Translation and the Globalisation of the Novel: Relevance and Limits of a Diffusionist Model

Hill, Peter (2019) Translation and the Globalisation of the Novel: Relevance and Limits of a Diffusionist Model. In: Migrating Texts: Circulating Translations around the Ottoman Mediterranean. Edinburgh University Press, United Kingdom, pp. 95-121. ISBN 9781474438995

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Abstract

In his two books Atlas of the European Novel and Graphs, Maps, Trees, Franco Moretti presented models for the ‘distant reading’ of world litera-ture, including that of literary translation.1 This chapter considers, first, the relevance of Moretti’s approach for understanding translation in the area between the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf, and how it fits into a wider global literary system. Secondly, it tests the limits of Moretti’s dif-fusionist model and considers some variants and alternatives. Elsewhere, I have shown how a relatively ‘close’ reading within a single literary tradition (Arabic) can be combined with a broader framework informed by distant reading, working with Arabic translations of Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque.2 This microfocus has led me to reflect more abstractly and broadly in the present chapter, surveying literary transla-tions from the seventeenth century to the present. The texts presented are, following Moretti’s initial instance of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, all novels or proto-novels which became popular to varying degrees across the world – including the southwest Asian region, which is the focus of this volume.

Item Type: Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords: Novel, Translation, World literature
Subjects: Q200 Comparative Literary studies
Q300 English studies
Q900 Others in Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
R900 Others in European Languages, Literature and related subjects
T900 Others in Eastern, Asiatic, African, American and Australasian Languages, Literature and related subjects
Department: Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Humanities
Depositing User: Rachel Branson
Date Deposited: 02 Jun 2020 13:55
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2021 17:45
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/43315

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