REIMAGINING CLASSICS: TAGORE, TRANSLATION, AND THE GLOBAL READER

Аннотация

The research engages with translation of classical literary texts which within the ambit of global translation and cultural studies. The scope of the research is limited but not bound to discussing a collection of essays in translation from the repertoire of Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore. The target text discussed here is Prācīn Sāhitya: Annotated English Translation and Critical Essays, a collaborative publication of Visva-Bharati Granthan Bibhag, the distinguished institution established by Rabindranath Tagore in Shantiniketan and Niyogi Press in 2017. The source text is Prācīn Sāhitya written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1907. This edition reflects the enduring spirit of Tagore’s vision of Viśva-Sāhitya (world literature), where classical Indian texts are recontextualized within a global literary framework. Prācīn Sāhitya has been selected as the primary discussant text because Tagore translated and reinterpreted the philosophical essays of eminent Indian thinkers such as Kālidāsa, reconstituting them through his own interpretive lens.

Consequently, the research brings out how a text in translation transforms into a method of an institution building process that brings the world together under a single nest.

The concept of translation is vital to understand the concept of world literature as Tagore wrote in Bangla, his native language and thereafter translated his works into English. Tagore was a versatile writer, translator himself. In his essay Viśvasāhitya, he emphasised on the idea of world literatures which was different from the idea of any other western canonical philosophy as he felt that literature in translation is more of a transcreation or and not merely a mimicry or equivalence of canonised western literature. He addressed to the issues related to cultural specificity, and untranslatability. And his cosmopolitan vision offered the later day translators a productive lens to analyse translated texts in a globalised context. Therefore, he was one of the first philosophers of Asia to open doors to translation as a method and means, and a praxis to decode in global contexts.