The essence of light: Sacred texts in translation

‘The Essence of Light in Translation’ takes the move from George Steiner’s <i>After Babel</i> and his observations on the word ‘Light’. Scope of the present contribution envisages to highlight the awareness of the dynamics of ‘otherness’ and diachronic variation by examining the one key-word (Light) as it is thematized and foregrounded in sacred texts across cultures, with a focus on English and varieties of English. The comparative approach here focuses on parallel texts and intertexts to propose a different ‘vision’ of a major theme, where conceptual and semantic variation accounts for the choice of one specific theme, i.e. spiritual illumination, revelation, and the resulting creation and ‘trans-creation’ of the same theme in translation.