scholarly journals “How Can You Use Two Languages and Mean What You Say in Both?”1: On Translating Margaret Atwood’s Poetry into Spanish

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-181
Author(s):  
Pilar Somacarrera
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Spanish Translation ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Canadian Literature ◽  
Susanna Moodie ◽  
Unusual Phenomenon

Abstract Contrary to what might be expected, a Canadian literature in Spanish translation already exists and, expectedly, Margaret Atwood is one of the most translated writers. All her novels except Life Before Man, as well as three of her collections of short stories and three of her poetry collections have been translated into Spanish. Her work has received excellent reviews in Spain which have also praised her translators. This essay focuses on my own experience translating Atwood’s poetry–her collection Power Politics (Juegos de poder, 2000)–into Spanish, in an approach which compares my own project of translation or “projet-de-traduction,” as formulated by Antoine Berman, with that of the other translations of her poetry into Spanish. Being a university teacher and a researcher in Canadian literature, and not a specialist in Translation Studies, my approach is necessarily pragmatic and not theoretical. Bearing in mind Barbara Folkart’s contention that poetry is a cognitive activity and the multiplicity of interpretations that the poems offer, in which the feminist one is prominent, I tried to produce a translation which was as close as possible to the original characteristics of Atwood’s poetry in its tone, lineation and imagistic dimension. The first steps were the stylistic analysis, which resulted in a rhetorical study of the poems, and then the review of the existing criticism about the poems. The main problems which arose during the translation were related to the political and feminist connotations of the poems. If the political context is crucial in Power Politics, the cultural background is vital in The Journals of Susanna Moodie, although it has been erased in its Spanish version (Los diarios de Susanna Moodie, 1991, by Lidia Taillefer and Álvaro García). This is not an unusual phenomenon, since translation consists in an often insurmountable paradox which is formulated in the lines by Margaret Atwood quoted in the title of this article: trying to formulate the same idea in two languages which function differently and have completely different cultural contexts.

Proza epoki Marca i wokół Marca’68 / The Political Crisis of March 1968 in Polish Fiction

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
Sławomir Buryła
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protests

Summary The article examines the representation in Polish fiction of the atmosphere of the political protests of March 1968. The relevant texts can be divided into two groups, those that were written about the time of the crisis and those that focused on the March events, as they came to be known, in retrospect. The former includes the anti-Semitic short stories and novels written by Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski and Roman Bratny - works whose profile makes them exceptional in postwar Polish fiction. The latter is made up of an assortment of fiction and memoirs.

The Political Function of Domestic Objects in the Fiction of Aleksandra Kollontai

Slavic Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitta Ingemanson
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Economic Policy ◽  
The Real ◽  
Political Function ◽  
The Status ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Status Of Women

During the winter of 1922-1923 when she was just beginning her diplomatic career, Bolshevik activist Aleksandra Kollontai wrote two novels and several short stories that were immediately published in Russia and subsequently combined into two volumes under the titles Liubov’ pchel trudovykh and Zhenshchina na perelome. They were dismissed as mere autobiographical romances, indulging in unhealthy introspection and dangerously divorced from the “real” demands of society. At a time when Soviet Russia was facing enormous challenges connected with the reconstruction after the civil war and with the partial return to a market economy under the New Economic Policy (NEP), Kollontai's focus on domestic relationships and the status of women seemed narrow and excessively private.

scholarly journals El Factor Pinochet Elites y Democracia

2017 ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Freddy Timmermann
Keyword(s):  
Military Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
The Military

El autor aborda la temática denominada “el factor Pinochet”, más allá de su presencia física directa en los espacios de poder, sino más bien como una herencia política de su régimen dictatorial, en alianzas con las élites políticas y económicas de Chile. Como se señala, pareciera ser que hemos heredado una cultura autoritaria que traspasa las fronteras temporales del período del régimen militar y se instala en una debilitada democracia actual.Palabras clave Pinochet / autoritarismo / élites / poder / políticaAbstract:The author approaches the topic denominated “Pinochet factor”, beyond his direct physical presence in the spaces of power, but rather like a political inheritance of his dictatorial regime, in alliances with the political and economic elites of Chile. As it is shown, it seemed to be that we have inherited an authoritarian culture that transfers the temporary borders of the period of the military regime and it settles in a weakened present democracy.Keywords Pinochet / authoritarianism / elites / power / politics

Farsi beffe delle elettrici: la satira nel biennio 1945-1946

2009 ◽  
pp. 151-173
Author(s):  
Giulia Galeotti
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Women And Politics ◽  
Political Satire ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Main Target ◽  
Italian Women

- The satire that in the years 1945 and 1946 commented the enfranchising of the Italian women replicated most of the themes emerged since the reunification of the country, in the year 1861: their lack of interest in politics, their political naiveté and therefore their asserted easy manipulability. The study of articles, short stories, riddles and cartoons of the time seems to confirm that the Italian society was not ready for women's entry into politics, beyond political and cultural differences. The author underlines however the surprising absence of a theme which had played a big role in the debate of the pre-Fascist years: the old concern that women's new political rights would have broken up the traditional balance inside family life. The author suggests that the main target of the time (in a kind of political maturation) were not women voters as such, but other subjects, along the same line followed by Aristophanes: when he presented Athens governed by women, his target were not female malice and luxury, but instead men's incapacity to govern a city in decline. The same happened at beginning of the foundation of the Italian Republic: the political satire invested the two main political parties that strongly supported the universal suffrage and were expected to gain most from it, the Christian Democratic Party and the Communist Party. Key words: political satire, women enfranchising, Bonomi Act January 1945, Italian elections 2 June 1946, the crises of politics, women and politics.

