in translation studies became very popular in 1990s. This approach to translation links microlevel linguistic choices to the communicative function of a text and the sociocultural meaning behind it. 12 Tynjanov, J.N. Arkhaisty i novatory. Moscow: Akademia, translated by C.A. Luplow as On literary evolution (1971) in L. Matejka and K. Pomorska edited Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, p Shuttleworth, M., and M. Cowie eds. Dictionary of Translation Studies. Manchester: St Jerome, p.176.

7 53 3) The non-prescriptive definition of equivalence and adequacy allows for variation according to the historical and cultural situation of the text. Gideon Toury worked with Even-Zohar in Tel Aviv. After working on the socio-cultural conditions significant in the translation of literatures in various languages into Hebrew, Toury invested his energies to the development of a general theory of translation. Toury called for the development of a proper, systematic descriptive branch of translation. What is missing is not isolated attempts reflecting excellent intuitions and supplying fine insights (which many existing studies certainly do), but a systematic branch proceeding from clear assumptions and armed with a methodology and research techniques made as explicit possible and justified within translation studies itself. Only a branch of this kind can ensure that the findings of individual studies will be intersubjectively testable and comparable, and the studies themselves replicable. 14 According to Toury, a work of translation has its place in the literary and social systems of the target culture. The position of a work of translation in the target culture determines the strategy of translation. Toury has prescribed three phases in the methodology of systematic descriptive translation which incorporates a wider role of the socio cultural system apart from a description of the product. 1) Situate the text within the target culture system, looking at its significance or acceptability. 2) Compare the ST and the TT for shifts, identifying relationships between coupled pairs of ST and TT. 3) Attempt generalizations, reconstructing the process of translation for this ST TT pair. An important step is the possibility of repeating these phases for other pairs of similar texts in order to widen the corpus and to build up a descriptive profile of translations according to genre, period, author etc. In this way the norms pertaining to each kind of translation can be identified with the ultimate aim (as more descriptive studies are performed) of stating laws of behavior for translation in general. The purpose of the case studies made by Toury was primarily to naturalize the process of decision making in the act of translation and then to reconstruct essential norms for translation. Apart from that he also focussed on creating such hypotheses that will facilitate future descriptive studies. Toury defines norms as, 14 Toury, G. Descriptive Translation Studies And Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, p.3.

8 54 The translation of general rules and norms shared by a community as to what is right or wrong, adequate or inadequate- into performance instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations. Norms are socio-cultural constraints specific to culture, society and time. 15 An individual acquires it through socialization and the process of normal education. Toury believes that a work of translation is controlled by norms; and this norm determines the equivalence manifested in actual translation. Toury s methodology of descriptive translation builds the foundation for descriptive works in future. More than one aspect of his theory overlaps with reception theory. 1) The abandonment of one-to-one notion of correspondence as well as the possibility of literary/linguistic equivalence (unless by accident) 2) the involvement of literary tendencies within the target culture cultural system in the production of any translated text; 3) the destabilization of the notion of an original message with a fixed identity; 4) The integration of both the original text and the translated text in the semiotic web of intersecting cultural systems. Cultural Turn A Translation studies was assailed by Cultural Studies in the 1990s. Comparatist Andre Lefevere put forward the concept of translation as rewriting through the development of polysystem theory. Some theorists like Sherry Simon proceeded to understand translation from the point of view of gender studies. Theorists like Spivak, Tejaswini Niranjana, Homi Bhaba, Bassnet and Trivedi viewed translation with a postcolonial approach. Like all these cultural theorists, Lawrence Venuti advocated the separation of translation studies from the value driven nature of the socio-cultural framework. He went on to reject the descriptive model of Toury through the creation of value-free norms and laws of translation. Venuti remarked, Toury s method must still turn to cultural theory in order to assess the significance of the data, to analyze the norms. Norms may be in the first instance linguistic or literary, but they will also include a diverse range of domestic values, beliefs, and social 15 Descriptive Translation Studies And Beyond. p.55.

