Problems in Literary Translation

This course is conceived as an advanced workshop in literary translation, founded on the assumption that the practice of translation is fundamental to the study of literature. Each student should have a semester-long translation project (a collection of poems or stories, part of a novel, a long poem, a memoir, etc.). There are no restrictions as to languages translated or periods from which the texts are taken. Each week the class will discuss samples from two of these projects in progress. The seminar sessions are intended to be collaborative discussions on the problems of literary translation rather than critiques of the work of the translators. We will not be reading translation theory.