View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Department of Modern Languages Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki CULTURE, TRANSLATION, AND INTERTEXTUALITY AN EXPLORATORY RE-READING OF CULTURAL-RELIGIOUS SOUTHERN ELEMENTS IN WILLIAM FAULKNER’S LIGHT IN AUGUST AND ITS TRANSLATIONS IN FINNISH Risto Jukko ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, for public examination in Auditorium XII, University Main Building, on the 22nd of October 2016 at 12 noon. Helsinki 2016 ISBN 978-951-51-2483-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-2484-5 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2016 ABSTRACT This study explores the phenomenon of intertextuality in the framework of translation studies. Intertextuality has not been thoroughly dealt with in translation studies, even though it has been touched upon in various literary studies at least since the 1960s. The study analyzes cultural-religious intertextualities in William Faulkner’s novel Light in August (1932) and in its two Finnish translations, Kohtalokas veripisara (1945) and Liekehtivä elokuu (1968). The approach is interdisciplinary. The American South with its culture, religion, and literature, especially William Faulkner (1897–1962) and Light in August, are presented as necessary background information and an essential part of any nontrivial literary translation process. The study has a twofold main goal. On the one hand, the study aims at corroborating, by means of an examination of a set of empirical data, the view that adequate translations necessitate, on the part of the translator, a considerable amount of intertextual cultural competence in the field(s) the original source text deals with and that adequate translations thus cannot be secured by the translator’s technical or theoretical translation skills only. On the other, the study equally purports to argue, by reference to the two sets of translation solutions made by the translators during their respective Finnish translations, that the religious components of the cultural contents of the novel constitute a set of data which is not fully accounted for in the translations and that the two translations accordingly both exhibit properties or tendencies which are not entirely adequate or even desirable either from a translational or from a cultural point of view. The results of the analysis of the 30 text passages examined in detail are threefold. First, the analysis is able to establish that the Finnish translators of Kohtalokas veripisara either used the Swedish translation Ljus i augusti (1944) as the source text or that they edited the Finnish translation according to the Swedish translation. Owing to interference from the Swedish translation, Kohtalokas veripisara has a tendency to omit or ignore certain intertexts. This property cannot be said to be an adequate or desirable translational approach as it inevitably entails some losses of pertinent meaning, which are not furthermore insignificant in number. The analysis did not find any compensation of meaning in other passages, i.e. passages outside the ones containing the omissions. Omissions tend to distort some of the characters in the novel, some of the relationships between them, and even the whole cultural-religious setup of the Southern novel, and may thus diminish the pleasure of the reader’s experience of the translation. Secondly, another tendency or property which is ascertained in the analysis is that the Finnish translator of Liekehtivä elokuu has somewhat secularized the picture Faulkner paints of the Southern religion in the original text, thus secularizing some of the cultural-religious intertexts related to the American South. Secularization takes place through what might be called an “assuaging effect,” i.e., by turning some of the cultural-religious elements in the novel into more secular expressions in the Finnish translation. Thirdly, the study demonstrates that neither specific nor general intertextuality seem to exhaust all the intertextual references needed by the reader-translator. A third kind of intertextuality is therefore proposed in the study, called universal intertextuality. By this term is meant intertextuality which refers to various universal aspects of common humanity, e.g. moral or ethical issues. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study has gone through various stages over some years. It has changed focus twice with diverse effects. It would never have been completed without the strong support and profound knowledge of Professor Pertti Hietaranta who never failed to believe that the study would one day be completed. I owe him my deepest gratitude for his help and encouragement. I am also grateful to many other scholars. Among them, I want to thank University Lecturer Hilkka Yli-Jokipii who at the very beginning of this study encouraged me, as well as Professor Outi Paloposki and University Lecturer Mari Pakkala-Weckström who both, at a critical point, gave me constructive feedback. Dr Ernst-August Gutt gave me brief but very helpful advice, especially concerning the ways of presenting the material. Professor Mikko Saikku helped me with the issues concerning Southern culture. Professor Joel Kuortti played a decisive role at the penultimate stage of research. Professor Laszlo Komlósi and Professor emeritus John Stotesbury as preliminary examiners contributed to the completion of the study. Helsinki, September 2016 Risto Jukko CONTENTS ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The relevance of culture to translation studies .................................................................................. 1 1.2 Intertextuality and the reader-translator............................................................................................. 3 1.3 Aims and material of the study .......................................................................................................... 7 1.3.1 Aims of the study ....................................................................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Research material .................................................................................................................... 11 1.4 Finnish Faulkner translations of the 1940s and the 1960s ............................................................... 14 1.5 The structure of the study ................................................................................................................ 23 2 THE AMERICAN SOUTH, ITS WRITERS, AND ITS RELIGION ..................................................... 27 2.1 The American South and Southern writers ...................................................................................... 27 2.2 Religion in the South ....................................................................................................................... 33 2.2.1 Southern Evangelical Protestantism ........................................................................................ 34 2.2.2 Southern religion and slavery .................................................................................................. 37 2.3 The influence of religion on Southern literature.............................................................................. 39 2.4 Summarizing remarks ...................................................................................................................... 42 3 FAULKNER AND LIGHT IN AUGUST IN SOUTHERN CULTURE .................................................. 43 3.1 Faulkner and cultural intertexts ....................................................................................................... 43 3.2 Light in August as a Southern intertext ............................................................................................ 48 3.2.1 The origin and critiques of the novel ....................................................................................... 48 3.2.2 The characters and stories in the novel .................................................................................... 52 3.2.3 Southern cultural features reflected in the novel ..................................................................... 54 3.2.4 Peculiar readings of the Bible and issues of blood .................................................................. 61 3.3 Summarizing remarks ...................................................................................................................... 68 4 CULTURE, RELIGION, AND TRANSLATION IN MUTUAL INTERACTION ............................... 70 4.1 Culture and cultural translation ....................................................................................................... 70 4.2 Interdisciplinary translation studies ................................................................................................. 77 4.3 Religion and religious language as part of culture .......................................................................... 81 4.4 Summarizing remarks ...................................................................................................................... 85 5 INTERTEXTUALITY AS A METHODOLOGICAL TOOL IN TRANSLATION STUDIES ............. 87 5.1 Intertextuality or intertextualities? ..................................................................................................