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John Dryden

One

Hugo Friedrich

On the art of Translation

The art of translation will always have to cope with the reality of untranslatability from one language to another.

Translators are pressing by necessity to remain, as closely as possible, faithful to the original text.

Three approaches to translation:

1. Word-to-word translation

Early Latin translations caused lexical Graecisms to enter into the translations.

1. Transposition of ideas. Translation reflects the general stylistic features and meaning of the foreign words. (Saint Jerome: “The translator considers thought content a prisoner which he transplants into his own language with the prerogative of a conqueror).
2. Later Romans: translation is seen as a contest with the original text. The goal is to surpass the original.
3. Purpose of translation is to go beyond the appropriation of content to a releasing of those linguistic and aesthetic energies that therefore had existed only as pure possibility in one’s own language and had never been materialized before.

The emerging of classical French writing style. Seneca translations by Malherbe. The new form of writing took root as the result of a translation in which the translator felt free not only to appropriate the content of the original texts but also to create a style in opposition to that in the source language. Thus a new style of writing emerged.

Translation is an interaction between two literatures.

Translation is an act of transformation (Nietzsche)

The poetic glimmer of the original is lost in translation (Dante)

18th century: there is no such thing as an adequate translation, one can hope for some tentative approximation.

19th century: Establishing the norm for the act of translation with the works of Schleiermacher and Humboldt: a movement toward the original, perhaps even a changing into the foreign for the sake of its foreignness.

Translator should use the language that gives the impression of leaning toward the foreign sensibility. All the power is generated by the original.

Ambiguities of the original text are part of the essential character of a work have to be maintained…. One can’t afford to change something that is elevated, exaggerated and unusual in the original to something light and easily accessible in the translation. (Humboldt)

Изменения, относящиеся к тексту оригинала:

1. Дословный перевод
2. Перевод идей
3. Приоритет языка перевода. Оригинал- бледная тень
4. Наоборот. Оригинал нужно соблюсти, включая его стилистику.

Two

John Dryden

On translation

Three levels of translation:

1. Word by word, line by line, - remains everything (Ben Johnson – Horace’s Art of Poetry)

2. Paraphrase – remain words, order is changed (Waller – Virgils’ Fourth Aeneid)

3. Imitation - remain ideas, general hints. (Cowle – Pindar’s Odes)

Cowley coined term ‘imitation’ - the effort of the translator to write as he supposes that author would have done, had he lived in our age and in our country.

No man is capable of translating poetry, who, besides a genius to that art, is not a master both of his author’s language, and of his own, nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his particular turn of thoughts and expression, which are the characters that distinguish, and as it were individuate him from all other writers.

It would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author’s words: ‘tis enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense. The sense of an author is to be sacred and inviolable.

John Dryden was speaking about his book ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE by Lord Roscommons and was confessing that he had used addition, omission in order to make a beautiful work of literature.

Translator is to make his author appear as charming as possibly he can, provided he maintains his character.

A man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue before he attempts to translate a foreign language.

Maintaining the character of an author is very important, because sometimes it’s impossible to judge the style of different authors by translations without the knowledge of originals, it’s even easy to confuse Virgil and Ovid.

The development of language is a long process, Greeks were labouring many hundred years upon their language, they cut off as many articles as they could spare, comprehending in one word what we are constrained to express in two, we are constrained to employ more words than the ancients needed.

The translator’s task is t steer betwixt the two extremes of paraphrase and literal translation, to keep as near the author as possible, without losing all his graces, the most eminent of which are in the beauty of his words.

While translating Chaucer into contemporary English, John Dryden have not tied himself to a literal translation, but have often omitted what he judged unnecessary or not of dignity enough to appear in the company of better thoughts.

Earl of Leicester considered that such kind of translation is little less than profanation and sacrilege, because of alternation of original.

The qualification of a translator – he must a master of the language he translates out of, and that he translates into, he must be eloquent enough to express the sense of the author using the language of translation.

Translator must never dwell on the words of his author. He ought to possess himself entirely and perfectly comprehend the genius and sense of his author, the nature of the subject, and the terms of the art or subject treated of.

Three

Arthur Schopenhauer