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Subversive Translation and Lexical Empathy: Pedagogies of Cortesia and Transnational Multilingual Poetics

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Narratives of Difference in Globalized Cultures

Part of the book series: New Comparisons in World Literature ((NCWL))

Abstract

Drawing on George Steiner’s concept of ‘lexical cortesia’ or ‘tact of heart’, this chapter offers an example of innovative embodied and embedded critical practice in which transnational author Merlinda Bobis combines her own complex perspectives as a multilingual writer, reader, teacher, translator and scholar. When facing linguistic and cultural difference in a predominantly monolingual hegemonic context, as is the case of the Australian literary landscape and the university classroom, subversive strategies are especially necessary so as not to mute artistic expression in other languages. Monolingual here does not stand for the person speaking only one language, but for the monolithic sensibility that hears and cares for only one tongue.

Key authors, texts, case studies or examples: Poetry by Merlinda Bobis and Sujata Bhatt; Guillermo Verdecchia’s play Fronteras Americanas.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hawthorne is quoting from Tuhiwai Smith (1999).

  2. 2.

    Brian Musgrove 1999.

  3. 3.

    Translation of lines from García Lorca’s poem: ‘At five in the afternoon. It was exactly five in the afternoon. A boy brought the white sheet at five in the afternoon’ (J.L. Gili 1960: 101).

  4. 4.

    Kantada ng Babaing Mandirigma Daragang Magayon/Cantata of the Warrior Woman Daragang Magayon (Manila: Babaylan Press, Institute of Women’s Studies, St. Scholastica, 1993, 1997) was the epic poem in two versions, Filipino and English, that I wrote for my Doctorate of Creative Arts at University of Wollongong (1991–1994).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Merlinda Bobis

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  1. Merlinda Bobis
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Correspondence to Merlinda Bobis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain

    Belén Martín-Lucas

  2. University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Andrea Ruthven

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Bobis, M. (2017). Subversive Translation and Lexical Empathy: Pedagogies of Cortesia and Transnational Multilingual Poetics. In: Martín-Lucas, B., Ruthven, A. (eds) Narratives of Difference in Globalized Cultures. New Comparisons in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62133-3_2

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