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Translation Studies, Cultural Context, And Dante, Reuven Tsur

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Translation Studies, Cultural Context, and Dante," Reuven Tsur explores limits of legitimacy in translation studies. Tsur's approach is a critique of the theoretical assumptions and their application in Edoardo Crisafulli's cultural interpretation of Seamus Heaney's decisions in translating the Ugolino episode in Dante's Inferno. Crisafulli claims that Heaney's choices show internal consistency, and can be accounted for by appealing to "the Irish situational context." Instead, Tsur argues that Crisafulli's cultural interpretations are arbitrary and that a more satisfactory account can be offered through an analysis of constraints within a conception of the aesthetic object as an elegant …