Translation, History, Culture; A Sourcebook ed. by A. Lefevre

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a text very often owes its impact to a judicious choice of words and
locutions. If that is lost the author loses all his elegance and the
sense of what he says is betrayed. And yet translation means great
labor more than great praise. If you render the original faithfully, to
the best of your ability, you will only gain respect for having
redrawn the original portrait, but fame remains with the original. If
you render it badly all the blame falls on you. If your patron has
not said things well you are considered a man of bad judgment for
not having chosen a better model. In short a translator is never
Translation, development of language, education 53
called an author. But do I want to discourage translators for all
that? Certainly not, and still less do I want to deprive them of the
praise that is their due since they are one of the reasons why France
is, at least, able to begin to taste good things. They even derive a
benefit from it all: if they translate well their author s name will
make their own name live on. It is surely no small thing to have
your own name written in good places. Those who write original
works often run the risk of not living as long as translators,
especially since a good translation is worth more than a bad
original. What is more, well-made translations are able to greatly
enrich a language. The translator can turn a beautiful Latin or
Greek phrase into French and he can bring the weight of sentences,
the majesty of clauses, and the elegance of the foreign language to
his new country. These are two points that count in his favor since
they come close to general concepts. The translator should be a
little more wary when it comes to particulars, I think, just as he
should be a little more wary with new words that are easy to spot
and therefore suspect. A translator who has not presented any other
work of his to the public, except translations, will not enjoy the
favor of the readers when he coins new words, even though he is
the one who must deal with new words all the time. That is the
reason why the translator s task is not too highly thought of.
Granted, when his author is excellent (and a prudent man will not
translate any others) the translator will be allowed to use brand new
words, as long as it is obvious that there are no other words
available, and he will be praised for doing so. The continuous use
of periphrasis, or circumlocutions, is too much of a drawback in
translation. It also diminishes the merit of the author s ingenious
work and, by the same token, the merit of translation as an art
since these words belong to art and they might even be said to be
so artificial that few people even know the laws that govern them. I
can never stop wondering at those people who want to invoke
Horace s authority to blame word for word translation.
Word for word translations do not find mercy in our eyes, not
because they are against the law of translation but simply because
two languages are never identical in their vocabulary. Ideas are
common to the understanding of all men but words and manners of
speech are particular to different nations. Do not enlist Cicero
against me in this, because he does not praise the conscientious
translator, and I will not praise him either. I mean the translator
must keep the characteristics and the freshness of the language he
54 Translation/History/Culture
translates into. I most decidedly maintain that he should not lose
any part of the author s style or even choice of words when he
deals with matters symbolized by two languages, for in that case the
author s spirit and wit are often bound up with his style and choice
of words. If anyone could translate the whole of Virgil into French
verse, phrase for phrase and word for word, he would deserve the
highest praise. For how could a translator better do his duty than
by coming as close as possible to the author he is subject to?
Furthermore, think of the grandeur involved in having a second
language convey all the elegance of the first while also keeping its
own. But that is impossible, as I said before.
August Wilhelm Schlegel, 1767 1845. German critic,
translator, and literary historian.
Extract from Homers Werke von Johann Heinrich Voss
( The Works of Homer by Johann Heinrich Voss ),
published in 1796.
A language must completely take the place of another, so that those
common elements that cannot be regulated by means of general
prescriptions can be observed in addition to its rules. All poetic translation,
which aims not just at meaning in general, but rather at the most intricate
connotations, remains an imperfect approximation. No proof is needed
that whatever license an original poet is allowed should also be allowed
in full to a poet who translates, because he finds himself in a much less
favorable situation. But it is just as certain that there are fixed limits for
any language, whether caused by its original nature that endures for
ever, or by evolution from time immemorial. You cannot go beyond
those limits without incurring the justified reproach that you are not
speaking a valid language that is recognized as such, but rather a jargon
of your own invention. No necessity can be adduced as a justification
for this.
The problem of the extent to which the individual has the right to
contribute to the improvement of language has been much discussed
of late. The history of languages proves that individual writers,
especially poets, are able to exert an immeasurably large influence in
this matter by means of their example. Much has, moreover, initially
been condemned as corrupting a language, which later entered into
that very language and proved itself to be rather an ennobling factor.
Proposals to introduce into a language an element that is not yet
Translation, development of language, education 55
available in it, should therefore not be rejected without thorough
consideration. Like all human institutions, language, that marvelous
charter of our higher destiny, also strives for the better, and the
individual who becomes an organ of this general desire by engaging
in certain endeavors, deserves well of language. There is only one
indispensable condition: that he should not demolish while engaged
in the act of construction. The innovation proposed should not be
allowed to contradict what is already firmly established. If a language
were merely something pieced together, made up of similar or
dissimilar components, a formless mass, one would be allowed to
change it or add to it at will, and every enrichment would be a gain,
without exception. But language is an ordered whole, or at least it is
meant to be gradually growing into one. All its elements attract or
reject each other according to the laws of kinship and similarity.
General forms pervade it, bring matter to life and bind it together
with their power. The simpler its laws, the more encompassing and
coherent, the more perfectly it will be organized. The more freedom
establishes itself parallel to these laws, not in opposition to them, the
more a language is adapted to poetic use. Excess of positive law-
giving that leaves little or no maneuvering space for the development
of original dispositions is a great evil, both in language and in the
state. If what is being said about the much praised plasticity of our [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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