While most translators – myself included – surely hope that their work can to some extent stand on its own, rather than being a mere aid to comprehension, the process of translating the present volume has confronted me with a number of problems and questions that I would consider it necessary – and useful – to expand upon. Though this primarily serves the purpose of allowing the reader to understand certain details that might otherwise remain unknown, I would also like to imply certain areas for further reflection by posing one or two fundamental questions about the task of translation.
One of the most dangerous assumptions a translator can make, in my view, is that a word need only be translated once, and that this translation can be used for all subsequent appearances of that word. This may be true of simple factual terms – ‘to go’ for gehen, for example – though even here each context may give the word a slightly different shading. In the realm of philosophical and aesthetic thought, however, matters are more complicated; while some philosophy – the works of Kant and Hegel, for example, or the logical positivism of the twentieth century – relies sufficiently on fixed notions to enable more or less consistent translation (though this does not mean that the terms decided on will be satisfactory), there are countless works which operate outside of such a clear framework. This applies especially to Adorno, who never allowed his ideas to be enslaved by rigid terminological systems, and accordingly depended on the subtlety and polyvalence of language in a way that Husserl, for example, did not; where ideas are constantly being examined from different perspectives and questioned in their constitution, a spade is by no means a spade. This is obvious enough to readers of such texts, and may indeed be one of the things that makes them more enjoyable to them than works of pure epistemology, for example; it is in translating them, however, that this polyvalence becomes problematic. Native readers of English understand the ways in which an English word can have a variety of discrete, clearly definable meanings – some of them perhaps specialized ones – and will normally be able to decide which is intended. Native readers of German also understand this, of course, but their mode of reading is different in one fundamental respect: unlike English, German is relatively self-sufficient in its etymological reservoir. By this I mean that, rather than drawing on Latin and Greek for a large part of its word-formation,1 it more often forms words, both prefix and stem, from Germanic elements also present as independent words in the language. One thus often finds, upon comparing a German word with its English synonym, that it is – in its literal meaning – a direct translation of the English word's classical model(s), which has generally moved to the background in the word's contemporary usage. One example – there are countless others – would be the word überflüssig, meaning ‘superfluous’. The latter is derived from the Latin elements super (over) and fluere (to flow), and would thus, kept in English vocabulary, be ‘overflowing’. As for the German, that is precisely what we find here: there is no retreat to a foreign language, and consequently the word – potentially – conjures up an image of a barrel overflowing with excess liquid or such like, as its semantic origin is foregrounded rather than encoded. While I am not suggesting that a German speaker will think of the literal meaning with every usage, the factor of semantic estrangement present in English2 is at least stripped away for anyone who gives a moment's thought to the words they use.
While this aspect may be relatively insignificant in everyday language, it takes on a much greater meaning in such a medium as philosophy, where it can result in a zone of fluctuation in which a certain ambiguity of position between meanings is maintained. The two most famous examples are associated with Hegel: Aufhebung and Geist. The former unites the two meanings of the word aufheben, namely ‘to cancel or negate’ and ‘to preserve’, in order to connote the continual dialectical movement involving negation and subsequent synthesis. While the term has become so established and widely understood that the original fluctuation between the two meanings is no longer an issue, its entire philosophical significance depends on this. The term that has generally been agreed on as its English translation, namely ‘sublation’ (which some translators reject in favour of preserving the German, as also with Geist), is consistent with English conventions in its removal of the word to the Latinate; the question of how accurately it renders the original meaning is thus shifted to the background, as there is no attempt to re-enact it in real English terms. While I can accept it as the general philosophical term – a case where the notion of one fixed translation is valid3 – it is clear enough that the directness of the German, which does not feel the need to resort to obscure meanings, rather taking very common and present ones, is completely lost. With Geist, I would argue that the case is slightly different, as a simultaneous awareness of its two most obvious cognates, ‘spirit’ and ‘mind’, and the ways in which they combine and interact, can convey the sense of the original reasonably well without recourse to Latinate neologisms. Unlike Aufhebung, Geist has been translated in a variety of ways in the present text: by turns ‘spirit’, ‘mind’ and ‘intellect’. One can observe that English, unlike German, separates these meanings, rather than uniting them as Hegel did – indeed, this is generally the case in German (hence Geisteswissenschaften4 for ‘humanities’) – and it is the fluctuation between meanings that gives Geist its special quality; nonetheless, it has not been considered necessary (or possible, perhaps) to coin a new term such as ‘sublation’. As this particular word and its difficulties have been discussed in English so frequently, however, it can be assumed that those reading about ‘sublation’ will have some notion of this background. Unfortunately, not every word has such a privileged status.
