To possess a great strength of character; the self-confidence that allows initiative and success; a thoughtful, resolute, tenacious will; the faculty to dominate oneself, to guide oneself deliberately; a clear, easy, judicious confidence in the presence of anyone; the gift of influencing the thoughts and dispositions of others; the mental vigor and dexterity necessary to overcome a thousand sorts of difficulties: all this, indeed, seems inaccessible to most of us. These things, however, can be acquired. The present book will show you how to methodically determine in yourselves, to a large extent, all these qualities. To fortify by education the will, the power that governs the consciousness, is a matter of exercise. The subordination of the various psychological activities to the reflexive control of the intelligence constitutes the greatest quality of success, because it makes you fit to act in spite of obstacle or difficulty, in accordance with a decision or principle fixed in advance. At a certain level of psychic development, the will is constantly and intimately associated with the central "I". It allows the will to direct one's thoughts, to moderate or heighten, as the case may be, emotions or impulses, and to reign supreme over sensory states. Precise, continuous, intense volitions have, it is well understood, a much more effective action at a distance than indecisive, fugitive and neglected thoughts. The individual psychic influence is therefore increased by reducing the multiplicity of moods, learning to think with energy. In this book we will deal with a method of development of the will; first of all, self-control, then the practice of mental influence at a distance over one or more persons, and finally the application of the methods of voluntary conditioning of destiny. The first effects result first in an impulse to mental initiative, then in a feeling of security, of "power": one has the consciousness of being capable of efforts of will. Little by little, one's self-mastery increases, and soon one's senses, one's sensitivity, one's intellect are directed with the greatest satisfaction. Even independently of the direct tele-psychic influence on others, it is evident that one has succeeded in learning to master oneself, to reason about one's impressions. A look that expresses determination, a precise speech conducted with judgment, a calm and energetic attitude, impresses considerably. The man will carry out what he has planned in a manifestly active manner, with full attention to what he is doing, passing at the appointed moment to the next occupation, maintaining during all phases of his work the same directive expressing the same volition.

The three concepts mentioned in the title of this volume imply the contact between two or more literary phenomena; they are based on similarities that are related to a form of ‘travelling’ and imitation or adaptation of entire texts, genres, forms or contents. Transfer comprises all sorts of ‘travelling’, with translation as a major instrument of transferring literature across linguistic and cultural barriers. Transfer aims at the process of communication, starting with the source product and its cultural context and then highlighting the mediation by certain agents and institutions to end up with inclusion in the target culture. Reception lays its focus on the receiving culture, especially on critcism, reading, and interpretation. Translation, therefore, forms a major factor in reception with the general aim of reception studies being to reveal the wide spectrum of interpretations each text offers. Moreover, translations are the prime instrument in the distribution of literature across linguistic and cultural borders; thus, they pave the way for gaining prestige in the world of literature. The thirty-eight papers included in this volume and dedicated to research in this area were previously read at the ICLA conference 2016 in Vienna. They are ample proof that the field remains at the center of interest in Comparative Literature.

Understanding the dynamics of British colonialism and the enormous ecological transformations that took place through the mobilization and globalized management of natures. For many critics, Romanticism is synonymous with nature writing, for representations of the natural world appear during this period with a freshness, concreteness, depth, and intensity that have rarely been equaled. Why did nature matter so much to writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? And how did it play such an important role in their understanding of themselves and the world? In Natures in Translation, Alan Bewell argues that there is no Nature in the singular, only natures that have undergone transformation through time and across space. He examines how writers—as disparate as Erasmus and Charles Darwin, Joseph Banks, Gilbert White, William Bartram, William Wordsworth, John Clare, and Mary Shelley—understood a world in which natures were traveling and resettling the globe like never before. Bewell presents British natural history as a translational activity aimed at globalizing local natures by making them mobile, exchangeable, comparable, and representable. Bewell explores how colonial writers, in the period leading up to the formulation of evolutionary theory, responded to a world in which new natures were coming into being while others disappeared. For some of these writers, colonial natural history held the promise of ushering in a “cosmopolitan” nature in which every species, through trade and exchange, might become a true “citizen of the world.” Others struggled with the question of how to live after the natures they depended upon were gone. Ultimately, Natures in Translation demonstrates that—far from being separate from the dominant concerns of British imperial culture—nature was integrally bound up with the business of empire.

This volume explores the relationship between literature and translation from three perspectives: the creative dimensions of the translation process; the way texts circulate between languages; and the way texts are received in translation by new audiences. The distinctiveness of the volume lies in the fact that it considers these fundamental aspects of literary translation together and in terms of their interconnections. Contributors examine a wide variety of texts, including world classics, poetry, genre fiction, transnational literature, and life writing from around the world. Both theoretical and empirical issues are covered, with some contributors approaching the topic as practitioners of literary translation, and others writing from within the academy.