So I know very little of Keats but I am very interested in hearing more about the embodily-ness of mimicry…I tried once to argue this of translation using the idea of liturgy, which I used a la Levinas to capture something of bodily repetition that is itself meaningful outside of the sense of the text…anyway I love reading you on translation and ignorant as I am I thought Keats an aristo like Byron so I’m intrigued now!
Yes, Keats' problem was that he was not well off at all. Lacked aristocratic upbringing and was ridiculed for it (of course). My thinking about mimicry and the body really goes back to Benjamin's essay "On the Mimetic Faculty" where he argues that mimicry involves play, the body.
Yep, I know that essay as well. I love this whole line of thinking because it gets us out of the totally boring fidelity/infidelity conversation about translation. It focuses on the doing-of it...when I am translating myself I'm acutely aware of my body, making decisions in real time (always limited, always provisional), how my neck starts to hurt from swiveling between texts, how and whether I choose to re-copy in source language, by hand or in type...all that stuff. Another fruitful topos is "interpretation," which can mean real-time oral translation (a la the UN) but also applies to ASL interpretation, which precisely CAN'T be done in the same body...anyway it's all very interesting and you're one of the few folks I know exploring this in a way that compels me. Thank you!
So I know very little of Keats but I am very interested in hearing more about the embodily-ness of mimicry…I tried once to argue this of translation using the idea of liturgy, which I used a la Levinas to capture something of bodily repetition that is itself meaningful outside of the sense of the text…anyway I love reading you on translation and ignorant as I am I thought Keats an aristo like Byron so I’m intrigued now!
Yes, Keats' problem was that he was not well off at all. Lacked aristocratic upbringing and was ridiculed for it (of course). My thinking about mimicry and the body really goes back to Benjamin's essay "On the Mimetic Faculty" where he argues that mimicry involves play, the body.
Yep, I know that essay as well. I love this whole line of thinking because it gets us out of the totally boring fidelity/infidelity conversation about translation. It focuses on the doing-of it...when I am translating myself I'm acutely aware of my body, making decisions in real time (always limited, always provisional), how my neck starts to hurt from swiveling between texts, how and whether I choose to re-copy in source language, by hand or in type...all that stuff. Another fruitful topos is "interpretation," which can mean real-time oral translation (a la the UN) but also applies to ASL interpretation, which precisely CAN'T be done in the same body...anyway it's all very interesting and you're one of the few folks I know exploring this in a way that compels me. Thank you!