ABSTRACT
Translation, like memory, may be thought of as taking place at different points along a continuum of loss and re-creation. The very nature of the question seems to acknowledge that translation requires some sort of re-definition. Following on from the work of anthropologist Karin Barber, who usefully distinguishes between translation as text and translation as performance, an answer begins to emerge. To paraphrase Barber, translation as text implies that translation is undertaken as an activity located within pre-set parameters, while the translation considered performatively places it within a realm where the contingencies of context determine meaning. The act of collaborative partnership between fixity and flow, loss and recreation, permanence and immanence, begins with the special act of attention that lies, in Du Bellay’s case, in the eye of the poet; in the translator’s case, it begins with the act of reading.
