Literature in Translation

Mphil English Literature

Lecture:1 & 2
Instructor: Amjad Ali
University of Sialkot
 Course Description
• World Literature that is rendered in English, from the
pre-Colonial era to the present, introduces scholar(s) to
major literary topics and themes emerging from a
variety of nations and cultures.
• Genres studied include the novel, short story, poetry,
testimonial narrative, plays and historical nonfiction.
• Readings, films, and discussion help provide the social
and historical context necessary for understanding and
appreciating literature from Mexico, the Caribbean,
Central and South America, Europe and Asia.
 Cont….
• Special emphasis is given to the relationship between
literature and social change, focusing particularly on the
literary theories that enable a better interpretation of art.
• As the scholars explore this literature, they will learn about
history, politics, human rights, social activism, and gender
roles all over the globe through the lens of fictional and
non-fictional characters.
• The course encourages introspection in the analysis of
literary texts through class discussions, occasional lectures,
and written assignments and oral presentations. Scholars
are asked to imagine the context in which the author wrote
and thought at that time.
 Course Objectives
The course aims to help students achieve the following:
● Become familiar with important authors and common
themes in contemporary translated literature.
● Recognize literary terms, concepts, critical strategies and
stylistic characters in the texts studied.
● Articulate a basic understanding of history, politics, human
rights, social activism, and gender roles, as seen through the
lens of fictional and non-fictional characters
● Demonstrate critical and independent thinking in the
interpretation of texts
● Demonstrate an understanding of ways the literature
studied reflects its intellectual, social, historical, and
multicultural contexts
 Course Outcomes

● Scholars should be able to evaluate the power

of literature to address personal values and
goals and to challenge human endeavors, and
also to write academic research papers based on
literatures in Translation.
 Course Contents
1. A selection of poems and an excerpts of a biographical and
feministic letter : Response to Sor Filotea (Sister Juana Ines de
la Cruz)
2. The Labyrinth of Solitude/ Mexican Mask(Octavio Paz)
3. The Metamorphosis, The Trial (Franz Kafka)
4. The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, The Plague (Albert
Camus)
5. Longer Poems of Iqbal: Mosque of Cordova and Satan’s
Council (Dr. Allama Iqbal)
6. Poems by Faiz: Ghazal, Quatrain and Poems (Faiz Ahmed
Faiz)
7. Blood Wedding, House of Bernarda Alba (Federico Garcia
Lorca)
 Cont…
8. Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Dario Fo)
9. The Bird of the East (Tawfiq al Hakim)
10. The Flea Palace (Elif Shafak)
11. Selections from Gitanjali (Rabindranath
Tagore)
12. Midaq Alley (Naguib Mahfouz)
13. In Other Words (Jhumpa Lahiri)
14. The Conference of Birds (Fariduddin Attar)
 Suggested Readings

1. Selected chapters from Translation, History and Culture

(Andre Lefevere and Susan Bassnett) to develop the idea of
Translation as a Genre
2. An excerpt of a biographical and feministic letter : Response
to Sor Filotea
3. Sor Juana: A Modern Voice in Seventeenth Century Mexico
4. Writings on Faiz (Yasmeen Hameed)
5. Selected Essays on Varieties of Cultural Studies from
Introduction to Translation Studies
6. Poetry (Paz)
7. Comparative Literature: A critical introduction (Susan
Bassnett)
 Cont…
8. Refractions: Essays in Comparative Literature
(Henry Levin)
9.The world, The Text, and the Critic (E. Said)
10. Selection from Mathnawi (Jalaluddin Rumi)
11. Rubaiyat (Omar Khayyam/Iqbal)
12. Selections of Haiku (Basho)
13. Six Characters in Search of an Author
(Pirandello)
14. Mother Courage and The Life of Galileo (Bertolt
Brecht)
The Metamorphosis, The Trial

(Franz Kafka)
 Franz Kafka
1. Life and Work
---born3 July1883 in Prague and died 3 June1924 in Keirling
---one of the most influential German-language novelists
---the term "Kafkaesque" has become part of the English vernacular.---
---‘’huge, selfish, over bearing businessman’’described his father as
---Kafka's sisters were sent to the Łódź Ghetto and died there or
in death camps---
2. Education
---Charles-Ferdinand University ---Kafka first studied chemistry, but
switched to law---obtained the degree of Doctor of Law-
3. Employment---the Assicurazioni Generali, a large Italian insurance
company---Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of
Bohemia---with his close friends Max Brod and FelixWeltsch---
Yiddishtheatre---
4. Literary Career---The Metamorphosis---The Trial---The Castle---
Description of a Struggle---Contemplation---The Judgment---The
Stoker---The Stoker---Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor---

