Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?

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.