Ingeborg Bachmann's prose did not begin to be critically examined and appreciated by German scholars until a few years after her death in 1973. By the late 1980s, her work was being translated into English. Her position in the canon of German literature as a representative postwar writer and a precursor to the feminist movement calls for serious consideration of the English translations of her work, since they will represent her writing and be widely used by English-speaking Germanistik students and scholars. The focus of the present analysis is the title story from Bachmann's last collection of stories published in 1972. "Simultan" is a stream of consciousness narrative with a simultaneous interpreter as protagonist. The complexity of the narrative structure, including the integration of multilingual elements, poses many problems for translation. This thesis locates Bachmann in her historical context and considers the influence linguistic philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Walter Benjamin had on her writing. Identifying these influences sets the groundwork for translation analysis. Since Bachmann's narrative technique reveals a complex web of shifts in narration and focalization, I propose a schema based on narratological and translation theory to unravel the narrative structure of "Simultan." Using this theoretical framework, I then analyze Mary Fran Gilbert's translation "Word for Word." Given the important role multilingualism plays in the story, I also consider intertextual issues and the challenge multilingualism poses for translation. The analysis reveals certain deforming tendencies that produce a different focus in the translation than in the original. A successful translation solution for the problem of multilingualism is proposed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/8464 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Meek, Sherri. |
| Contributors | von Flotow, Luise, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 114 p. |
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