The Construction of the Literary Classic

This chapter draws a contrast between the respect for translation evident in classics departments and the invisibility of translation traditionally accorded to translation in literature and comparative literature departments. The classics of translation are none other than the classics themselves and their material history attests to the physical journeys and the translators’ transformations and commentaries accumulated over the centuries. When it comes to ‘modern’ classics, education systems and university canons determine which of the works of the past, and works from other languages continue to be made available and known to contemporary readers. The chapter provides a focus on the shaping force of literary canons and the authority they exert. Central to the discussion is the role played by translation, and specifically re-translation, in keeping canonical texts ‘healthy, fresh and powerful’ (Goethe) by infusing continued interpretation and ongoing engagement with works of the past originally written in other languages. The second part of the chapter presents two case studies of modern works and their multiple translations: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose . The different translations of works overtime and into different languages and cultures re-creates them and keeps them vibrant and relevant, creating the text’s ‘afterlife’ to use Benjamin’s term, and making them modern classics with a history of their interpretations and rewritings becoming part and parcel of the material existence of such literary works.