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Wilhelm von Humboldt

From the introduction to his Translation of Agammemnon

No word in one language is completely equivalent to a word in another, if one disregards those expression that designate purely physical objects. Each language express a concept somewhat differently.

The indeterminate force of a thought forms itself into a word. The origin of a word would be analogous to the origin of an ideal form in the imagination of the artist. A word already presupposes the certainty of its being understood.

It can be argued that the more a translation strives toward fidelity, the more it ultimately deviates from the original, for in attempting to imitate refined nuances and avoid simple generalities it can, in fact, only provide new and different nuances.

Translation is one of the most necessary tasks of any literature, partly because it directs people who don’t know another language to forms of arts and human experience that would otherwise have remained totally unknown.

All forms of language are symbols, not the objects themselves, not prearranged signs, but sounds.

To the same extent that a language is enriched due to translations, a nation is also enriched (German language, imitating Greek meter)

If translation is to give the language and spirit of a nation that which it does not possess or possesses in another form, then the first requirement is always fidelity.

In general every good translation should grow out of a simple and modest love to the original

A translation should indeed have a foreign flavor to it, but only to certain degree. As long as one does not feel the foreigness et does fee; the foreign, a translation has reached its highest goal.

A translation cannot and should not be a commentary. It should not contain ambiguities caused by insufficient understanding of the language and awkward formulations.

Ease and clarity always remain virtues that a translator attains only with the utmost difficulty, and never through mere hard work and revision: they are due for the most part to fortuitous inspiration.

Six

Johahn Wolfgang von Goethe

Translations

3 kinds of translation.

1. Acquaints us with the foreign country on our own terms – best for prose translation
2. Translator endeavors to transport himself into the foreign situation, as a result appropriates the foreign idea and represents it as his own. (parodistic approach)This approach was used by French authors (Delille), by German translator (Wieland), Horace H.Wilson translated Messanger of the Clouds (Kalidasa’s Meghaduta), using paraphrase and supplementary words. He used transposing motifs.
3. The final and the highest of all approaches. Goal – to achieve perfect identity with the original (Voss – the German translator of Homer into hexameters). Voss assumed translation to approximate as closely as possible the external form of the original. A translation that attempts to identify itself with the original ultimately comes close to original and greatly facilitates the understanding of the original, provoking the interest to the original

In every literature all of these three epochs repeat, reverse and coexist simultaneously.

Seven

Dante Gabriel Rossetti