Translatability and Tautological Structures

This paper is intended to provide an analysis of Győző Határ's Hungarian translation of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. While the Hungarian version was produced two centuries after the original, it is nevertheless capable, by virtue of its being the first ever complete Hungarian translation, of offering a unique interpretation of Sterne's famous novel. Through close readings of selected excerpts from the novel, I aim to situate the age-old commonplace: “a translation can never replace the original.” My comparative reading is intended to demonstrate that neither are processes of signification in a translated work reducible to those in the original. This way, a logic of mutual dependency and supplementarity comes into play, overshadowing the commonsensical approach to translation which is based on patterns of prioritizing and an urge to distinguish with absolute clearness between correct and incorrect translations. A key concept is that of tautology, which seems inevitable when speaking of translations, as a certain degree of overdetermination and repetitiousness is required to produce effects which may supplement the usually more compact and idiomatic tropes of the original. However, I try to show that, in some rare but fascinating cases, the reverse can be equally true