9 55 representations which carry ideological force in serving the interests of specific groups. And they are always housed in the social institutions whose translations are produced and enlisted in cultural and political agendas. 16 After-life Walter Benjamin published a German translation of Baudelaire s Tableaux Parisiens in The introductory chapter of this translation, Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers was published in 1969 by Harry Zohn as The task of the translator which went on to become an important philosophical text about literal translation. The chief idea in Benjamin s writing is that a translation does not exist for the purpose of bringing out the information-substance of the original or to make its meaning more comprehendible. According to him a translation exists independently and at the same time in its afterlife s conjunction with its source. In his opinion, the translated text is the after-life, as well as continued life of the source text. The recreation of a text ensures the survival of the original work. In his opinion a good translation expresses the central reciprocal relationship between languages. 17 This inherent relationship is a pre-existing one but it remains hidden without a good translation. A good translation does not try to be exactly like the original. Its goodness arises from the harmony of the two languages. Such an expansive and creative method of translation contributes towards the growth of the translator s own language (TL) and proceeds towards the development of a pure language. Literal rendering should be done in such a way that it enables the achievement of a pure language. A real translation is transparent it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully. This may be achieved, above all, by a literal rendering of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator. Benjamin has emphasized the allowing of the foreign in the language of translation. 16 Venuti, L. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London and New York: Routledge, p Benjamin, W. The Task of the Translator, translated by H. Zohn (1969). in L. Venuti edited The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2004 (2 nd ed.). p. 77.

10 56 The idea of reception becomes most important to Benjamin in The Task of The Translator. By calling translation as after life Benjamin puts aside the old idea of equivalence or sameness in translation. If the process of translation itself becomes most important, then the question of how close the translated text is to the source text loses importance. By holding the hands of Benjamin the history of reception of translation stressed on definite analysis. As a result, translation does not remain just a change from one language to another, instead with time the union of newer values is constructed in the source text. Original text, communication or change in meaning become of no value and the process of translation gains importance. It is for the purpose of raising questions regarding the idea of the originality or origin of the source text, that Benjamin s essay becomes important, particularly to the deconstructionalists. It is worth noticing that here, for the first time, beyond the binary of SL and TL, the translator and the translation process become important as a third presence. Along with Jacques Derrida s idea of deconstruction, there came about a vast change in ideas about the subject of translation. Derrida had raised questions about the presence of a well-defined meaning for any text because of the regular change in the Signifier and the Signified. According to him, the entire history of metaphysics is limited in the fixed boundaries of some specific categories and the reading and writing of language. He imagined the condition of the free working of language with various meanings. The idea of the original gets shattered. For Derrida, when the idea is written down it becomes a translation as language is incapable of an ascertained identity or being a messenger of meanings of identity. As translation is at the same time differing and deferring the meaning, so according to Derrida translation in many places is a carrier of the Difference meaning. Difference means the definite meaningidentityless play of traces of the text. In translation, Edwin Gentzler said about play of traces In terms of informing translation theory, Derrida s play of trace belongs not to a translation which carries identifiable meaning across boundaries, but to a movement along an absent road, one that has disseminated or evaporated, of a voice which tells but cannot be captured, an echo disappearing as it is heard Gentzler, Edwin. Contemporary Translation Theories. London and New York: Routledge, p. 146.

11 57 According to Derrida, whatever debates arise because of the original, are all created by Metaphysics. Because of the Free Play of Traces, he shatters the stillness of identity, meaning and presentation which is connected to the original, with deconstruction. He inspires the reader to think about everything connected to translation and talks of giving the opportunity to rethink in every moment. Derrida s theory stands on unfamiliarity, non-presence and the incapability of presentation. What is there is the chain of different signification original along with its relation with the translation. What is seen in translation is that language is transformed not into any object but into language. Outside the writer s intention and awareness there remains such a possibility where his own language which is incapable of bearing the linguistic structure of the translated language can easily make a place in the new text. Actually from Derrida s idea of Difference, it can be said that translation is endlessly extended and it can endlessly push back the meaning of the original. An idea almost close to the problem of Equivalence in the study of translation theory can be found in Derrida If totalization no longer has any meaning, it is not because the infiniteness of a field cannot be covered by a finite glance or a finite discourse, but because the nature of the field that is, language and a finite language excludes totalization [ ] The movement of signification adds something, which results in the fact that there is always more, but this addition is a floating one because it comes to perform a vicarious function, to supplement a lack on the part of the signified. 19 Derrida deconstructs some of the long held certainties of translation, including the opposition between source and target languages and the stability of the linguistic sign Reception Theory Aesthetics of Reception: Literature and History Before the coming of Reception theory, a text was usually perceived as a verbal work of art or a literary art work. There s no place for such interpretative practices in 19 Derrida, Jacques. Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences (1966), in Writing and Difference. trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p Derrida in his 1998 lecture Qu est-ce qu une truduction relevante ( What is a relevant translation? as translated by L. Venuti in The Translation Studies Reader ) said that a relevant translation relies on the supposed stability of the signifier-signified relationship.

