Historicity of translation on Benjamin and a case study

Abstract

The act of translating seems to bring about difficulties demanding multiple solutions that, while contingent, may have long lasting political and historical implications. Luther’s Bible translation is a marked example of the historical force of translation and of the polemics concerning its form. In “The Task of the Translator”, Benjamin proposes two distinct temporalities for the life of a literary text and that of its translations, starting a debate regarding the different historical times present in a text, and in its relations with different languages. Departing from these considerations, I propose the discussion of some concrete difficulties experienced in the translation of quotations from a literary work in a critical text by Walter Benjamin, “Am Kamin”, a text that develops Benjamin’s theory of the novel. How can I translate, today, quotations made by Benjamin of a 1920's German translation of Arnold Bennet's 1908 novel The old wives tale, with its early 19th century narrator, not yet translated into Portuguese? Finally, I present “Am Kamin” translated into Portuguese.