Byrne-Taylor, Byron; (2023) Resituating the Untranslatable: Modernism from Moscow to Rio to Berlin. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

What is untranslatability, who can prove it and how can it be found? As argued in the following work, it is not definable through a unitary theory but rather provides us with a novel lens through which to read literary texts anew. As elaborated in more detail in a recent publication, the methodology offered in the following work is applicable both inside and outside the University. Putting this methodology into practice, my project takes three untranslatable terms and uses them as literary theories to analyse six allegedly untranslatable authors. It allows the breadth of my project to include Russian, Brazilian and German modernism, while being vigilant of the dramatic historical events that characterised this period. Between revolution, war, colonialism and exile, what was it that led so many authors of this period to aspire to an untranslatable style of writing? Is this a conscious aesthetic, or is it a judgement levelled at the authors from their contemporaries? I will address the University context first, the external context second. Institutionally then, I suggest that using The Dictionary of Untranslatables (2014) as a source-text for teaching literary theory, allows the educator and the student alike a more global form of dialogue, interpretation and critique. From the perspective of the educator, I suggest that it better suits the global promise with which Universities advertise themselves, in new, challenging, and counter-intuitive ways. From the perspective of the student, I suggest that pursuing untranslatability pedagogically forces students to grasp and understand language, much as a translator would, and the conditions in which it originates, while using similar teaching strategies as that employed in the teaching of literary theory. I gesture to the fact that this methodology would accommodate both the words within The Dictionary itself, but also the strategies employed by Translation Studies. Outside the academy, I argue that untranslatability can counter-intuitively also be a means by which to rescue authors whose work has subsequently fallen into obscurity or has been left untranslated into English. Two of the authors in my study – the Brazilian surrealist Murilo Mendes and the German poet Mascha Kaléko – certainly fit this category. The former remains almost entirely untranslated into English, and thus I hope this project can, in some modest way, help rectify this, and encourage others to do the same. Untranslatability, interpreted in this sense, can also be a way to re-historicise and recover many of the brilliant authors who have been lost due to their language of composition or geographical site of origin. From that perspective, untranslatability offers a more globally informed way of teaching and research, while also carrying a reparative possibility for authors whose work has not received the adulation and attention they deserve.

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