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The Hermeneutic Motion

Hermeneutics - the investigation of what it means to understand a


piece of oral or written speech, and the attempt to diagnose this process in
terms of a general model of meaning
(George Steiner)

Steiner states that the reason for the lack of new developments in translation
theory is that translation is a hermeneutical task, "not a science, but an exact art.
He defines translation as the act of elicitation and appropriative transfer of
meaning, which consists in four parts: trust, aggression, embodiment and
restitution.
Trust is an essential prerequisite for all interpretive activities and Steiner says:
All understanding, and the demonstrative statement of understanding which is
translation, starts with an act of trust. Literalism, paraphrase and free imitation
are different approaches toward translation, but the element of trust is present in each
one of them.
In this step, the translator selects a text and approaches it with this trust that there
is something there worth translating and there is something that can be understood.
Steiner believes that in this step, the translator shows generosity to an alien text.
In the same time, the translator finds himself vulnerable to the dialectically
related risks. Or he may find that there is 'nothing there' which can be divorced
from its formal autonomy, that every meaning worth expressing is monadic and
will not enter into any alternative mould.
Considering that, the second part of the hermeneutical motion emerges:
aggression. This part is incursive and extractive, but ultimately necessary in the
comprehension of the SL text.
Here, Steiner draws on Hegel and Heidegger to explore the aggressive nature of
all understanding, all interpretation of every hermeneutic method. The translator
enters the SL (source language) text, driven no longer by passive trust, but by the
active intention of taking something away. This view of language is problematic
because every text is composed in a particular social, cultural and historical
background and is, as a consequence, deeply influenced by it. Steiner considers the

aggressive state to be necessary, as comprehension in translation is invasive and


exhaustive.
He quotes Saint Jerome who considers the translation as 'breaking' a code:
decipherment is dissective, leaving the shell smashed and the vital layers
stripped. The paraphrasing of the source language (SL) treats it as a mechanical
combination of linguistic symbols and tries to use similar building blocks in the target
language to render the approximate meaning (Schleiermacher) and its leading
to losing the identity of the original work. Schleiermacher and Steiner coincide in
their views that this kind of translation despoils, or invades, the original work
by leaving an empty scar in the landscape. But there are some exceptions:
translations which are superior to their original texts: Louis Labes Sonnets,
translations of Umdichtung Rilke).
The third movement is incorporative. The import, of meaning and of form, the
embodiment, is not made in or into a vacuum. This taken away meaning is brought
into the TL (target language). The text becomes part of the translators language, as
Steiner states: No language, no traditional symbolic set or cultural ensemble imports
without risk of being transformed.. In this step, the translator realizes and tries to
convey what he understands in his own language. An example is the radical
domestication of Luthers Bible.
The translator who stops at this stage produces assimilative translations;
translations thus thoroughly conformed to TL norms as to bear no trace of their
origins in the SL.
The fourth and the final move is restitution. In this stage, Steiner shows that
previous models are dangerously incomplete. Restitution is restoration of balance
that intrusion has disrupted. The translator needs to give energy back to the original,
to compensate for the guilt he has committed. To concede the need of restoring
balance is to consider translation as a two-way interaction between the translator and
the original text.
Having discussed the fourfold hermeneutic motion, Steiner goes on to
consider various results of translation, fidelity and, in the end, he emphasizes
that the triadic model of hermeneutics, which has been dominant for years, is
incomplete.
2

To be able to understand all four steps of Steiners hermeneutical motion I


studied The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and three of its translations into
Romanian, by Stefan Augustin Doinas, Petre Solomon si Mihu Dragomir. All
three translations were done after more than 100 years after the poem was written
(1845) and before Steiner published his hermeneutic motion (After Babel, 1975).
The poem is about a lonely man who tries to ease his sorrow for the lost of his
love, Lenore, by distracting his mind with old books. He is interrupted by a tapping
on his chamber door. As he opens up the door, he finds "darkness there and nothing
more." The man returns to his chamber, and this time he can hear a tapping at the
window lattice. As he opened the shutter, a raven stepped inside. The raven perched
on the bust of Pallas, the goddess of wisdom in Greek mythology, above his chamber
door. The man asks the Raven for his name, and surprisingly it answers, and croaks
"Nevermore." The man welcomes the raven and is afraid that the raven will be gone
in the morning, "as [his] hopes have flown before"; however, the raven answers,
"Nevermore." Even when the narrator becomes aware of the bird's only response, still
he cannot help but ask the raven questions: "Is there balm in Gilead?" - "Nevermore."
Can Lenore be found in paradise? - "Nevermore." "Take thy form from off my door!"
- "Nevermore." Finally the man concedes, realizing that to continue this dialogue
would be pointless. And his "soul from out that shadow" that the raven throws on the
floor, "Shall be lifted -- Nevermore!"
Looking upon the Romanian translations, I can observe that all three
translators understood what the poet wanted to express. In other words, they trusted
that Poe had had something to transmit. I can also find the aggression part of the
hermeneutical motion, where the translators enter the text and extract the meaning.
Poe is using several symbols to take the poem to a higher level. The first symbol is
represented by the raven. In both cultures, Native American and Romanian, the raven
is a magical creature, which has the ability to foretell unpleasant events.
Another obvious symbol is the bust of Pallas, the goddess of wisdom. The fact
that the raven decides to perch on the statuette shows one more time the fact that the
raven spoke from wisdom, and was not just repeating its only "stock and store". Less
obvious symbols might be the use of "midnight" in the first verse and "December" in
the second verse. Both midnight and December symbolize an end of something
and also the anticipation of something new, a change to happen.

The fact that the translators kept all the symbols in their translations takes me
to the embodiment step. As Poes poem is about sadness, loneliness and melancholy,
all three translators managed to convey what they understood into Romanian
language.
There are several words that Poe used in his poem that were found in the Romanian
translation (St. Augustin Doinas is the only one who used all of them): seraphim,
nepenthe, balm in Gilead, Aidenn, Plutonian. The use of this ancient and
poetic language seems appropriate, since the poem is about a man spending most of
his time with books of "forgotten lore."
In my opinion, the fourth part of the hermeneutic motion is represented by the
leitmotiv nevermore, used by Poe at the end of almost every verse. All three
translators preferred to use the English word to be able to keep the poets dramatic
emotions. No other Romanian word could replace at the fullest the meaning of
nevermore.

References:
George Steiner, Dupa Babel, Editura Univers, Bucuresti, 1983
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~chaoran/essays/steiner.html
http://www.unesco.uj.edu.pl/documents/2205554/33980917/STEINER,
%20GEORGE.pdf
http://interconf.fl.kpi.ua/en/node/1274
http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html
http://www.pruteanu.ro/701corbul-doinas.htm
http://www.pruteanu.ro/701corbul-rom+.htm
http://www.pruteanu.ro/701corbul-solom.htm
http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/raven/

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