Translation Pedagogy in the Comparative Literature Classroom: Close Reading and the Hermeneutic Model of Translation
Abstract
This paper considers how an increased awareness of translation in the language classroom might impact the instruction of Comparative Literature, and literary studies more broadly. Despite the arguments for translation’s centrality to the study Comparative Literature (Apter, 2006; Bassnett, 2006; Newman 2017) translation pedagogy is still under-studied and under-practiced in the Comparative Literature classroom. Among Comparative Literature instructors, close reading is often given pride of place, an emphasis echoed in commonly-assigned textbooks such as Writing Analytically (Rosenwasser and Stephen, 2014). Yet the practice of close reading is arguably one of the most challenging concepts for beginning literature students to master, in part due to the resistance of some instructors and other literary professionals in modeling how to close read a translated text (Venuti, 2004; 2017). By outlining specific lessons, this article shows how employing a hermeneutic translation model (Steiner, 1975; Venuti, 2017; 2019; Laviosa 2019) in the literature classroom can help literature students conceptualize this central building block of literary studies. The article closes with a discussion of some of the ways in which a greater awareness of Translation Studies in the Comparative Literature classroom could unite theory with practice.