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A “HARDY PERENNIAL” is defined as a plant that is able to survive the winter without special care and that has a life cycle of more than two years. One of the hardiest perennials of our profession is the prickly, thorny subject of teaching foreign literature in translation. At ADFL Seminars, both East and West, in 1984 and 1985, papers were delivered on this subject. These papers were subsequently published in the January 1986 edition of the ADFL Bulletin . The clever titles were “Surf and Turf: How Not to Get Washed Away by the Tide; How to Hold Our Ground in Literature” (Ryder); “Teaching Literature in the Original or in Translation: An Intellectual or a Political Problem?” (Lindenberger); and “The Thematic Approach to Literature in Translation” (Kolbert).
Clearly not all questions were answered at those meetings. This year the ADFL Executive Committee chose to focus the program of its Seminars East and West on shifting enrollments and fiscal constraints as important factors driving decisions in departments of foreign languages across the country. One plenary session at each seminar was devoted to courses taught in English. Reviews undertaken in various quarters are currently examining the role literature should play in departments and programs. (At Cornell University, for example, the entire program in Russian literature is under administrative scrutiny and may he combined with either comparative literature or Russian area studies.) Among other things, this process has led to a greater number of offerings in English, including courses on foreign literatures in translation, cultural studies, and film.
So, as King Henry V says to inspire his faithful soldiers, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” (3.1.1–2). In this article I answer all conceivable questions and settle the matter once and for all. No further discussion wilt be necessary. Never again will the ADFL Executive Committee feel the need to schedule Seminars East and West, or North and South for that matter, on this hardy perennial. So, as the Ghost of Hamlet's father says to his impatient son, “List, list, oh, list!” (1.5.22).
Before I begin, allow me to say a few words about my own experience in this regard (to establish my credentials for opining on this subject) and to comment briefly on the process of preparing this article. For the last twenty-five years, in addition to teaching courses in the Russian language (from first year to fourth, from conversation class to political Russian), courses in Russian literature (where readings, sometimes discussions, and even papers were all in the original), I have been teaching Russian literature in translation: genre courses on the nineteenth-century Russian novel and drama, author courses on the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and thematic courses. During the past academic year I taught the following: a freshman seminar, the Golden Age of Russian Literature, in which a group of “average” University of Texas freshmen read challenging nineteenth-century prose and wrote short papers every week; an honors seminar, the Soul of Russia, in which very much above-average liberal arts majors read “bad but important” works of nineteenth-century Russian literature and intellectual history and wrote lengthy term papers; and a general elective, Chekhov and the Russian Theater, in which a group of extraordinarily talented theater students (with a handful of Slavic students) read, discussed, analyzed, and acted scenes from Chekhov's major plays and in which we were fortunate enough to be able to incorporate guest appearances by the translator, director, costume designer, and student actors of a UT mainstage production of The Three Sisters that was being mounted during the semester. Besides teaching Russian literature in translation, I am, for my sins, a translator. Since 1984 I have published translations of works by Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and other, less well known luminaries. My most recent “canon-expanding” project was the translation of an extraordinary novel entitled Antonina , by a nineteenth-century woman writer, Evgeniya Tur, just published by Northwestern University Press.
Now, as for the process: after being invited to participate in this year's ADFL session, I decided to confer with colleagues in other UT departments: English, comparative literature, classics, and philosophy. 1 I was eager to pick their brains, as well as to hear their views on the whole enterprise of teaching foreign literature in translation. Frankly, I expected to encounter some opposition to the notion that we “language types” had anything to offer, as well as the usual reservations, objections, and obstacles. But I was pleasantly surprised—nay, astounded—at the overwhelming support and encouragement I received from colleagues of all stripes and shades. It turns out that we are all engaged in a common enterprise.
What do I see as the main reasons for teaching courses on foreign literature in translation? I would divide them into two categories, intellectual and pragmatic, although I am pleased to state that the two overlap.
