Applying Transreading in Teaching Literaturphilosophie: Laozi, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Olav H. Hauge

Introduction

This chapter aims to demonstrate how “transreading”—a multilingual approach that integrates lento (slow-close) reading, poetic translation, cultural hermeneutics, and creative writing—enables teachers and students to better explore world literature and philosophy.1

Transreading has no direct connection with the grammar-and-translation method from the 18th and 19th centuries, which originated from the Latin teaching tradition. That method seeks to teach the words with definitional and inflectional possibilities so that the texts can be translated “correctly.”

Transreading differs from that method in many ways. It integrates four interdependent activities: lento reading sharpens our focus on linguistic and argumentative nuances; poetic translation compels us to consider both the content of a message and the delivery that reinforces it; cultural hermeneutics grounds individual works in a panoramic context; and creative writing hones our skills in condensing all these considerations for a new audience.

Transreading provides deeper access to culture and allows us to better understand language. This in turn helps to facilitate language acquisition. By helping to build up cultural and linguistic familiarity, it makes language teaching much more interesting and relevant for students. They get to use their own backgrounds in an exciting investigation. Transreading comes naturally in the work of unraveling poetic mysteries.

We will divide the chapter into two parts. In Part 1, a teacher from a multicultural background describes how transreading enables her effectively to introduce the Norwegian icon Olav H. Hauge to a wider audience. In Part 2, students from different academic backgrounds share their transreadings of three poet-philosophers: Laozi, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Together, we will demonstrate how transreading as an educational tool recognizes the multicultural classroom, provides new insights, draws on many cultures and languages as a resource, increases meta-cultural and meta-linguistic awareness, and helps each student become a transreader: a lento reader, poetic translator, cultural critic, and creative writer in one.