Suspect stories: William Trevor’s portrayals of the Irish in London during the Troubles

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Murray
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contact Zones ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Collective Narratives ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Irish People ◽  
Valuable Role

This chapter explores how three short stories by William Trevor portray the way in which Irish people in London were affected by the Troubles. For a writer who had established a reputation for his empathetic portrayal of the anomalous position of the Anglo-Irish in Ireland, the political situation of the Irish in London in the 1970s and 1980s provided Trevor with similar subject matter, but in a wholly new context. His stories provide an important corrective to some of the more pervasive stereotypes found in the popular genre of Troubles fiction. They reveal how, during the Troubles, the neighbourhood and the home became heightened political ‘contact zones’ between migrant and host communities. With attention to AvtarBrah’s notion of ‘diaspora space’, I demonstrate how fiction, and the personal and collective narratives contained therein, has a valuable role to play in mediating memories of the Troubles in Britain. This, in turn, can inform the wider discussion of British-Irish relations and contribute to post-conflict understanding.

Shikar in the Princely Reserves

2018 ◽  
pp. 220-261
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

Chapter 4 examines the complex relations between the British and Indian princes in relation to shikar and the political subtext of power politics at play. The reconstitution of Indian ruling values and identities between the British and Indian princes under the umbrella of big-game hunting is an important arena of colonial fabric. The Britons successfully mobilized these in establishing elitism and hierarchy in the realm of hunting, and enlisting the support of the Indian princes for the continuation of the colonial enterprise. The other important aspect of hunting in India was shikar in the princely reserves, maintained exclusively by Indian rulers for the highest ranks of the colonial elite. Hunting on such occasions was an extravagant affair involving state elephants and other elaborate entourage, in a powerful display of ancient and more recent ruling privileges, and underlining critical political alliances between the princes and the Raj. For the British, the royal shikars lent ritual credence to their political authority in a staged show of solidarity with the traditional rulers of the land. While confirming the solidarity of the ruling classes, the shikar expeditions also tested the strength of bonds between the British and Indian rulers. The colonial government’s endeavour to devise a series of British royal tours in the princely states involving big-game shoots and associated courtly trappings implies a shared aristocratic lineage and desire to promote the idea of Indian empire.

David Hume’s Balancing Act: The Political Discourses and the Sinews of War

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
DANIELLE CHARETTE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
David Hume ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Balance Of Trade

Both champions and critics of “neorealism” in contemporary international relations misinterpret David Hume as an early spokesman for a universal and scientific balance-of-power theory. This article instead treats Hume’s “Of the Balance of Power,” alongside the other essays in his Political Discourses (1752), as conceptual resources for a historically inflected analysis of state balancing. Hume’s defense of the balance of power cannot be divorced from his critique of commercial warfare in “Of the Balance of Trade” and “Of the Jealousy of Trade.” To better appreciate Hume’s historical and economic approach to foreign policy, this article places Hume in conversation with Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Andrew Fletcher, and Montesquieu. International relations scholars suspicious of static paradigms should reconsider Hume’s genealogy of the balance of power, which differs from the standard liberal and neorealist accounts. Well before International Political Economy developed as a formal subdiscipline, Hume was conceptually treating economics and power politics in tandem.

Tu Yueh-Sheng (1888–1951): A Tentative Political Biography

1967 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. C. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
The Political ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Political Biography ◽  
Unusual Phenomenon

Of all the political personalities in the era between 1928 and 1949, Tu Yuehsheng was perhaps the most colorful, certainly the most unusual. Born into the lowest ranks of society, he rose to dazzling heights of power and exercised a political influence no gang leader had ever known before. The intimate relationship between Tu and the Kuomintang regime was a most unusual phenomenon in Chinese politics and deserves careful attention. Even though documentary materials are scarce by the very nature of the case, an investigation may shed important light on contemporary political mechanisms.

scholarly journals The Divided Mind of James Baldwin

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. E. Bigsby
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
The Political ◽  
Lionel Trilling ◽  
New Novel ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Four Books ◽  
Critical Interest

Lionel Trilling once observed that there are certain individuals who contain the “ yes ” and “ no ” of their culture, whose personal ambivalences become paradigmatic. This would seem to be an apt description of a man whose first novel was published twenty-five years ago, a man whose career has described a neat and telling parabola and whose contradictions go to the heart of an issue which dominated the political and cultural life of mid-century America: James Baldwin. And it is perhaps not inappropriate to seize the occasion of this anniversary and of the publication of his new novel, Just Above My Head, to attempt a summation of a writer, once an articulate spokesman for black revolt, now living an expatriate existence in southern France.To date, Baldwin has written six novels: Go Tell it on the Mountain (1954), Giovanni's Room (1956), Another Country (1962), Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), Just Above My Head (1979); four books of essays: The Fire Next Time (1963), Nobody Knows My Name (1964), Notes of a Native Son (1964), No Name in the Street (1972); two plays: Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964), Amen Corner (1968); and one book of short stories: Going to Meet the Man (1965). Born in Harlem in 1924, he left in 1948 for France, driven out by despair of the racial situation. He returned in 1957 and in the heady days of the Civil Rights movement found himself a principal spokesman — his polemical essay, The Fire Next Time, appearing at a crucial moment in black/white relations. Outflanked by the events of the late sixties, he retreated again to Europe. His more recent novels have failed to spark the popular or critical interest of his earlier work.

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