Translational analysis and the dynamics of reading

This paper suggests that close reading of translations and their source texts, in a pedagogical context, can enhance university students’ awareness of literary reading as a dynamic process. The text-oriented work by the German reception theorist Wolfgang Iser (1978) serves as a point of departure. The pedagogical context described is Swedish university teaching of literature, but it is assumed that the basic ideas are relevant also for university teaching in other countries. An example from H. B. Paull’s English translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Steadfast Tin-Soldier” is given to illustrate the argument.