The Wonders of Foreign Words Translational poetics in English poetry and prose, 20th-21st centuries (Lausanne & Sorbonne nouvelle)
Call for Papers for an International Conference
The Wonders of Foreign Words
Translational poetics in English poetry and prose
(20th-21st centuries)
20-21 March 2025
the University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Jointly organised by the University of Lausanne and the Sorbonne Nouvelle, TRACT (Prismes EA, 4398)
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Some 20th and 21st-century poets took up translation at times of creative acedia when their inspiration was at a low ebb. In his introduction to Imitations, Robert Lowell explains, “This book was written from time to time when I was unable to do anything of my own,” and in the preface to Adaptations Derek Mahon admits that “It keeps the clock ticking”. However, resorting to foreign words – whether translated or not – can also be considered as a form of literary expression operating at various levels, as it redirects and (re)channels the source text circuitously, creating new possibilities of dialogue and exchange.
A writer’s translating practice can fuel his or her work in surprising and stunning ways, and some contemporary poets and novelists have chosen to translate and embed fragments written by others into their own writing. These segments frame sometimes a collection of poems, sometimes a prose chapter. Depending on where they are placed, they provide an added conclusion, some kind of closure, a twist, or, as epigraphs, they serve as springboards to what follows. However, they may also be encased – or even showcased – within a new matrix. This literary practice is sometimes so deliberate on the part of an author that it constitutes a form of translational-creative writing of its own, a form of literary experimentation.
Fragments are thus highlighted, reconstructed, or even merged into a new text. How can this presencing of another idiom and voice be interpreted and construed as “something rich and strange”? How do these external – and at times extraneous – fragments shed light on the writing in which they are embedded, how do they intertwine with the words of the other and what added meaning do they infuse into the immediate co-text? Can these fragments be compared to loan words, which designate a human experience so very exactly, so very appositely that it cannot be re-said differently? Are they an indirect way for the translator-writer – poet or novelist – to countenance an idea, a statement, an emotion and so make it more legitimate, more compelling? Do they consolidate the meaning of the target text to which they are transferred or do they fill a semantic void? Like the cracks filled with gold of a vase restored in the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, do they “mend” a text and/or do they enhance it? Finally, can they be perceived as echoes or glitches haunting the target text, or rather are they reclaimed, re-appropriated through recontextualisation within a harmonious whole? In her poetry, Josephine Balmer provides Latin fragments with a new meaning by an act of “re-imagination” and gives them a renewed life. Can one see this interaction as a form of dialogue between two writers, and, if so, to what purpose, to what aesthetic effect?
Another way of broaching this topic is to look at the way a set of words can pollinate the work in which it is imported. How can a segment – and the notion, the theme, the emotion it encapsulates – find a place in someone else’s work and then irrigate it? The use of curiosa, for example, characterises Angela Carter’s reading cabinet and her playful, punny prose from one book to the next. This fruitful, dynamic interaction can also take place in an intralingual context. This influence, this imprint can be felt at a thematic level or act upon the writing process itself. In other words, such borrowings can give a new distinctive impetus to a writer’s style and tone. Finally, at the margin of our questioning, there is the case of invented words and segments, which Edwin Morgan, for instance, uses in his poetry. The sense of otherness, then, does not stem from another writer, but from the otherness and strangeness of an invented language and words that crisscross the written page.
We especially welcome contributions on the following topics :
- How do foreign fragments gravitate within the receiving text? How does this combination of foreign words and personal output resonate and what aesthetic effect does it have on the reader? Does it produce new meaning? Is there a sense of collision or, on the contrary, does the foreign blend into the new literary matrix seamlessly?
- How do these external sets of words shed light on their new co-text, or even on the literary project/intention behind the collection of poems, novel or short story?
- Some borrowed fragments thread their way through a collection of poems. They reappear here and there. What can be said of these echoes or hauntings?
- Are these segments completely severed from their source, and to what extent is their meaning changed? Does a trace of the source text linger still?
- Is this process, when it is recurrent and deliberate, a form of creative and experimental writing? A way of “working” with quotes (Antoine Compagnon), a way of bringing new life to or “reactivating” (Barbara Folkart) cherished words?
- What is the value (poetic or otherwise) of this type of quotation? What sort of translational poetics does it foster?
- If borrowing is a form of translation (George Steiner), can these fragments allow us to explore and rethink the distinction between writing and translation in the work of poet/author-translators?
- What can be said about the technique of literary collage often used by conceptual writers?
- How are some fragments built into multimodal projects?
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Proposals should be sent by 25 September 2024 to:
jessica.stephens@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
http://www.univ-paris3.fr/mme-stephens-jessica-180067.kjsp
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