translation

[schilippe]

can someone please tell me which translation i should read???

[Drone]

I recommend the translation of Cohen.
It's written in a loose and funny way.
Enjoy your reading^^

[Bakiryu]

read it in the original language: is funnier!

[Drone]

Wow, I agree with you. But you see, for me, even English is a second language, Spanish is totally unknown to me...But I wish someday I could read the original text.

[grace86]

Cohen is a pretty nice translation. So is Rutherford. Edith Grossman has done the newest translation and I have heard good things about that one.

I'd go with one of those three.

[Drone]

Is Rutherford's the earliest of the three?
I saw an old seemingly hand-made edition with many beautiful illustrations.
This edition is said to be the best, by one of my friends.

[grace86]

I think Cohen's translation might be the oldest of the three...Grossman's the newest.

The illustrations are probably by Gustave Dore, he did some illustrations for The Divine Comedy by Dante.

I've never seen the illustrations for Don Quixote, that might be nice to see.

Any of the three translations I recommended are pretty easy flowing to read. I don't know if you noticed, but the chapters are short and most of the time funny...it shouldn't be a hard read, it really is entertaining. I am almost done reading it.

I am reading Rutherford's and enjoy it a lot. He keeps it pretty poetic but at a modern day reading level.

If you are reading it, you can always join our reading group here on LitNet...it's called Don Quixote Reading Group. We'd enjoy your comments. :D

[Drone]

I've seen an illustration book by Dore on Don Quixote the other day in a bookstore. Don Quixote's face is extremely thin and long. I almost bought that book.
Thank you for your recommendation. I'm really willing to join that group.
Could you please give me a link to it?

[Drone]

I've just found it...Thank you

[grace86]

:D You're welcome Drone. Hope I've helped and hope to see you around on the thread. It's only just started recently and most of us on there are reading other books as well, so it is a little slow.

[NickAdams]

Is anybody familiar with the Burton Raffel translation titled Don Quijote- with a J?

[ngtotd_dtrt]

I'm reading the Ormsby translation of Quixote...found this as an 'online book'. Enjoyable and fun read with a nice 'Translators Preface'.

I picked up a library version to read when I was away from my computer (or hadn't printed out some pages to take with me), but it was a different translation (don't recall which) and much more difficult to read, IMO..or at least would require the mind/eyes to adjust. A bit like the difference between the King James version of the Bible and the NIV.

Anyway, it's the top one listed in this search
onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu
Half-way through it now and having a ball reading it. Like a 'modern day' Canterbury Tales.
:D

[Sparrow]

I have been searching for a good translation as well... I'm thinking of trying the Rutherford translation, as I have generally had good experiences with translations from the Penguin publishing company... I plan to one day read it in the original Spanish, but, alas, I am only two months into the first semester of Spanish... Mebbe in a few years.

[Roger55]

Is anybody familiar with the Burton Raffel translation titled Don Quijote- with a J?

Nick

Raffel's translation has the advantage of being in a Norton Critical Edition. It is is very modern English and the poetry is usually blank verse.

I saw several references to Cohen's Translation. This is the Penguin Translation I had in high school that I could not get beyond 50 pages when reading. That was back before the fall of the Roman Empire. The type set is much to small now and causes eye strain.

Putnam's translation, now available in the Modern Library Edition, is a little dated (1948), but he can write a sonnet and so, translates Cervantes sonnets as sonnets (they are Petrarchan sonnets by the way). The print is also relatively large;) .

[snufflesrules]

Hi, just joined this group. So nice to see that there are other people out there who enjoy reading Don Quixote.
Anway, I read the Rutherford translation and I liked that. Sometimes it seemed slightly difficult, but that might be because English is not my first language.
Just got the Grossman translation, too,but I haven't started on that yet.

[vav0001]

I've just joined. I am listening to Don Quixote on tape with the translation by Grossman. I came to this site so I could read and reread the poem and sonet in chapter 18. That is a disadvantage on listening to a book. I am into the 2nd part and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Sometimes I find myself driving down the road and laughing out loud! Of course, with a book on CD, a lot of the interpretatioin comes from the reader, and this one seems to be doing a great job.

[Jedidiah]

I bought two copies of the Tobias Smollet translation of Don Quixote for me and my brother(they were those that are in Barnes & Noble Classics editions) over Christmas. They are filled with Gustave Dore illustrations.
Tobias Smollet lived in the 1700's and some of the dialogue in his version has early modern english, i.e., thee's and thou's.
I'm starting to have second thoughts on whether this was the best translation for me to get. I haven't seen anyone mention Tobias Smollet yet.
The poems in his version are beautifully done however, and maybe if I read this version it will give me the same sensation of distance that a modern spanish speaker would feel if he read the original version (how valuable is that sensation anyway?) and it also might highten that sense of old romanticsm, and heroics that this man feels (quixote) that is now (and by then too) far out-dated.
So, in conclusion, does anyone know if Tobias Smollet is worth it?--or someone else?

[John Gargo]

Hello!

I am about 40 pages from finishing Tobias Smollett's translation of Don Quixote. It is my first experience with the book, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, some of the language is a bit outdated. I've also been told, although I cannot confirm it, that Smollett tends to "overflower" the language, making it actually seem more ponderous and wordy than necessary. As I do not know Spanish, I cannot read the text in its original language.... however, I will be revisiting this work in the future (I'll give myself a one or two year breather, haha).

My friend has showered accolades on John Rutherford's 2000 translation (he was the one who inspired me to read this wonderful book), and I hear many great things about Edith Grossman's 2003 translation, which has a preface by Harold Bloom and a lot of positive comments adorn the back cover. :)