12 58 Reception theory. Instead, Reception theory tends to see a text as a function of the reader and the act of reception. The idea of a text as a work of art having certain timeless and eternal values is challenged. This idea is replaced by many such models according to which the essence of a work of art is determined by some perpetually uncertain forms, and meaning is constructed on the basis of interaction between text and reader. In his Aesthetic of Reception (Rezeptionsasthetik) 21 Jauss states that a text that we read can never be isolated from its history of reception. The horizon in which the text had first originated is different from and similar to the horizon of the recipient because elements of the former may be detected in the later. Being the mediator of a different horizon, a text is an unstable entity. The horizons in themselves are very unstable and the manner of fusion of the horizons is also ever changing. When a text comes into existence through fusion, its past becomes a function of history. So the past of a text is not a fixed unity, instead it is always found in the process of its becoming. Jauss s inclination towards reception has its roots in his thoughts about the relationship between literature and history. It is his proclaimed agenda to bring History to the very centre of literary studies. His 1967 lecture was titled What is and for what purpose does one study literary history? Later, however, this title was changed to literary history as a provocation for literary scholarship. In Jauss s opinion literary studies yield twofold results. On the one hand, we find the appearance of historiography, adopt principles that make the writing of literary history problematic, on the other hand, we become aware that the literary histories that have been written down the ages have several theoretical inadequacies in them. At the end of 1960 and the beginning of 1970 the theory of Jauss was termed the aesthetic of reception. In this theoretical approach he states that the historicity of a work of art cannot merely be grasped from its ordinary description and an account of the process of its construction. Instead literature should be seen as a dialectic process of its creation and reception. A literary or artistic history remains utterly inadequate if it is concerned only about its producing subject. It must also be seen from the perspective of its consuming subject and may be even from the perspective of the interaction 21 Jauss, Hans-Robert. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. trans. Timothy Bahti. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, The collection of essays includes Jauss s manifesto of the aesthetics of reception, Literary history as a challenge to literary theory.

13 59 between author and publisher. By situating literature within the larger process of events, Jauss shows his acceptance of Marx s historical materialism. He brings the perceiving subject to the centre of his thoughts and thus he holds on to the Formalist achievement. And thus the union of history and aesthetics occurs. The aesthetic implication lies in the fact that the first reception of a work by the reader includes a test of its aesthetic value in comparison with works already read. The obvious historical implication of this is that the understanding of the first reader will be sustained and enriched in a chain of receptions from generation to generation; in this way the historical significance of a work will be decided and its aesthetic value made evident. 22 This change in object of interest is very significant for this new kind of literary history. Jauss s view of historiography sees it as a conscious play of mediation between past and present. An author would always be concerned about the repeated reevaluation of the ways in which the present events and circumstances are influenced by the historical-canonical works of literary reception which would gradually replace the traditional views. Such practices would gradually become more and more meaningful as the source of mediation between past and present. Following Jauss s Schillerian ideal, literary history will take the centre stage of literary studies because it is only through the practice of literary history that the meaning of the past can be made to unfold itself. The horizon of expectations Jauss views his method described in Towards an aesthetic of Reception as the methodological enterprise of his theory. He evolves the idea of the horizon of expectations (Erwartungshorizont) in this essay. It acts as a meeting point for history and aesthetics, Marxism and formalism. However, there is a problem in the vague way in which Jauss defines the term horizon. By this definition, the term horizon may or may not retain its usual meaning at the same time. He uses the word in a number of phrases like horizon of experience, horizon of experience of life, horizon structure, horizontal change and material horizon of conditions. These varied uses of the term turn it into a rather turbid category. The greatest 22 Literary history as a challenge to literary theory. p.20.

14 60 methodological concern of Jauss is the objectification of horizon. He speaks of three kinds of approach in the creation of horizon. First, through the familiar norms or the immanent poetics of the genre; second, through the implicit relationship to familiar work of literary-historical surroundings; and third, through the opposition between fiction and reality, between the poetic and the practical function of language, which is always available to the reflective reader during the reading as a possibility of comparison. 23 For the intelligibility of the term, Jauss depends on the common sense of the reader. Horizon of expectation refers to inter-subjective system or structure of expectations. Horizon of expectations is actually a system of references or a mindset which is capable of preparing a hypothetical individual for a certain text. Text, Reader and Literary History Wolfgang Iser introduced a cluster of new ideas which brought in a few radical changes in contemporary ideas about text. For him a literary work is a construction and this construction takes place through the act of reading. The meaning and significance of a work of art does not reside in the text. Instead it resides in the process of interaction between the textual structure and the reader s reception of it. 24 While this interaction is at work, the reader shoulders the responsibility of constructing a new work of art. The reader is expected to create some patterns of significance. Thus the author performs the activity of construction of meaning. This meaning that the reader constructs, however, is not some message inherent in the text and this is where Iser s concern is focussed. Thus Iser and Jauss reject the traditional constructs of literary history and the stable foundation of interpretation from two different perspectives. Reception theory ousts the text from the center of literary studies and replaces it with the reader and the history of the reader s involvement with the text. 23 Literary history as a challenge to literary theory. p Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974 (German original in 1972).

