Translation Immoral? Contamination, Hybridity, And Vociferous Silences In Early Twentieth-Century Translations Of Sanskrit Erotic Poetry

Authors

  • Maddalena Italia

Keywords:

Reception, Translation, Sanskrit literature, erotic literature, Amaruśataka

Abstract

In this paper I focus on a selection of early twentieth-century French, Italian, and English translations and second- and third-hand translations of the seventh-century Sanskrit anthology titled Amaruśataka, or “The hundred verses of Amaru”. The practice of comparing, collating, and inventively muddling different variants from earlier translations is the defining feature of these modern versions of the Amaruśataka, for most of their authors lacked the linguistic skills to access the original Sanskrit text. My aim is to follow and unpack the selective, comparative and combinatory process that produced each modern translation, bringing to the surface the creative rather than polluting force of this ‘translational contamination’. Paradoxically, it was often the hybrid, if not outright spurious, details of the modern versions that – acting as a litmus test of the aesthetic and moral preoccupations of their authors and projected readers – turned such texts into new and newly translatable originals.

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Author Biography

Maddalena Italia

Maddalena Italia started working on her doctoral thesis in 2013, after completing an MA in South Asian studies at SOAS (London). Before moving to SOAS, she earned a BA and an MA in Classics from Milan State University. Maddalena’s research aims to offer new insights and a better understanding of the history of the modern reception of Sanskrit erotic poetry. In her PhD thesis (“The erotic untranslatable: the modern reception of Sanskrit love poetry in the West and in India”), she analyses commentaries, translations, second- and third-hand translations, and pseudo-translations of Sanskrit erotic poetry produced by Western and Indian poets and philologists.

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Published

2021-11-17

How to Cite

Italia , M. (2021). Translation Immoral? Contamination, Hybridity, And Vociferous Silences In Early Twentieth-Century Translations Of Sanskrit Erotic Poetry. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 5(1), 7–21. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/164