Beckett Translating/Translating Beckett

by Alan W. Friedman (Editor), Charles Rossman (Editor)

Up to now, Samuel Beckett has been considered largely as a commentator on the human condition and on the angst of our time, and as a novelist and a playwright who undermines and manipulates the metaphysical assumptions and conventions that underlie language and representation. This book offers a new perspective. The contributors, all outstanding Beckett scholars, emphasize three significant aspects of Beckett's career that have been acknowledged but given insufficient consideration. Beckett is a translator, an experimenter with form and expression in two languages simultaneously; Beckett is a multimedia creator who has worked with several kinetic, verbal, and visual possibilities and resources; Beckett has inspired experimentation and creativity in others. Thus, translation is viewed in this book not as a secondary production, but rather as a dynamic process that involves adaptations, interpretations, transformations, and transpositions, all activities requiring strategies and techniques for transcoding on the part of the translator. The scholars represented in this book examine both what is translated and how it is translated, with the result that a new set of questions about Beckett's works is raised, and the answers point to further avenues of research.

250 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1987

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very happy to have found this.

Finally, an in depth analysis of what is at stake when trying to move these ideas, and the rhythm, melody, and logic of their form into another sentence.

not for those lacking obsession in Beckett.
in places, this is essentially a white paper on the obstacles of translating beckett.