World Literature 3007-T1A2LS

The term "world literature in English" usually refers to writing by authors frrom contries other than the UK, the US or Canada, embracing chiefly XX-century post-colonial lwriters. Translators working on these authors' texts should be well acquainted with the history of British colonialism, just as those taking on Caribbean and African American writing must have an extensive knowledge of the history of slavery. Yet these areas of knowledge must be supplemented by a familiarity with he classics of English literature, as so many post-colonial texts are direct reactions to these classics, and especially to the wyas in which they represeny colonized countries and people. A solid grounding in the above fields of knowledge. is needed before any aspects of trans-cultural translation theory can be addressed.
This is primarily a reading course; we will read some English classics as well as texts by post-colonial authors which address these classics and, in a sense, remake them. These will chiefly be works of fiction, which we will examine in their historical contexts before moving on their ideological and aesthetic characteristics, and finally analyzing them from a translator's perspective.This will be made possible by comparing two or three extant translations of a given text, ususally fragments of novels and stories, but also of "The Waste Land". Written take-home exercises will also be devoted to such comparative analyses.