This course offers an opportunity to develop and train the ability to translate literary texts into English. When you write academic papers, in English, about literature in languages other than English, you very often encounter the need to translate sentences or paragraphs from the work that is your object of study. Sometimes you can use already published translations for this, but often these may be insufficient, and in many cases the work may not have been translated at all. As an academic within the field of literature, you will thus need to have some ability to make adequate translations of literary texts. An awareness of different options available when translating will also be important. It is in this context this course is offered.

There are two seminars in this course, in which you present your work and discuss it with the teacher. You will receive feedback as necessary and are also encouraged to bring up issues you have had with your translation. 

In the first seminar, you are expected to present the text you intend to translate. In this presentation you describe where you found this text, and why you chose it. You offer an overview of its cultural and historical context, and you also explain the aim of your translation, how it will be used, and what strategies you find relevant for this aim. This is information that you will also include in more detail in the introduction to the commented translation, which is the main written task in this course.

The text you choose to translate should be a literary text written in a language other than English, which has not yet been translated into English. Preferably, it should be short enough to be possible to translate in its entirety within the scope of the course. It should be complex enough to show your ability, and to offer a fair amount of translation problems.

The commented translation should be a critical and reflective discussion of the translation process. Besides offering a background to the translated text and a discussion of the aims and motives of the translation, it should highlight the main issues encountered and describe how these were overcome. This should include a discussion of references that have been used and arguments justifying the choice of translation strategies. It is not necessary to comment on the entire translation, rather representative examples should be quoted and discussed in detail. These comments should be written in a way so that the argument is possible to understand even for a person not familiar with the source language. The complete translation should preferably be placed in an appendix.

The finished commented translation should be submitted a week before the last seminar. In this seminar, you will present your experiences translating the text and the results you gained from this task. The teacher will give you feedback as necessary. 

Contact

If you have questions about this course, don't hesitate to contact the course coordinator, Herbert Jonsson (hjn@du.se).

Course outline

Please check the course outline for the seminar schedule and important deadlines: Outline AJP279 autumn 2025.pdf