ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores translations that do not attempt to conceal the changes that they are bringing to their sources, and try to show that the crossing of languages can be as much of a stimulus to the imagination as the crossing of media in the case of the two 'Mariana's. It also explores some works of fiction which imagine different ways of spreading understanding across languages. The book considers some other kinds of text that are markedly reiterative, for instance paintings by John Everett Millais and novels by Douglas Coupland that partially adopt the cheapened status of commodities, and casts by Rachel Whiteread and fictions by E. L. Doctorow that accrete individuality by layering memories. It discusses T. J. Clark, for whom encounters with paintings offer a way of resisting the coercive encroachments of 'verbal discourse' with its 'quick tickets to meaning'.
