Translating Titles and Content: Artistic Image and Theatrical Action

Abstract

If the beginning was a letter, not a word, then it was also an image. Moreover, the image carried its own meaning. By initiating the interrelationship of image and word in Biblical exegesis, it is possible to relocate and simultaneously revive avant-garde aesthetics. Once linguistic descriptions and titles rely on word play for their impact, their translation becomes problematic. But if a title is part of a painting—just as a letter is also an image—is there not a justification for changing the form of the art itself in order to achieve the desired impact? And could the same be done for theatrical scripts? Examples are drawn from artists and writers such as Alphonse Allais, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Brossa, and the Italian Futurists.