Translation Studies, Cultural Context, and Dante

In his article, Translation Studies, Cultural Context, and Dante, Reuven Tsur explores limits of legitimacy in translation studies. Tsur\u27s approach is a critique of the theoretical assumptions and their application in Edoardo Crisafulli\u27s cultural interpretation of Seamus Heaney\u27s decisions in translating the Ugolino episode in Dante\u27s Inferno. Crisafulli claims that Heaney\u27s choices show internal consistency, and can be accounted for by appealing to the Irish situational context. Instead, Tsur argues that Crisafulli\u27s cultural interpretations are arbitrary and that a more satisfactory account can be offered through an analysis of constraints within a conception of the aesthetic object as an elegant solution to a problem. Another disagreement concerns the intertextual processes between Dante\u27s segment and Heaney\u27s volume of original poetry in which it is printed. It is suggested here that by juxtaposing two texts, high-salient features of one text may reinforce similar features in the other and promote their salience