Description
In this reading-intensive course, we study a few of the more than 70 books produced by revered and controversial translator Constance Garnett. Detested by writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Brodsky, Garnett was championed by others such as Joseph Conrad and D.H. Lawrence. She single-handedly brought much of the Russian literature of the 19th century within reach of English-speaking writers of the 20th, whom it influenced deeply.
The course will function as a survey of 19th C. Russian “masterworks,” but it will also raise important questions about translation, authorship, and literary “greatness.” What is a “masterpiece” and how do we distinguish it from “ordinary” works of literature? What parts of it are translatable, and what are the translator’s responsibilities to the work? How do we know when we are reading Turgenev, and when we are reading Garnett? What can we learn from literatures whose language we do not speak, and what risks do we run by exploring them in translat