On the translatability of listening methods in verbal arts

Abstract

Listening   is   intrinsically   related   to   translation.   This   paper investigates     this     relationship, drawinga     path     that     goes     from archeoacousticsto Paul Zumthor’s idea of performance, and it dialogues with  Amerindian  thinkers  and  recent  ethnographic  studies.  The  idea  of form/methodproposed  hererelates  to  intellectuals  from  the  once  called “ethnopoetry”, as well as to authors that reflected upon poetry  after  the Shoah,  such  as  Paul  Celan.  In  terms  of  listening  effects  on  the  translation relationship, Walter Benjamin’s ideas on magic and memory are revisited and his Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers(“The task of the translator”) is reread. Poetry,  magic,and  performance  are  conceived  through  the  notion   of listening,  which,  by  the  end  of  the  paper,  brings  together  the  ideas  of translation and “sotaque” [“accent”].