Translation as ‘Rewriting’: Revisiting Translation Views of Tagore and Lefevere

Abstract

Translation involves the task of transferring a text from the source language to the target one. During the process of this transfer, the source text is rewritten and eventually gets accepted in the receptor language as the ‘rewriting of the original’. Tagore for the first time applied the word ‘rewriting’ as an equivalent of creative translation but left it unexplained. Translation practices of Tagore and a few other translators confirm his belief that translation creates a new independent work. Lefevere gives the word a new lease of life in the 1980s through his writings and it has since come to be associated with his name. Both Tagore and Lefevere made theoretical contribution to the concept of ‘rewriting’. One needs to revisit their translation views to understand how ‘rewriting’ of the original comes about in the receptor language.