It would be unnecessarily cumbersome to include constant references to the original German words in the text, as I have concluded for myself after encountering a sufficient number of translations where this is the case. As an exception, it can certainly be of value – fine distinctions that can hardly be conveyed in translation, such as Sartre's clearly distinct use of néant and rien in Being and Nothingness, may require highlighting through reference to the original, though the problem can sometimes be solved by capitalizing one of two related terms.5 But, if adopted as a rule, it seems to question the validity of the translation enterprise to such a degree that it should then perhaps be dispensed with altogether. If half the text is in the original language anyway, then the reader may as well resort to the original version. Rather than filling the translation with references to original terms, then, I now offer a list of some of the more slippery words used frequently by Adorno, in the hope of at least sharpening the reader's awareness somewhat by commenting on their meaning(s) and translation(s), while still enabling a fluent reading of the translation.
aufgehen An especially difficult word, in my opinion. It can mean ‘to be fulfilled’, ‘to add up’, or ‘to be subsumed’. It refers to a form of resolution, perhaps in a musical form whose proportions are so well judged that everything ‘works out’; alternatively, it can be a reference to the manner in which details are subsumed and dissolved within a whole. Where it is employed as a noun, I have used ‘fulfilment’, though its uses are varied. For example: ‘The mark of poor interpretation is its fulfilment in the representation of whatever is present.’ This particular fulfilment is not a successful resolution, but rather a contentment on the part of an interpretation to exhaust itself in an incomplete task.
Darstellung This word means ‘presentation’ and ‘representation’; in Adorno's usage, it often implies both at once. He uses it to refer to the act and general practice of performance, where a piece is presented to the public in a certain way; but he also brings out the implicit representation of musical meaning in the act of presentation. It thus implies both the mimetic (an imitation and reproduction of the work) and the semiotic (the realization and transmission of music-immanent meaning). Only rarely have I chosen ‘representation’, in cases where Adorno speaks more specifically of a context being represented, for example, without dealing so much with public interpretation. Nonetheless, the reader should note that ‘presentation’ always connotes an element of ‘representation’.
Erkenntnis One of the most fundamental epistemological terms, indeed the basis of the German term for epistemology, Erkenntnistheorie; it means ‘cognition’, ‘recognition’, ‘insight’ or ‘knowledge’. In the present work, however, Adorno most often uses the term in a musical-aesthetic sense, emphasizing the importance of the performer's Erkenntnis, i.e. insight into the structure and expression of a work. I have therefore generally used ‘insight’, though occasionally ‘recognition’, in the revelatory sense, which incorporates the meaning of its verb erkennen, ‘to recognize’.
erscheinen/Erscheinung As is so often the case with Adorno, there is no clear distinction made between the strict philosophical sense of certain words and their more common usage; Adorno speaks philosophically of everything. Thus Erscheinung can mean ‘phenomenon’, ‘act of appearance’ or simply ‘appearance’. It is more neutral than Schein, which I have sometimes equally translated as ‘appearance’, but often as ‘illusion’.
Gestus I am generally reluctant to resort to original German words, but, considering the importance of the original term Gestus, I have decided to retain it as a word that has been absorbed into English. It is not entirely unknown, especially in the context of Brechtian drama; here, it indicates the manner and comportment of music in a deeper sense than the mere stylistic surface, rather suggesting its fundamental mode of intention, behaviour and argumentation, though manifest more in an intuitive impression than any overt explication. It could, to remain within its etymological sphere, be considered somewhere between ‘gist’ and ‘gesture’.
Identität This has been consistently translated as ‘identity’, but in the meaning of ‘equivalence’ or ‘sameness’. As Adorno generally uses the word in this sense, rather than the more common sense, confusion can be avoided if one bears this in mind.
