Ever since the first ALTA conference I have been fascinated by the potential of translation to transform the teaching of literature and the humanities. I began my first attempt at literary translation (two medieval epic poems) as a result of that conference; and translating confirmed my initial insight that asking students to approach literary texts from the perspective of a translator (as opposed, for example, to the perspective of a test taker or a paper writer) can have a profoundly positive effect. In a real sense I have based the last twenty years of my teaching career on the insights gained from translation.

Try to imagine with me a Humanities program (or an entire university, for that matter) based on the principles of literary translation. I believe that translation provides the conceptual framework for an approach to reading, in the broadest sense of that word, that emphasizes the fusion of logical and poetic thinking at the heart of every work of creative art. Translation can help us all recognize the linkages among all forms of creative art: verbal, visual, musical. It can nurture a mode of interpretation whose goal is sympathetic understanding, luring students (and teachers) to a more complex level of thinking. How vibrant it could be!

Dennis Kratz is the translator of several books from Medieval Latin: The Romances of Alexander the Great (1991) and Waltharius and Ruodlieb (1984). He has been the co-editor of Translation Review since 1979.

Dennis Kratz has been the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas since the Fall semester 1996.