WORLDS BEYOND WORDS:

TRANSLATING DAVID LODGE INTO MEDIA(TED) CONTEXTS AND MEANINGS

Abstract

Punning Phrases, Puzzling Translations
As a rule, semantic and visual allusions enable the writer (translator, editor) to break out of
the linear constraints of hermeneutic text construction by introducing echoic or reflected
meanings in the manner of progressing regression. The aim of the present paper is, before
anything else, that of investigating the process of translation as mediation (of meanings
and/or cultural brands) wherein David Lodge the iconic brand (for satire on the academia)
is culturally trans-lated into a new commodity, a new consumer good which is harnessing
power not as product embodying work, but rather as a commodity which is different from
and differing with the original, fathered both by the translator of the novel and by its editor
(the artistic creator who finally decides on the book cover of the new, translated novel).