15 61 There remains a problem because in the practice of literary interpretation it has to be conceded that there is a text and that it is possible to talk about it critically. Stanley Fish is a scholar who is capable of combining the theory of anti-textualism with attention towards an enormous amount of textual detail. With his theory Stanley Fish succeeds in encumbering the reader with all the responsibility of interpreting a text. 25 In his opinion, there are no textual signals or inter-subjective structures outside the realm of conventions, about which the interpretive community hasn t yet reached a consensus. In this sense a text hardly contributes in any way to the act of interpretation; it all depends on the way in which a reader looks at the text. Thus the reception theorist divests all the controlling force on the reader. All endeavors of a reception theorist are directed towards the construction of a reader as the ultimate source of literary history and meaning. Fish s idea of the informal reader and Iser s idea of implied reader or Phenomenological reader are entwined with Erwine Wolff s idea of the intended reader. Wolff views a reader as a non empirical category. He evolves the idea of intended reader against Iser s idea of implied reader. When an author creates a work of art, he assumes the presence of an intended reader. Holub writes on Wolff s concept of intended reader: For Wolff s reader is more a creature of literary history than of pure reading. 26 In many cases the ideas of Wolff and Iser overlap with each other but they are not identical. Wolff is interested in the idea of a reader through the reader s historical unfolding; Iser on the other hand is concerned with the reader who is capable of successfully interacting with a particular text. The reader of Iser keeps on performing perpetually and the idea of such a reader shorn of the act of reading is not possible. Wolff s reader, on the other hand, is independent of the text. Such a reader is of the ideal type. Roland Barthes problematizes the usual idea about reading while responding to an apparently ordinary sentence, I read the text. Like the reception theorists Barthes is also in favor of giving a productive role to the subject of the process of 25 Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Holub, Robert C. Reception Theory: A Critical introduction. London and New York: Methuen,

16 62 reading: The more plural the text the less it is written before I read it. 27 Unlike the German critics he lays a lot of emphasis on the plurality of I. Because of the pluralistic nature of I the reading process keeps evolving from within in a natural way. Instead of replacing the text at the center of literary studies with the reader, he talks of infinite number of codes and texts. His theory does not speak of any such unified center which would act as the source of meaning and interpretation. Barthes theory is based on the ideas of dispersion and plurality. 28 If Barthes concept is close in meaning to the idea of the Post Structuralist reader then we may easily formulate a brief differentiation between the German and French traditions of literary criticismwhereas the reception theorist shifts the interpretative focus from the text to the reader, a Post Structuralist shifts the focus to the act of textualizing the reader. While talking about interpretation a reception theorist lays stress on models in which the subject generates certain verbal or written opinions which lend meaning to a primary text or interpret it. Thus interpretation is assigned a derivative, parasitic or marginal status. Instead of the secondary aspect of interpretation, they emphasize the necessity of creating new texts. Harold Bloom s stand deserves attention in this regard. His idea of misinterpretation or misprision lends a new framework to the idea of interpretation. Bloom is deeply interested in the way in which a poet reads the work of another poet. The central idea in his thought is that every great poet misreads his predecessors. His theory talks about poetic influences. According to his theory misinterpretation is an integral part of literary history, interpretation and the act of reading. He believes that the usual intention of a critic to get very close to the meaning of a poem is always defeated. Instead, it would be better for the critic to write another poem in response to the first poem. The succeeding poem, however, would be a misinterpretation of the first poem. Poets misinterpretations of poems are more drastic than critics misinterpretations or criticism, but this is only a difference in degree and not at all in kind. There are no interpretations but only misinterpretations, and so all criticism is prose poetry Barthes, Roland. Le Plaisir du texte (Paris: Seuil. 1973). translation by Richard Miller, The Pleasure of the Text. London: Cape, p The Pleasure of the Text. p Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. Oxford: OUP, pp

