ABSTRACT
It has already been pointed out that, unlike in other parts of India such as Bengal or the Hindi-speaking region, "the reverence for William Shakespeare in Orissa is matched paradoxically by disinclination to translation his works into Oriya." True, most of them have been undertaken by rather obscure translators or authors, and they do not seem to have attracted a large readership. But, they should not be dismissed as marginal: viewed from an appropriate perspective, they assume a significance not hitherto attributed to them. The way information about the author and the translator is presented reveals several interesting things: the emphasis on the iconic status of Shakespeare, his identity as a poet, and the translator's role as a mediator between Western culture and the vernacular. Hence a striking feature of the translation is the translator's choice of a heavily Sanskritized Oriya.