Intellectual: first, it is the right thing to do and a source of great joy to share the most aesthetically pleasing and the most influential texts of the languages and cultures we know and love. And, lucky us, we get to share them not merely with the fortunate few who possess the linguistic competence and critical sophistication to read and understand these works in the original and who can appreciate what Horace describes as the source of their greatness—their qualities of being dulce et utile .
What else in terms of intellectual justification? In one of the articles mentioned above (“The Thematic Approach”), Jack Kolbert argues that since the “message” is the most translatable component of works of literature, it is precisely the thematic confrontations with foreign literature in translation that yield a coherent view of disparate texts, facilitate lively discussion, lead to an appreciation of commonalities and divergences, and serve as a springboard for an exploration of the nature of literature in general. In other words, teaching foreign literature in translation from a thematic standpoint results, overall, in a higher level of intellectual experience for our students.
I turn now from intellectual justifications to practical concerns. There are several practical reasons for teaching foreign literature in translation; and while all reasons are equal, some are more equal than others. First of all: out-reach. That's not a dirty word. Outreach is a “good thing,” as Winnie the Pooh would say; a “mitzvah,” as my mother would have it. Once again, I cite Kolbert's article: the best thing about teaching foreign literature in translation is that it represents an effort to offer instruction to students who might otherwise not appreciate any literature, except that written in their native language (and, I might add, if that). There are many good students who would never think of taking, or have time to fit into their schedules, enough language courses to read Sartre, Lorca, Kafka, or Turgenev in the original. We owe it to these students to make our “stuff” available and accessible to them. We can enrich their lives. (That's what we're all about, isn't it?)
On an even more practical level: S.O.S. Save Our Skins. We need to have students to teach. We want to secure our own jobs, protect those of our colleagues, provide berths for our best graduate students, guarantee the continuation of our disciplines, ensure the survival of our species. Haven't you heard? The sky is falling! Enrollments are dropping. Who knows if this is merely a temporary downturn or something more ominous? The latest MLA survey (Brod and Huber) has struck fear into many, if not most, hearts. At a special MLA meeting last December for chairs of PhD-granting departments, one speaker referred to French and German as vying with each other to become the next less commonly taught language. The French and German teachers in the audience were not amused. This is no longer something only we Russians have to worry about (we're down a whopping 44.6%); German is down 27.8%, and French, down 24.6%. Only Spanish, among the commonly taught languages, and Arabic, Chinese, and Portuguese among the less commonly taught languages, were up significantly. Good for them, but what about the rest of us?
Finally: with all the talk of internationalization and the calls for globalization, international studies are growing. The field that used to be called area studies is undergoing serious rethinking. The United States Department of Education has, for the first time in many years, increased the amount of funding available to Title VI national resource centers for world areas and international studies. The National Security Education Program, after a rocky start, seems to be back on course to support language and area study for undergraduates and graduate students. The Ford Foundation is conducting a major funding initiative designed to reconceptualize and revitalize area studies. To cite one example, Middlebury College (home of the summer intensive immersion programs in eight languages, both commonly and less commonly taught) is now offering a new international studies major that combines language (advanced competence), study abroad (required), and cultural, regional, cross-regional, and interdisciplinary study, on the one hand, with any academic discipline offered at the institution, on the other. Not only will these “area” students (not traditional language and literature majors) be required to take our language courses; they will also need—and be drawn to—courses in the literature and culture (both high and low) of our areas; and we must be there providing those courses for them, both in the original and in translation.
Are there any reasons not to teach foreign literature in translation? I can think of only two and can easily dispense with both of them. (1) These poor, deprived students may never experience the joy of reading great works of foreign literature in the original and will therefore never appreciate either the full meaning of the text or the great beauty of the language. Yes, they will . (2) Such a heinous enterprise as teaching literature in translation involves a humiliating compromise with our high standards and will inevitably lead to the dilution of our cherished disciplines. No, it won't .
