Week 5

I would like focus my post on Goethe's notions of translation and Weltliteratur , which I found to be perplexing albeit also interesting. First of all, I appreciated Goethe's insights into translated texts' ability to reveal to the readers things that are foreign, and thereby reveal things that are inherently of their own but theretofore were left hidden from their view. I found such dynamic between the original and translated texts interesting, and thought translation certainly can perform such function to a certain degree. I also like the idea of Weltliteratur where there will be an "active coexistence of all contemporary literatures."

But the details of Goethe's depiction of Weltliteratur and the role of translation ultimately, at least for me, undermined his ideas to the point where I was left doubtful than being convinced. If the development of world literature reserved an honorable role for Germans and if--as he wrote in a letter (Berman claims that Goethe might have not wholeheartedly believed in what he was writing in the letter)--that "when someone understands German well, he may do without many other languages (57)," with his being a German, how convincing his advocation of world literature can be? Moreover, if translations should be considered belonging to the national literature, isn't he, on a certain level, rejecting the "otherness" that makes translations so enlightening? He might have had better intentions but I can only view that as involving an usurpation of other cultures' accomplishments.

Lastly, this might just belong to the realm of personal differences, but although I greatly appreciate, admire and respect the process of translation, I do not think translations can always "attain the untranslatable." Goethe does not seem to take into consideration that a translation might not always be able to completely convey the content of the original text. Translating is something that I would like to pursue and I always wrestle with the inability to come up with the perfect translation, so Goethe's complete faith in translation was something that draw my attention.