Imagination The reader should be especially aware of the background in this case, as this word is translated here as ‘imagination’, but in a different sense to the standard usage. The German word is used where Adorno speaks of the artist's intention in and envisioning of a work, that is to say what the artist imagines. It thus refers not to a general creativity, a wealth of ideas, but to the act of imagining. A similar, probably more common term in such contexts is Vorstellung; rather confusingly, this is frequently translated as ‘representation’, which I have strictly avoided here.
Sache The two essential meanings of this word are ‘matter’ and ‘cause’. Adorno frequently speaks of die Sache selbst, ‘the matter itself’, when emphasizing the importance of making interpretative decisions on the basis of the actual material and status of the work, rather than imposing predefined standards or styles. At the same time, in constantly arguing for a discarding of artistic vanity in favour of a selfless devotion to the works, a complete integrity of engagement, he automatically invokes a ‘cause’ to be fought for. Though it would have been conceivable to be case-specific in my translation, perhaps translating Sache as ‘work’ in one case, ‘material’ or ‘cause’ in another, etc., I here felt that consistency was appropriate, and kept ‘the matter itself’ as the standard rendition. I realize that it sounds a little more stilted in English than in German; at the same time, however, the extent of Adorno's use of the original phrase does somewhat exceed standard German usage.
Sinn Unproblematic enough in its direct correspondence to ‘sense’, it perhaps still requires a modicum of elucidation. Adorno speaks of musical Sinn a little more often than one would speak of musical ‘sense’, and also makes frequent use of the opposed adjectives sinnvoll and sinnlos. In many such instances one would, I think, speak in English of musical ‘meaning’, and accordingly translate sinnlos as ‘meaningless’. Although I have certainly not translated sinnvoll as ‘senseful’, in order to avoid implying that Adorno himself uses any such unconventional term, I have chosen ‘senseless’ over ‘meaningless’. The words sinnvoll and sinnlos imply, as well as the presence or absence of semantic sense, a productive or futile enterprise. Thus, if Adorno speaks of die einzig sinnvolle Interpretation, for example, he is implying both ‘the only semantically meaningful interpretation’ and ‘the only interpretation worth carrying out’. For sinnlos, ‘meaningless’ struck me as too general, a simple negation of any value; Adorno often uses it to emphasize how a particular performance or school of interpretation renders the musical surface with great expertise, but in a way that lacks any sense, that is to say both music-immanent logic and structure and, consequently, coherent expression. Though ‘senseless’ is not a word generally associated with such thoughts on music, it seemed the most consistent choice.
Wiedergabe This has been consistently translated as ‘rendition’. The literal meaning is probably best summarized as ‘reproduction through action’, which is why it is also the name for the play button on hi-fi equipment.
Zusammenhang Again, a word whose meanings exist less in an either/or than in a both/and state. Its conventional meaning, which is also the primary meaning here, is ‘context’. Its literal meaning reveals what creates a context: a hanging-together (zusammenhängen), i.e. a coherent relationship among diverse elements. Adorno sometimes shifts very fluently between more specific comments on the musical context and demands for coherence in his use of Zusammenhang, in such a way that it is often debatable which of the two meanings is more present, indeed whether one of them actually dominates. Fortunately, however, the two are close enough to prevent any gross semantic deviation where I may have misjudged; united, as they usually are here in the original, they reinforce Adorno's absolutism, his uncompromising demand for attention to every detail and the implications it has for the sense of an entire piece.
This is probably not a list of all the words that may cause confusion; it covers the essentials, however, and will hopefully contribute productively to the reader's general approach to the text. No translation can ever be fully satisfactory; while there can be rare, inspiring occasions when the translation of a sentence actually seems to enrich (rather than tamper with) its meaning, it is often a matter of limiting the damage. But rather than lamenting, as countless translators have done in the past, the eternally ‘untranslatable’ nature of texts such as those by Adorno, Derrida, Deleuze and others, whose use of language is both specialized and idiosyncratic, I would suggest that everything which means can be translated. The tools for doing so may often have to be found first, and some cases will require more creativity and more numerous attempts than others; but Adorno has something to tell us, and can therefore also do so in translation.
Translator's notes are preceded by ‘TN’.
Wieland Hoban
March 2005