Literary Translation as a Genre of Literature: A Roadmap for Serious Study

Abstract

Of Literary Criticism and Literature, the one that came first was literature. Literature has
several functions and creative literature takes many forms called genres. Each genre has slightly
different norms for criticism. Literary Translation has come to assume great importance in the
context of translation being recognised as a genre. The need for expanding horizons of
understanding between various language communities demands literary translation into and from
many languages.
Literary translation evolved independent of formal training as an academic discipline. All
renowned translators went to literary texts in all languages to import or export literary works in a
different language. They did so without any formal training and without the basis of any theory
of translation. The translators took the texts they adored and translated them. They forged ahead
rendering unto their readers what they thought worthwhile in a language they thought best, to the
best of their ability. A new genre “Literature in Translation” came into being.
Some theory or principles are becoming necessary to evaluate translated texts. Critiques
and review articles on translation have come for individual works even without a theory as such.
Literary Translation is not often as formidable a task as it has often made to appear by a
reading of the work of theoreticians and academics who are not always translators themselves. In
the context of the much needed but unusual spurt in translation activity, it is essential for
translators to have something like a set of guiding principles, if not a full-fledged theory in itself.
In the absence of a universally valid and accepted theory, translators necessarily follow their own
strategies in practice. Though there is nothing like a theory which is immediately applicable to
policy, ever since literary translation came to be important in the 20th century context of
promoting international understanding, literary translations have been getting reviewed. It would
be possible to deduce some principles, which ultimately may yield a complete theory. But it
should be borne in mind the theory has to envisage principles to suit each set of source language
and target language texts. This project is to make a viable beginning of such an attempt.