Bulletin > Volume 23 Dry Dust, Hazy Images, and Missing Pieces: Reflections on Translating Religious Texts

Swanson, Paul L.

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This essay is based on a talk given at Indiana University in the spring 1998. One of my conscious goals was to play with language in order to indirectly illustrate the multivalence of words, to show how specific words or images can suggest and lead to other words and ideas, and to suggest the implications for translation. The talk itself was an experiment in controlled spontaneity, and an attempt to play with words. The following, then, is an attempt to recast this verbal game in written form.