Restos, restos y restos: sobre la negatividad productiva del traducir

Abstract

The entire history of the theories of literary translation reveals that its main concepts and even many aspects of its practice are often at once determined and undermined by a fundamental negativity, be it its deficit of legitimacy and relevance, its impossibility or its multiple problems and deficiencies. What are the motivations of such critiques, self-indictments and other complaints? And what about the sins, errors, omissions, excesses, all that is left behind or on the roadside, condemned, forgotten or rejected in the translation processes carried out not only by professional translators, but also by any reader in quest of meaning? What does it all become at the end of the day? How is it recycled, or not? Could it not be added value? The traces of the repressed that tries to return? These are the questions studied here after a summary description of three visions of literary translation at large: the hermeneutic notion, translating as transport and a dialogic-conversational notion, one that is likely to represent and explain reading processes and manners of producing meaning and emotions that are of interest to the comparatist scholar.