To Get Across, or To Return to the Local? : Reading Mis-Translation

The paper deals with three translated texts which are fraught with mis-translations. The three texts in question, Baudelaire's “?pilogue” of Le Spleen de Paris, and “Le Voyage” of Les Fleurs du Mal, and Yeats' “On Being Asked for a War Poem,” are read in such a way that the respective subtexts of “social ciritique,” “patriotic discourse” and “political discourse” are unveiled. These readings show that in translating, what is often translated is a translator's “prejudices of perception” and “local concerns,” calling for an alternative understanding of the nature of translated text, translation behavior, and the discourse on translation.