Kopper, John M.

Essays in the Art and Theory of Translation

1997 0-7734-8421-3
The essays in this volume (a tribute to Walter Arndt) comprise a strikingly broad range of case studies in translation. The authors study ethical situations in which language fails; translations that simultaneously mime and undermine the hegemony of a prestige language, and close readings of particular authors, whose despairing translations inevitably make the target language look impoverished. English lacks the expressive particles of German and Russian, the levels of style which Arabic commands, and the inflection system that makes dactylic rhymes a far easier business in Russian than in English. The volume also examines two examples of cultural misprision: Russia's refracting and fractured adaptation of contemporary popular cultural symbols from the West, and America's politicizing and misinterpretation of Russian literary criticism.