Pointing at what Language might have to say. Translation as an Instrument of Historical/Messianic Knowledge in Walter Benjamin's 'Aufgabe des Übersetzers'

Pointing at what Language might have to say: Translation as an Heuristic Instrument of Historical/Messianic Knowledge in Walter Benjamin’s ‘Aufgabe des Übersetzers’ / ‘The Task of the Translator’ In contrast to the wide spread conviction that translation is a medium of communication for readers who do not understand the language of an ‘original’ work and, as a consequence, that a translation must be a faithful reproduction (‘Wiedergabe’) of the original, Walter Benjamin argues that the ‘essence and dignity’ of the form ‘translation’ consists in its unique power to become an heuristic instrument of the knowledge hidden in language and its historic/messianic movement (‘Sprachbewegung’). This movement of language is an autonomous dynamics that causes shifts in meaning in the work of art itself and in the language of the translator. This movement is independent of the language use by human subjects. More than the original work itself, translation in its essence, is capable of pointing at the stadium of that ‘sacred growth of languages’: ‘how distant what is hidden within them is from revelation, how close it might become with knowledge of this distance’ (Translation: Steven Rendall). The final, messianic stadium of language is the ‘pure language’ (‘reine Sprache’), that is ‘predetermined, inaccessble’ (‘vorbestimmt, versagt’) for us and for translation, but by bringing together the ways of meaning (‘Art des Meinens’) of two languages translation as a constellation points, as a privileged witness, at that final stage of language. This ‘background’ allows Benjamin to redefine the ‘task’ of the translator and the leading concepts that have governed the practice of translation for centuries. Probably Benjamin himself had some doubts about the effectiveness of translation as a means of knowledge, because, although he showed a continued interest in translation (as a translator and a critic), he abandoned the paradigm and replaced it by a concept of reading: the reading of constellations.status: publishe