Transcending space and time: The masquerades of literary translation

Translation theory has traditionally been addressed primarily in terms of established literary linguistic theories. Neither approach, however, is fully capable of explaining or interpreting certain phenomena which are unique to translations. The most important of these phenomena is the capacity produce a text in a language and style which are characteristic of a particular place and moment in tine that is read as an artifact of an entirely different place and time. This capacity is based on a property of text which I define as fungibility, a term borrowed from economics that refers to the capacity of a commodity, such as currency, to be converted into another of equivalent value.; Since a text in one language is never the exact equivalent of its translation, the translator must convince the reader that a translation is essentially equivalent to its source in order for a translation to be considered a translation rather than a paraphrase or interpretation. In order to achieve this critical sense of equivalence, however, the translator must employ what I describe as a system of masquerades that are designed to reveal the meaning of the source text while simultaneously concealing the way in which this revelation takes place.; What makes this process uniquely difficult is that the translator, in order to remain faithful to the original text, must engage in a form of literary creation that simultaneously denies its own artistry in order to avoid undermining the authenticity necessary to establish a translation as a translation. This is why, for example, translation and metaphor must always remain distinct from each other in spite of their close linguistic and etymological similarities. It is this system of masquerades, moreover, that gives translations their unique capacity to transcend space and time and it is this sense of transcendence that is the key to understanding both the power translations can exercise as well as the unique and largely unexplored literary effects that translations are capable of producing.