5. Literary Career--- Kafka wrote to his friend and literary

executor MaxBrod--- ‘’Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave
behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and
others'), sketches, and so on, *is+ to be burned unread’’---
6. Writing Style---use of a characteristic peculiar to the German
language---Kafka's sentences unexpected dimpact just before the full
stop—that being the finalizing meaning and focus. ---Especially Th
eMetamorphosis---
7. Publications---Much of Kafka's work was unfinished---
Thenovels The Castle, The Trial and Amerika were all prepared
for publication by Brod---
8. Publications---Letters to Milena---In late 1919, she took
notice story, Der Heizer (TheStoker) by Kafka, and wrote to
him.--- This was the beginning of their correspondence, which
would continue until early 1923. ---
9. Death---He died of tuberculosis in 1924---‘’I couldnot
read this book, the human brain is not as extremely complex
as it’’ by Einstein---‘’If you hear one day the need for
confessional, not a cage Kafka's grave sin of the Catholic
Church would prefer’’ by Oscar Wilde---
 The Metamorphosis
Part. I Part.II Part. III
Morning Awakens 3 logers
Vermin No taste (Milk) Grete
Boss Eats rotten food Violin
Mrs. Samsa Knocks Family Problems Tired of care
Changed Voice Comfortable with body Abondoned
Grete Whispers Mrs. Samsa Died
Incapable Apple Relief
Chief Clerk Paralyzed Small Apartment
No understanding of voice Grete
Voice Husband
Horrified
 WHAT QUESTIONS DOES THIS
DISTURBING NOVELLA RAISE?
Is this only a psychological
transformation of the mind?
Is this an actual physical
transformation?
Is this an inner struggle that has
manifested itself in both a physical and
psychological change?
Did Gregor Samsa examine his life?
(The life which is unexamined is not
worth living.” Socrates)
 Background Knowledge
• Victorian Era
• Modernism
• Modern Writers: Joyce, Woolf, Conrad
• Absurdism
• Existentialism
• Surrealism
• Expressionism
• Personal life/autobiographical elements
• Themes
• Symbols
• Kafkaesque
 Modernist Movement
• Break away from tradition
• All things are relative, there is not such thing as absolute
truth. It is for this narration is through multiple
perspectives.
• Individualism and focus on inner strength, psychological
reality.
• Destabilization and fragmentation of Reality. Sense of
meaninglessness and dislocation.
• Alienation of the artist and individual.
• Other themes- Decay, Destruction, Death, Loss, Futility.
• The works of Modernist challenged and unsettled the
audiences and readers.
 Kafka and Modernism
• Idea of dehumanization
• Alienation, Isolation and injustice
• Inescapable and Kafkaesque
• Idea of Surrealism, Absurdity Bewilderment,
Existentialism
• Reality being characterized by uncertainty,
ambiguity and perplexity. (visible in
paragraph)
 Magical Realism
• Magical Realism Is when a realistic situation is combine
with some magical, supernatural or unrealistic occurrence.
• Magical Realism characteristics Stories with a strong
narrative drive. Dreams, fairy story and mythology combine
with everyday realistic events.
• Ex: When in the story The Metamorphosis the main
character turns into a big insect. Everything else in the story
is pretty much realistic, except the transformation from a
human being to an insect. “When Gregor Samsa awoke one
morning from troubled dreams, he found himself change
into a monstrous cockroach in hid bed”(Kafka 1204).
 Existentialism
Existentialism Is a philosophy that emphasizes
individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the
point of view in which humans see their own
meaning in life and make decision according to it.
Ex: In the story Gregor initially chooses society over
himself, he was a hard working man almost slave to
his boss and he also support all the member of his
family After his physical transformation, he is forced
to only focus on himself, and here is when family
and society abandons him.
 Surrealism
• Surrealism Refers to having a dreamlike quality or,
in literature, producing fantasy. It is often present
by combining things that don't belong together.
• Ex: Gregor doesn't seem to care that he is a
cockroach, his reaction is very dreamlike. It is also
very unusual that knowing he is an insect he just
cares about being late for work. “What to do
now? The next train left at seven; to catch it
meant hurrying like a madman, and his samples
weren’t yet packed, and he himself didn’t feel
exactly agile or vigorous”(Kafka1205).
 EXPRESSIONISM
 Early 19th century movement based on
the belief that inner reality, or a person’s
thoughts and feelings, are more important
than the object or situation that causes
the response
Expressed through
• symbolic characters, exaggeration,
distortion, nightmarish imagery and
fantasy
 Grew out of paintings of Vincent van
Gogh
 Kafkaesque

