THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

In 1810, Johann Wolfgang Goethe suggested in Zur Farbenlehre that colour is a phenomenon diffi cult to categorise, resulting as it does from physiology, physics and perception. The fact that colour seems to be experiential to a large extent posits an interesting (and challenging) problem to literary...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alexandra Lopes
Format: Article
Language:Spanish
Published: Universidade Federal do Ceará 2018-09-01
Series:Revista de Letras
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.periodicos.ufc.br/revletras/article/view/33756
id doaj-7ee8bb0d173947f2a748a658d7180c8a
record_format Article
spelling doaj-7ee8bb0d173947f2a748a658d7180c8a2020-11-24T21:09:58ZspaUniversidade Federal do CearáRevista de Letras0101-80512358-47932018-09-0113731551THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURESAlexandra LopesIn 1810, Johann Wolfgang Goethe suggested in Zur Farbenlehre that colour is a phenomenon diffi cult to categorise, resulting as it does from physiology, physics and perception. The fact that colour seems to be experiential to a large extent posits an interesting (and challenging) problem to literary works focussing on it. In this article, I argue that this issue is translational in nature and takes shape at two levels: fi rst, at the level of its representation in literary works — how does one translate a visual experience into words? —, and secondly at the level of its re-representation in translated literary works — how does one translate what is essentially an already-translated visual experience? Whenever colour is semantically and morphologically constitutive of meaning in literature, untranslatability haunts the text. However, publishers and translators rarely shrink from the task of translating on this account. This stake against probability is well worth looking into, as it may uncover a wealth of creativity and a resistance to the understanding of art as solipsism. In this article, Paul Auster’s ‘Ghosts’, part of his New York Trilogy, will be read as a text suggesting a culture-bound hermeneutics of colour, and as such probably untranslatable. I discuss the possible paradox of this degree of untranslatability against the text’s actual ‘translatedness’ by examining the two existing translations into European Portuguese.http://www.periodicos.ufc.br/revletras/article/view/33756Colours. (Un)Translatability. Language diversity. Literary culture.
collection DOAJ
language Spanish
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Alexandra Lopes
spellingShingle Alexandra Lopes
THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
Revista de Letras
Colours. (Un)Translatability. Language diversity. Literary culture.
author_facet Alexandra Lopes
author_sort Alexandra Lopes
title THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
title_short THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
title_full THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
title_fullStr THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
title_full_unstemmed THE GHOST OF A CHANCE? THINKING COLOURS ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
title_sort ghost of a chance? thinking colours across languages and cultures
publisher Universidade Federal do Ceará
series Revista de Letras
issn 0101-8051
2358-4793
publishDate 2018-09-01
description In 1810, Johann Wolfgang Goethe suggested in Zur Farbenlehre that colour is a phenomenon diffi cult to categorise, resulting as it does from physiology, physics and perception. The fact that colour seems to be experiential to a large extent posits an interesting (and challenging) problem to literary works focussing on it. In this article, I argue that this issue is translational in nature and takes shape at two levels: fi rst, at the level of its representation in literary works — how does one translate a visual experience into words? —, and secondly at the level of its re-representation in translated literary works — how does one translate what is essentially an already-translated visual experience? Whenever colour is semantically and morphologically constitutive of meaning in literature, untranslatability haunts the text. However, publishers and translators rarely shrink from the task of translating on this account. This stake against probability is well worth looking into, as it may uncover a wealth of creativity and a resistance to the understanding of art as solipsism. In this article, Paul Auster’s ‘Ghosts’, part of his New York Trilogy, will be read as a text suggesting a culture-bound hermeneutics of colour, and as such probably untranslatable. I discuss the possible paradox of this degree of untranslatability against the text’s actual ‘translatedness’ by examining the two existing translations into European Portuguese.
topic Colours. (Un)Translatability. Language diversity. Literary culture.
url http://www.periodicos.ufc.br/revletras/article/view/33756
work_keys_str_mv AT alexandralopes theghostofachancethinkingcoloursacrosslanguagesandcultures
AT alexandralopes ghostofachancethinkingcoloursacrosslanguagesandcultures
_version_ 1716756781599817728