1887
Volume 64, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0521-9744
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9668
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

The starting point of the present article lies in a question posed by Raymond Federman in a well-known essay on : “What form can fiction take when it encounters everywhere nothing but verbal dust?” (Federman 2001: 161). Any critical description of this collection of Beckett’s short pieces points to the worn-out quality of the language, as if the process of negation had deeply affected style with the result of having a text in its final stages of decomposition, of being the remnants of a conscience in the process of dissolution. Apropos of a new translation into Spanish of / (2015), the author of the new version wants to reflect on the impossibility of translating words that seem to be so fragile and exhausted that the act of moving them to another language would necessarily entail the definitive shattering into pieces of an already thin fabric of words. The questions that will be addressed are related to the theoretical framework needed to handle this frail material: How can the translator negotiate the conflicting meaning of words without reinforcing its inconsistency even further? By which mechanisms can a translator of support his/her work considering, in the words of Hannelore Fahrenback and John Fletcher, “the ghostly dimension of space/time inhabited by this disembodied voice”? (Fahrenback and Fletcher 1976)

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/babel.00034.fer
2018-08-27
2024-12-02
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Adams, Robert M.
    1973Proteus, His Lies, His Truth; Discussions of Literary Translation. New York: Norton.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Beckett, Samuel
    1999 (1974)Texts for Nothing. London: John Calder.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. 2011The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1941–1956, ed. byGeorge Craig; Martha Dow Fehsenfeld; Dan Gunn; and Lois More Overbeck. Cambridge: CUP.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. 2015Relatos y Textos para nada. Transl. byJosé Francisco Fernández. Valencia: JPM.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bonnefoi, Geneviève
    1979 Review of Nouvelles et Textes pour Rien in Lettres Nouvelles (1956). InSamuel Beckett: The Critical Heritage, ed. byLawrence Graver; and Raymond Federman, 139–145. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Fahrenbach, Hannelore; and John Fletcher
    1976 “The ‘Voice of Silence’: Reason, Imagination and Creative Sterility in Texts for Nothing”. Journal of Beckett Studies1 (Winter). www.english.fsu.edu/jobs/num01/Num1Fahrenback_Fletcher.htm
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Federman, Raymond
    2001 “Beckett [f]or Nothing”. InEngagement and Indifference. Beckett and the Political, ed. byHenry Sussman; and Christopher Devenney, 161–171. Albany NY: State University of New York Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Garforth, Julian A.
    1996 “Translating Beckett’s Translations”. Journal of Beckett Studies6 (1) (Autumn): 49–70.10.3366/jobs.1996.6.1.4
    https://doi.org/10.3366/jobs.1996.6.1.4 [Google Scholar]
  9. Finney, Brian
    1975 “Assumption to Lessness: Beckett’s Shorter Fiction”. InBeckett the Shape Changer, ed. byKatharine Worth, 63–83. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Fitch, Brian T.
    1988Beckett and Babel. An Investigation into the Status of the Bilingual Work. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Knowlson, James; and John Pilling
    1979Frescoes of the Skull. The Later Prose and Drama of Samuel Beckett. London: Calder.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Krieger, Elliot
    1977 “Samuel Beckett’s Texts for Nothing: Explication and Exposition”. MLN92 (5) (December): 987–1000.10.2307/2906887
    https://doi.org/10.2307/2906887 [Google Scholar]
  13. Landers, Clifford E.
    2001Literary Translation: A Practical Guide. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781853595639
    https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853595639 [Google Scholar]
  14. Levy, Eric P.
    1980Beckett and the Voice of Species. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. McGuire, James
    1990 “Beckett, the Translator, and the Metapoem”. World Literature Today64 (2) (Spring): 258–263.10.2307/40146405
    https://doi.org/10.2307/40146405 [Google Scholar]
  16. Mooney, Sinéad
    2011A Tongue Not Mine. Beckett and Translation. Oxford: OUP.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Rodríguez-Gago, Antonia
    1999 “Beckett’s Voices in Spanish: Translation as an Aspect of Adaptation”. InBeckett and Beyond, ed. byBruce Stewart, 231–238. Gerrards Cross, Bucks: Colin Smythe.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Rose, Marilyn Gaddis.
    1971 “The Lyrical Structure of Beckett’s ‘Texts for Nothing’”. Novel: A Forum on Fiction4 (3) (Spring): 223–230.10.2307/1345119
    https://doi.org/10.2307/1345119 [Google Scholar]
  19. Seaver, Richard
    2012The Tender Hour of Twilight. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Sheehan, Paul
    2000 “Nothing is More Real. Experiencing Theory in the Texts for Nothing”. web.archive.org/web/20100510212614/www.bbk.ac.uk/english/conf/anotherbeckett/sheehan/index.html
  21. Steiner, George
    1998 (1975)After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford: OUP.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Van der Weel, Adriaan; and Ruud Hisgen
    1993 “Unheard Footfalls Only Sound: ‘Neither’ in Translation”. InBeckett in the 1990s, ed. byMarius Buning; and Lois Oppenheim, 345–364. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Van Hulle, Dirk
    2008 “Bilingual Decomposition: The ‘perilous zones’ in the Life of Beckett’s Texts”. InTransnational Beckett, ed. byS. E. Gontarski; William Cloonan; Alec Hargreaves; and Dustin Anderson, 97–109. Tallahassee, FL: Jobs Books.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/babel.00034.fer
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error