17 63 While reception theory is interested in the relationship between literary history and interpretation, it is also concerned about the association of literary history and general history. No text may be interpreted only on the basis its historical context, instead the history of interpretation should be an integral part of our understanding. Jauss rejects the nineteenth-century century trend of historical objectivism; because in his opinion, this concept of objective facts alienates the observing subject. The perpetual dialogue between past and present that one sees in the idea of aesthetics of reception provides an alternative model for the understanding of the past. When Jauss was expressing such views on history a book called Of Grammatology was advocating the complete abolition of history. While Jauss spoke of challenging the conventional method of reading literature by revising the idea of history, Derrida was in favour of abolishing history for a more accurate reading of the logocentric text. Jauss attempted to turn the relation between cultural history and general history upon its head. Derrida viewed both these histories as forms and results of a complex philosophical system. In this context the views of Hayden White may be mentioned who also challenged Traditional Historiography. White heavily depends on Poetic theory and historical writing to arrive at his views. He analyses the various kinds of narrative strategies used by historians and concludes that the reading or writing of history is comparable to the reading of a narrative. White sees historical writing as a form of narrative. 30 Whereas Jauss brings history to the center of literary studies, White, by equating history with narrative, brings literary studies to the center of Historiography. Reception Studies Reception Studies is not merely concerned with the interrelationship of a source text and the received text. It is also concerned about the larger cultural process that goes into the construction of these texts and the relationship between them. There are two facets of Reception studies that claim attention. 30 White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. Baltimore and London: JHUP, 1973.

18 64 The Reception itself is one aspect. Firstly, there is a need to understand the association between the aesthetic or intellectual processes involved in the acts of selection, translation, imitation or adaptation of a preexisting literary work and the ways in which the author or the artist has received a work and given it a new shape and the manner in which a TL has established its relation with an SL. Then, there is a need to understand the relation between these processes and the contexts in which they occur. Such contexts may include, the receiver s knowledge of the source and the way in which this knowledge is acquired, the complete oeuvre of the artist, the author s / translator s collaboration with the editor / publisher, the role of patrons and the role of readers or audience or the masses. In other words, all those factors which are outside the immediate context of the source text and which sometimes add new dimensions to the process of adaptation. Third, there is also the need to understand whether the new text or the newly added dimension to a preexisting text alters its purpose or effectiveness. For instance, the new text may be used to construct an artistic, social, educational or in a more comprehensive sense, a cultural legitimacy. The other aspect is how reception has been described, analyzed and evaluated. No description can ever be unbiased. There remains a necessity for determining the extent to which perspective view and category are used which are often used by Reception critics. Ideas about the perspective view and category is a prerequisite for the judgment and analysis of the adapted reading. For instance, if a European poem is translated into Bangla in the nineteenth century and published in a Journal of the same era, then an assessment of its reception would not only require an understanding of the trends in Bangla translation, publication of periodicals and journals, literary taste of the readership, whims of editors etc. but it would also be necessary to see these factors as contexts for the reading of the source text. Reception Studies has repeatedly stressed the ideological and theoretical framework for the construction and definition of knowledge. Modern literary and cultural theories have tended to emphasize the indeterminacy and lack of absolutism in the meaning of a text and the disjunction texts against the earlier tendency of viewing it from a perspective of a larger cultural determinism. The increasing correlation between these changes and the cultural and political readings has made the reception of older texts all the more essential. The appropriation and refiguring of European texts originating in colonial circumstances become so essential because in this perspective the writings of the ruling and the ruled

19 65 societies provide a yardstick for comparison. The nature of reception is an important indicator of cultural change. 2.3 Interface between Translation and Reception Beginning from the time when Cicero and St. Jerome articulated their opinions about literal and free translations, the role of the translator or the reader of the TL as the implicit or explicit recipient became an integral part of all discussions related to translation. Discussions about reception began long before the advent of reception theory. In fact, the importance of the recipient was recognized by translation theory much before a theory of reception came into being. Even during the first half of the twentieth century, when the role of linguistics was central to theory of translation, the importance of reception and recipient was acknowledged in various theoretical discussions on translation. The present essay is concerned with those special aspects of the history of western translation which have been associated with reception theory. In Jakobson s concept of equivalence, two different code units have been recognized for two different sign systems or languages. Tynjanov and Jakobson have stated elsewhere: The evolution of literature cannot be understood until the evolutionary process ceases to be obscured by questions about episodic nonsystematic genesis, whether literary or extra literary. 31 In other words, literary change or evolution is determined by some inter-literary factors like historical, social and other systems. Nida in his idea of functional or dynamic equivalence speaks of the relation of an original receptor or message to a receptor or message. This implies that in this case the receptions of both the source text and the translated text are essential. A text is translated to fulfil the intrinsic need of the system of a translation language. The evolution of a source text also takes place following the system of the translated text. In this idea of systems, the poly-system theory is explicitly expressed. The poly-system theory views the system of translation literature 31 Jakobson, R. and J.N. Tynjanov, Problems in the Study of Language and literature, in L. Matejka and K. Pomorska edited Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, pp

