In his essay “The Task of the Translator”, Walter Benjamin elevates translation to a level of the sublime that it has probably never since reached. This extraordinary piece, published as a preface to his own translations of Baudelaire’s “Tableaux Parisiens” in 1923, has highly influenced the theory of translation. Its enigmatic and mystical character launches a religion setting translation into a crucial position.
The topic of translation and the figure of the translator always struggle with the marginalization they are driven to within the literary scene. Translation is widely considered a secondary phenomenon, with the translator mostly hidden behind the predominant author. This might be an explanation for the fascination Benjamin’s uncommon and esoteric thoughts have.
For Benjamin translation is a means to aspire to “pure language”. He regards a process of supplement of languages as taking place through translation because of the difference between source and target language. This inadequacy is in itself the source of an enrichment of the target language: foreign, untranslatable concepts and structures are brought into a language and take part in the process of an ongoing complement of languages with its climax in “pure language”.
Benjamin’s thoughts cannot be understood without having a closer look at his concept of language—“pure language” seems a rather vague term. His whole project is so remarkable because it has an all-embracing notion of language as its basis: the world is made of language and the final aim is to understand this “textus” of the world, to achieve harmony between the inadequate human languages and the language of God.
This thought is highly influenced by Jewish mysticism mainly bequeathed in the Cabbala and made more accessible to a broader public amongst others by Walter Benjamin’s close friend Gershom Scholem.
In order to reflect on the significance of translation it is a presupposition to ponder on the theory of language, which is necessary background for any concept of translation and translatability.
Seven years before publishing his essay on translation, Benjamin had written the even more metaphysical “On Language as Such and the Language of Man”. In it he develops his idea of a distinction between the intellectual and the linguistic parts of the human being.
Benjamin posited a universal sphere of concepts, which he called the “intellectual part”, totally self-sufficient and distinguished from the “linguistic part”. The linguistic part never covers the whole conceptual sphere.
Thus it is not possible to articulate the totality of existing concepts: the various languages are inadequate, extending only over parts of the conceptual sphere.
The biblical idea of a once existing complete language in paradise disintegrated by God after the Tower of Babel grounds Benjamin’s theory of language.
The particular languages are thus only incomplete pieces of the pure original.
It is this idea which leads to the understanding of language as not only a communicative tool between humans, but moreover the realm of hidden divine truth.
Benjamin builds his teleology on the basis of this mystical idea: the final aim is to approach divine language.
Translation is the decisive means to reach the final end: it completes languages, puts together the disintegrated “modes of intention”.
Benjamin states: “Thus translation, ironically, transplants the original into a more definitive linguistic realm.”
The right way of translating is therefore crucial. According to Benjamin translations should not try to transfer meaning but rather translate as close to the original as possible.
“A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light.”
Thus the extraordinary task the translator receives tends to reverse into an extremely binding restriction.
How can a theory that is so enigmatic and restrictive exert such influence?
An impressive number of essays referring to Benjamin’s theory have been written by Peter Szondi, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida and others.
Benjamin leaves enormous interpretive space.
It is remarkable that Benjamin does not consider the reader.
“No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.”
The absence of the reader gives freedom to the translator.
The transmission of content becomes superfluous.
Such a stance can justify the esoteric society of translators discussing their works among themselves.
If the world is understood as language then aesthetics becomes central.
It might be for the abstract character of these thoughts that Benjamin’s essay was often considered a theory of untranslatability.
The German title “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” could also mean “The Surrender of the Translator”.
Yet this ambiguity is part of the essay’s fascination.
Benjamin’s own Baudelaire translations were criticized by Stefan Zweig as “icy” and “dead German”.
Nevertheless Benjamin’s system remains internally coherent.
His theory can only be understood in religious terms.
Its magic lies in its ambiguity.
Within it translation gains a unique and almost sacred status.
(Reposted from Cipher Journal)