Translation and genetic criticism: Genetic and editorial approaches to the ‘untranslatable’ in Joyce and Beckett1

Abstract

Genetics of translation may suggest a unidirectional link between two fields of research (genetic criticism applied to translation), but there are many ways in which translation and genetic criticism interact. This article’s research hypothesis is that an exchange of ideas between translation studies and genetic criticism can be mutually beneficial in more than one way. The main function of this exchange is to enhance a form of textual awareness, and to realize this enhanced textual awareness translation studies and genetic criticism inform each other in at least five different ways: genesis as part of translation; translation of the genesis; genesis of the translation; translation as part of the genesis; and finally the genesis of the untranslatable. To study this nexus between translation and genetic criticism, the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett will serve as case studies.