Now for an easy multiple choice test. There's only one question: Who should teach foreign literature in translation? You have five choices: (1) foreign language teachers; (2) English department faculty members; (3) comparative literature instructors; (4) none of the above; (5) all of the above. Everyone finished? May I have the envelope, please? And the winner is…(5) all of the above, of course. Everybody should do it! Intradepartmental strife, interdepartmental struggles, turf wars, objections by administrators are, in the memorable phrase of one of my colleagues in the English department, mere “bureaucratic obstacles to intellectual ends.”
Foreign language teachers should teach literature in translation. We can offer our expertise in the original language and our knowledge of the cultural context. English department faculty members should do it, whether or not they know the languages; they can offer expertise in critical methodology (not necessarily better than ours) and an ability to teach writing skills (usually better than ours). Comparative literature instructors should do it; they can offer expertise in more than one language and literature, as well as a valuable comparative perspective. Vladimir Nabokov provides a wonderful test case: he is classified as a Russian-American novelist, short story writer, poet, dramatist, memoirist, translator, critic, lepidopterist, and chess problemist. He was born into a wealthy Saint Petersburg family and was trilingual from childhood (Russian, French, and English). His family emigrated in 1919; he was educated at Cambridge, resided in Berlin (1922–37), emigrated to France, then to the United States (where he taught in that now-threatened program in Russian literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959), and finally settled in Switzerland. He wrote both in Russian and in English (and, to a lesser degree, in French), and he himself either translated or supervised the translation of his works from one language into the other (see Grayson). Who should teach the works of Vladimir Nabokov? If they're good (and most of them are), everyone should—Russian teachers, English teachers, and comparative literature teachers, and teachers of translation.
What kinds of courses should we be teaching? All kinds. Survey courses in our national literatures, special topics, single-author courses, comparative courses, world literature, literary theory, intellectual history, culture and civilization courses, popular culture, theater and film courses—you name it, we should teach it. When we are recruiting new faculty members to our departments, we should seek instructors who can add breadth to our curricular offerings, not just duplicate our current inventory; we should encourage our colleagues to branch out, to cultivate new interests, to develop new courses. Both chairs and deans should reward such behaviors.
What sorts of programs should we support? Again, all kinds. Area studies, international studies, comparative literature, film studies, women's studies, cultural studies, translation studies, and honors programs of all shapes and sizes. We should lobby our English departments and urge them to cross-list all our courses in translation and allow a certain number of them to count toward the English major; then, when the departments finally agree to do that, we should persuade them to encourage or even require their majors to take one course in a foreign literature in the original.
As my favorite character in all of Chekhov's plays, the speaker in a splendid dramatic monologue entitled On the Harmfulness of Tobacco (1903), concludes, “That's all I have to say. Dixi et animam levavi [I have spoken and relieved my mind].” I hope that some of my thoughts will provoke discussion; I would like to think that some may provoke eventual action. We are all in the same boat. Sink or swim. I think we'd better learn some new strokes.
The author is Dean of Languages and International Studies at Middlebury College. This article is based on his presentation at ADFL Seminar West, 26–28 June 1997, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1 I am very grateful to Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, Jim Garrison, Larry Carver, Paul Woodruff, Chuck Rossman, and Karl Galinsky for their ideas, questions, and suggestions.
Brod, Richard, and Bettina J. Huber. “Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Learning, Fall 1995.” ADFL Bulletin 28.2 (1997): 55–61. [Show Article]
Grayson, Jane. Nabokov Translated: A Comparison of Nabokov's Russian and English Prose . Oxford: Oxford UP, 1977.
Kolbert, Jack. “The Thematic Approach to Literature in Translation.” ADFL Bulletin 17.2 (1986): 40–42. [Show Article]
Lindenberger, Herbert. “Teaching Literature in the Original or in Translation: An Intellectual or a Political Problem?” ADFL Bulletin 17.2 (1986): 35–39. [Show Article]
Ryder, Frank G. “Surf and Turf. How Not to Get Washed Away by the Tide; How to Hold Our Ground in Literature.” ADFL Bulletin 17.2 (1986): 31–34. [Show Article]
© 1998 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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