(Trans)forming national images in translation
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Daniele Monticelli
Abstract
The article explores the relations between translation, cultural identity and national self-image, focusing on a case study from early 20th century Estonia. The analysis of different aspects of the “Young Estonia” cultural movement’s project of literary and linguistic renewal reveals that the translational attitude adopted by the movement – well expressed in their slogan “Let us be Estonians, but let us become Europeans too” – does not describe a linear trajectory of “self-colonisation”, as some scholars have recently claimed. It points rather to the “processual inseparability” of translation, cultural renewal and national self-imagining that is studied in the article through an analysis of Young Estonian poet Vilem Ridala’s experiments with emotion vocabulary as a privileged place of cultural difference in his controversial 1913 translation of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s L’innocente.
Abstract
The article explores the relations between translation, cultural identity and national self-image, focusing on a case study from early 20th century Estonia. The analysis of different aspects of the “Young Estonia” cultural movement’s project of literary and linguistic renewal reveals that the translational attitude adopted by the movement – well expressed in their slogan “Let us be Estonians, but let us become Europeans too” – does not describe a linear trajectory of “self-colonisation”, as some scholars have recently claimed. It points rather to the “processual inseparability” of translation, cultural renewal and national self-imagining that is studied in the article through an analysis of Young Estonian poet Vilem Ridala’s experiments with emotion vocabulary as a privileged place of cultural difference in his controversial 1913 translation of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s L’innocente.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On translated images, stereotypes and disciplines 1
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Translation and historical trajectories of images
- Translating identity 21
- The adventures of a Amsterdam Spaniard 37
- National images in transit 53
- The image of Spain in Flanders as shaped by the translations of Jozef Simons 69
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Translation and the construction of hetero-Images
- Englishness in German translations of Alice in Wonderland 87
- Champion of the humiliated and insulted or xenophobic satirist? 109
- Italians in films 127
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Translation and the reconstruction of hetero-images
- Comparing national images in translations of popular fiction 145
- Bel Paese or Spaghetti noir ? 163
- How Algeria’s multilingual condition and colonial history is obscured 181
- Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic images 201
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Translation and auto-images
- The construction of national images through news translation 219
- Images of turmoil. Italy portrayed in Britain and re-mirrored in Italy 239
- Images of Italy? 257
- (Trans)forming national images in translation 277
- Nation in translation 299
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Envoi
- Sundry remarks about a discipline in the making by an eye-witness 317
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On translated images, stereotypes and disciplines 1
-
Translation and historical trajectories of images
- Translating identity 21
- The adventures of a Amsterdam Spaniard 37
- National images in transit 53
- The image of Spain in Flanders as shaped by the translations of Jozef Simons 69
-
Translation and the construction of hetero-Images
- Englishness in German translations of Alice in Wonderland 87
- Champion of the humiliated and insulted or xenophobic satirist? 109
- Italians in films 127
-
Translation and the reconstruction of hetero-images
- Comparing national images in translations of popular fiction 145
- Bel Paese or Spaghetti noir ? 163
- How Algeria’s multilingual condition and colonial history is obscured 181
- Translation as blockage, propagation and recreation of ethnic images 201
-
Translation and auto-images
- The construction of national images through news translation 219
- Images of turmoil. Italy portrayed in Britain and re-mirrored in Italy 239
- Images of Italy? 257
- (Trans)forming national images in translation 277
- Nation in translation 299
-
Envoi
- Sundry remarks about a discipline in the making by an eye-witness 317
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329