《Bassnett 2016-Travelling through Translation》.pdf

Comparative Critical Studies 6, 1, pp. 7–19 © BCLA 2009 DOI: 10.3366/E1744185409000561 THE FIRST MALCOLM BOWIE MEMORIAL LECTURE LONDON, 12 JANUARY 2008 Travelling through Translation SUSAN BASSNETT A lecture in memoriam is a very special kind of event. The person for whom it is being given is, paradoxically, both absent and present. Malcolm’s absence is the cause of this lecture, but because it is being given in his memory, in the company of so many people who admired and respected and loved him, he is very much present with us. As I reflected on a lecture in memoriam, it came into my mind that simultaneous absence and presence is also the fundamental characteristic of translation. Without an original, a source text, there can be no transla- tion, for a translation is a rewriting of a work that has come into existence elsewhere, in another time and another place. And that connection between memory and translation is appropriate today as we gather to honour someone who spent a lifetime working across and between languages, who understood what happens when texts are transposed through translation. It is also appropriate when we consider the role played by translation in literary history, a role so beautifully summarized by Walter Benjamin in his essay ‘The Task of the Translator’: the original is closely connected with the translation; in fact, this connection is all the closer since it is no longer of any importance to the original. We may call this connection a natural one, or, more specifically, a vital connection. Just as the manifestations of life are intimately connected with the phenomenon of life without being of importance to it, translation issues from the original – not so much from its life as from its afterlife. For a translation comes later than the original, and since