Assessing the role of style in literary translation

Abstract

Literary translation and its characteristics have been a point of attraction in literary and academic circles for so many years. It has been generally accepted that since style is the most distinguishing element of a literary text, its recreation in translation is of utmost importance. Hence, in order to understand the hows and whys of literary translation, a sound and definite description of what a literary text is, is needed as a first step. A source text of literature does not have the same qualities as those of its translated version since the translation carries in itself the shadows of both the source and the target linguistic and literary elements. In order to overcome the challenges of literary translation then, it is a prerequisite for the translator to be a very good reader of literature in order to fully grasp all the literary, stylistic and cultural qualities of the source text, with all its intended meanings and effects. © 2017 Ovidius University. All rights reserved.