On Translation

On Translation Synopsis

"Everyone complains about what is lost in translations. This is the first account I have seen of the potentially positive impact of translation, that it represents... a genuinely new contribution." —Drew A. Hyland In his original philosophical exploration of translation, John Sallis shows that translating is much more than a matter of transposing one language into another.

At the very heart of language, translation is operative throughout human thought and experience. Sallis approaches translation from four directions:

• from the dream of nontranslation, or universal translatability
• through a scene of translation staged by Shakespeare, in which the entire range of senses of translation is played out
• through the question of the force of words
• and from the representation of untranslatability in painting and music. Drawing on Jakobson, Gadamer, Benjamin, and Derrida, Sallis shows how the classical concept of translation has undergone mutation and deconstruction