Invisibility and Hypervisibility: Rabindranath Tagore and His Self-Translated English Works in the Western World

Abstract

Abstract Translation inherently involves grappling with cultural, power, and knowledge dynamics. It encompasses the shaping of ideas by those in control and the influence of translation on the perception of cultures, peoples, and texts. While translation can empower marginalized voices, it may also reinforce power imbalances by favoring dominant languages and cultures in colonial contexts. Translation is a crucial instrument in shaping, reflecting, and challenging global power dynamics. Lawrence Venuti classifies translation strategies into domestication and foreignization, associating the former with Anglo-American hegemony and the latter as a challenge to Western cultural dominance. He suggests that these strategies result in different outcomes for translators’ visibility: domesticating translators go unnoticed, while foreignizing translators emerge from obscurity. However, the translation practices in colonial and postcolonial contexts demonstrate that Venuti’s binary categories may oversimplify the complexities of translation activities. Rabindranath Tagore’s self-translation from Bengali into English complicates Venuti’s theory, as both domesticating and foreignizing translations coexist. Tagore, as a translator, and his English audiences engage in both strategies. His foreignization goal, introducing Indian culture to the West, is achieved through domesticating his poetry for acceptance. Simultaneously, his English readers adopt both approaches, connecting Tagore’s writing to the English literary tradition while exoticizing differences. This results in Tagore transitioning from invisibility to hypervisibility, but within two decades, he fades into obscurity in the Western world. Tagore’s experience underscores that pursuing visibility exclusively or relying solely on foreignizing translation strategy cannot effectively challenge Western hegemony. Instead, efforts should be made to safeguard against the pervasive influence of imperial power in the cultural exchange between the non-Western (English-speaking) world and the West (English-speaking world).