20 66 as a diverse social, literary and historical conglomerate. The theory that the TL is oriented is also dependent on reception. On the other hand, Toury s idea of norms revolves around the translator and recipient. Benjamin s pure language is an ideal but abstract concept. While talking about translatability he remarks, The ultimate purpose towards which all single functions tend is sought not in its own sphere, but a higher one. 32 According to his theory, this higher sphere is created in translation language. The roles of translation recipient and TL recipient are important in this case as well. Although translation theory and reception theory are historically and theoretically much different from each other, they do share a space where overlapping and mutual dependence occurs. Reception is the first step towards selection of source text and formulation of ideas, content and form. This is followed by incorporation of the act of translation into the center of literary activity by the recipient, following the methods of linguistics. Translation as Reception and the Tagorean Context Lorna Hardwick, one of the contemporary scholars of Reception theorist lists a few terms to understand the nature of reception i.e. acculturation, adaption, analogue, appropriation, authenticity, correspondences, communication, domestication and foreignisation, equivalent, intervention, refiguration etc. 33 In the following sections we have discussed on those terms in the context of Rabindranath s translations to understand the interface between reception and translation. Acculturation is an essential process of reception. The reception of a text from one knowledge system to another may occur through nurturing, education, domestication and sometimes even because of compulsion. All these influences may be detected in the translation-reception by Rabindranath. In his childhood he had, with great care, translated poems of his liking from the west into Bangla for publication in Bharati. He ventured into translation to acquire mastery in the English language 32 Benjamin, W. The Task of the Translator, translated by H. Zohn (1969), in L. Venuti edited The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2004 (2 nd ed.). p Hardwick, Lorna. Reception Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

21 67 before his first voyage to the west. In some instances the recipient was compelled by his home tutor to devote himself to translation. Apart from this, he often had to translate literary pieces into Bangla for the purpose of quotation or exemplification in his essays. Such translations may also be cited as examples of reception under compulsion. However, in all these cases there has been the reception of one culture into another and translation has acted not only as a tool but also a medium of reception. Of the four procedures included in their idea of Oblique Translation by Vinay and Darbelnet the fourth one is adaptation (the other three being Transposition, Modulation and Equivalence). 34 In such cases if the target culture lacks in a cultural reference to the source culture then it is suitably altered. Numerous instances of adaptation may be cited in works of translation by Rabindranath. While translating Stephen Phillips Marpessa into Bangla, Zeus and Apollo were replaced by Indra and Suryadev, Babylon by Benaras, Brimming June by Falguner labanye ujjwal (the exquisite swell of Falgun s brightness) and sorrow taught by the vairagya. In the last instance, vairagya is an added cultural reference. Similar examples may be found in translations of Eliot, Dante and Shelley. Another important factor in the process of reception is analogue. Analogue is the comparative aspect of source and reception. A comparative undertaking of source and reception need not be restricted only to the received text, it plays an important role in the process of reception as well. The comparative method is used by a recipient not only while selecting a source text, but also while considering its similarities and dissimilarities with the target culture, at the time of reception. The instances of reception that we see in the works of Rabindranath are very analogical in nature chiefly because he had done numerous translations of poems to use them in his essays. These essays were based on specific topics to which these translations were relevant. These essays include Jathartha Dosar, Bangali Kabi Nay, Chatterton Balak-kabi, Saxon Jati O Anglo-Saxon Sahitya, Beatrice, Dante O Tahar Kavya, Petrarch O Laura, Goethe O Tahar Pranayinigan, Norman Jati O Anglo-Norman 34 Vinay, J.P. and Darbelnet, Stylistique compare du francais et del l nglais: method de traduction (1958, 2 nd ed. 1977). Paris: Didier, translated and edited by J. C. sager and M. J. Hamel. Comparative stylistics of French and English: A Methodology of Translation. Amsterdom and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins, pp