MARCI VOGEL

A poetics of the étrangère

Welcoming the étrangère

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Chado, by way of Kakuzo Okakura's 1906 The Book of Tea.
Chado, by way of Kakuzo Okakura's 1906 The Book of Tea

Wise navigator of translation, Paul Ricoeur identifies the experience of crossing over languages as both challenge and source of happiness. Equipoise and equanimity arrive via linguistic hospitality, that sheltered inlet "where the pleasure of dwelling in the other's language is balanced by the pleasure of receiving the foreign word at home, in one's own welcoming house." We set anchor there. Low tide, walk through shallow waters to shore. We arrive someplace entirely new — and also strangely familiar.