Translation and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

This contribution takes as a starting point the freudian idea of the constitution of the Self as progressive “Niederschrift”, a sort of accumulation of layers “overwriting” themselves one upon the  other. The Concept of “Uebertragung” covers thus two different areas: the one is Psychoanalysis, the other is Translation. The two concepts are not only metaphorically connected. In this contribution Laura Bocci explores the subjectivity of the translators both in her/his cultural and linguistic choices, misreadings, even slips and mistakes. Bocci explores the realm of the desire and motivations leading the translator to her/his activity, her/his idiosyncrasies - between physis and mimesis - towards the translated authors, and the role of “empathy” in the process of translation. The central idea points out the pattern of a mixed subjectivity (the translator’s and the author’s), i.e. intersubjectivity arising from the translated text.