Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?

Abstract The Limits of which Language? Considering Wittgensteinian Epistemologies of Literary Translation in the Encounter with Rabindranath Tagore’s Play The King of the Dark Chamber In this paper, I attempt to look at Wittgenstein’s commentary on the translatability of literature through the lens of his evolving philosophy of language – and vice versa. The examination is grounded in a close reading of two documents, both relating to the Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore’s play The King of the Dark Chamber (1910). The first datum is a letter to Paul Engelmann, written in 1921, in which Wittgenstein complains that he perceives a ‘chasm’, possibly the result of an inadequate German translation, between himself and the text; the second, crafted alongside Yorick Smythies in 1939, is a translation of a single pivotal scene from Tagore’s ornate style into a plain, contemporary English. An interpretation of this rendering’s aims and accomplishments suggests a Wittgensteinian approach to literary translation which hinges on a contention somewhat resonant with the play’s mysticism: the profound contingency of the outlook, or aspect, engendered by one’s own language and form of life is impossible to address head-on through saying, but can be shown in the act of translation – if one only finds a way to let a sense of cultural alterity show through the words on the page.