Why translation is mourning in the Gujarati avatar of poet Arun Kolatkar’s epic ‘Sarpa Satra’
The work is a subversive retelling of the apocalyptic rite of snake sacrifice, which is the opening myth of The Mahabharata. Arun Kolatkar.
In its theoretical discourse, translation has often been described as “discovery”, “recovery”, “rewriting”, “retelling”, “criticism”, and so on. However, it has never been conceptualised as an act of “mourning” or a process of “grieving”, even though the tradition of grieving is one of the oldest in the history of human civilisation.
Theorists like Sigmund Freud and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross have clearly underlined the importance of allowing the process of mourning to run its full course because it’s only after grieving the loss of a loved one that one becomes capable of loving again. Interestingly, in his famous letter to his mother, Roman philosopher Seneca advised to her to confront her grief rather than d
Baudelaire on Beauty, Love, Prostitutes and Modernity
In Baudelaire, beauty is horror, and horror, beauty. The source, or origin, of beauty doesnât matter. Beauty is what beauty does, and nothing can save us from its devouring force.
The dark power of Baudelaireâs poetry in Le Fleur Du Mal/ The Flowers of Evil is best experienced when it disturbs and is difficult to access. Photo: anncapictures/Pixabay
In his celebrated essay on Charles Baudelaire,
The Aesthetic Dignity of the âFleurs du Mal’, the philologist, Erich Auerbach ended with a brilliant observation while addressing âthe horror of
Les Fleur Du Malâ. Auerbach had âa word⦠in defense of certain critics who have resolutely rejected the book. Not all of them, but a few, had a better understanding of it than many contemporary and subsequent admirers. A statement of horror is better understood by those who feel the horror in their bones, even if they react against it, than by those who
In the 1974 cult-classic teleplay
Penda’s Fen, the past holds the key to escaping the catastrophic present. We too can learn from wilder pasts in our confrontations with capitalism today. I remember the first time I ever saw a ghost. I was tiptoeing through the remnants of a burnt-out row house in Washington, D.C., in one of the neighborhoods where, in the 1990s, one could still discern the architectural scars from the urban rebellions meant to avenge the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., thirty years before.
Stepping gingerly over charred beams, scanning the scattered furniture, my eye landed on a toy a doll, lying relatively unscathed amidst the debris. In an instant I saw the house as it had been, in its unburnt serenity. A family had lived there. Children grew up there. Psyches, fortunes, relationships germinated in this place. Fortunes that were not mine, lives given their shape by the monstrous hammers of class and race in America. The image I
Ghost in the Machine
In the last fragment of his 1951 book Minima Moralia
, one of the foundational texts of critical theory, Theodor Adorno provocatively recasts his own philosophical project in seemingly religious terms. “The only philosophy which can be responsibly practised in face of despair,” he writes in E.F.N. Jephcott’s translation, “is the attempt to contemplate all things as they would present themselves from the standpoint of redemption.” Soon, the theological language grows even more explicit: “Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal it to be, with its rifts and crevices, as indigent and distorted as it will appear one day in the messianic light.” Adorno did not present himself as a religious thinker, yet theological concepts flash up in his work at key moments.
Sweetheart candy hearts are seen on the shelf at the To The Moon Marketplace on January 29, 2019, in Wilton Manors, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Listen to tales of love and heartbreak. Learn to cook vegan coconut flan. Watch stories of love and friendship at the Reel Love Film Fest. Listen to a panel discussion about the Black women of rock and roll. Kick back at a screening of
Minari, the story of a Korean American family that moves to an Arkansas farm. Bite into a half-off pizza deal on National Pizza Day (Tuesday, Feb. 9).
Monday, Feb. 8; 7:30
February StorySLAM: Love Hurts