Angst and repetition in Danish literature and its translation

from Kierkegaard to Kristensen and høeg

Kirsten Malmkjær

pp. 251-268

in: Jean Boase-Beier, Lina Fisher, Hiroko Furukawa (eds), The Palgrave handbook of literary translation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

Malmkjær ("Wreaking Havoc: on forgetting the poetry in the Prose." In Epstein BJ (ed) Northern Lights: Translation in the Nordic Countries, Peter Lang, Oxford, p. 137–150, 2009) illustrated the concept of local translation–translation of a longer work in which connections between parts of that work are lost because of translational inconsistencies with regard to choices of words and phrases. This chapter pursues and expand on this notion by examining (1) the treatment of Kierkegaard's concepts of Angest (1844) and Repetition (1843) by the translators Lowrie (S. Kierkegaard: The Concept of Dread. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1957) and Thomte (S. Kierkegaard: The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980); (2) the use of these concepts by two major Danish literary authors, Tom Kristensen, in the novel Hærværk (1930), and Peter Høeg, in the novel De maaske egnede (Borderliners) (2002) and (3) the extent to which the thread so clearly visible in the Danish texts can be seen in the translations into English of these novels.

Cited authors

Kierkegaard Søren