• Definition of Kafkaesque
• : of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his
writingsespecially : having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or
illogical quality Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays
• Kafkaesque Literature
• Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a Czech-born German-language writer
whose surreal fiction vividly expressed the anxiety, alienation, and
powerlessness of the individual in the 20th century. Kafka's work is
characterized by nightmarish settings in which characters are
crushed by nonsensical, blind authority. Thus, the
word Kafkaesque is often applied to bizarre and impersonal
administrative situations where the individual feels powerless to
understand or control what is happening.
 Family Life
• Gregor’s Father (Mr. Samsa) Business failure
leaves him in a lot of debt Begins working once
Gregor’s is transformed and can no longer
support the family Responsible for Gregor’s death
• Grete Gregor’s sister Takes sole responsibility for
Gregor’s care after he turns into insect Likes to
play the violin
• Gregor’s Mother (Mrs. Samsa) Very weak women
Tries to help Gregor but is disgusted by him
Suffers most from Gregor’s transformation
 Yes, Kafka was afraid of his father.

 “{You raised me} with vigor, noise and a hot temper.”

 “As a father you have been too strong for me—and
for that I was much too weak.”
 “This feeling of being nothing that often dominates me
comes largely from your influence.”
 “You really only encourage me in anything when you
yourself are involved in it.”
 “I was weighed down by your mere
• physical presence…I was skinny, weakly, slight; you
strong, tall,
• broad…I felt a miserable specimen.”
 “From your armchair you ruled the world.”
 “Your opinion was correct, every other was mad.”
 “For me you took on the enigmatic quality that all tyrants have
whose rights are based on their person and not on reason.”
 “What was always incomprehensible to me was your total lack
• of feeling for the suffering and shame you could inflict on me
with your words and judgments.”
 “…it is fundamentally impossible for you to talk calmly about a
• subject you don’t approve of or even one that was not
suggested by you; your imperious temperament does not permit
it.”
 “Between us there was no real struggle; I was soon finished
off; what remained was flight, embitterment, melancholy, and
inner struggle.”
 “{You} turned in me to mistrust of myself and perpetual
• anxiety about everything else.”
 I became completely dumb, cringed away from you, hid
from
• you…”
 “Your extremely effective rhetorical methods…were
abuse, threats, irony, spiteful laughter and self-pity.”
 “You have always reproached me (either alone or in front
of
• others since you have no feeling for the humiliation of
the latter, and your children’s affairs were always public).”
 “You struck closer to home with your aversion to my
writing.”
 “Your method of upbringing {instilled in me} weakness,
the lack of self-confidence, the sense of guilt…”
 “It is the general pressure of anxiety, of weakness, of
self- contempt.”
 “In my writing I have made some attempts at
independence,
• attempts at escape—I must choose the nothing.”
 “And there is the combat of vermin, which not only sting
but suck your blood in order to sustain their own
life…and that’s
• what you are.”
 SYMBOLS
The insect
The framed picture of a woman in furs Gregor’s desires (sex, wealth,
humanity)
Father’s uniform: Father’s dignity (deteriorates)
Food: The way the family treats Gregor
The Metamorphosis Personal alienation Effects of family’s demands
Furniture Loss of hope/humanity
The Window Longing Hospital imprisonment-keys, locks, cages music
and distortion of time
Central Symbol of the Beetle/Vermin A subjective fantasy that best
describes Gregor’s self- loathing: Worthlessness Uselessness
Meaninglessness Awkwardness Ugliness
 THEMES in The Metamorphosis
Alienation/Isolation Negative Father-son
relationship Existence Morality Class-
consciousness/Effects of Capitalism Family
Communication Quest for understanding
Examination of being Quest for escape Absurdity
of human life Conflict between body and spirit