Post-Nietzschean Contributions to Translation

Abstract:

Post-Nietzschean thought has subverted the metaphysics of essentialist Platonic thinking about meaning. It has made significant contributions to elevating translation to a superior position after being considered inferior and secondary by essentialist thinking for more than two millennia. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: What insights do we gain from post-Nietzschean thought into meaning, and how might these impact the future of translation? We will shed light on some of the significant post-Nietzschean contributions that have paved the way for various insights into translation. These insights primarily contradict the essentialist viewpoint on the concept of meaning in translation, which has long regarded translation as inferior to the original. This paper adopts a corpus-based method that focuses mainly on Jorge Luis Borges’ enriching analysis of The Translators of The Thousand and One Night and Jacques Derrida’s reasonable letter entitled A Letter to a Japanese Friend. It also incorporates some other relevant arguments, including the work of Rosemary Arrojo, which contrasts many key post-Nietzschean contributions to provide anti-platonic perspectives on translation’s role in the formation of meaning and identity. This study suggests that post-Nietzschean perspectives on meaning may prompt us to reconsider our understanding of meaning and the original text, as well as our approach to translating and teaching translation.