Translations -- validity Re: Great Works

[mal4mac]

Personally I think footnotes should be avoided as much as possible, as they interrupt the storytelling and distract the reader from getting absorbed in the imaginary world. There are of course some cases where a footnote is almost the only option and thus reasonable way to explain someting, like in Jane Eyre where they play a charade consisting of two words: "bride" and "well", together "bridewell". That would have been impossible to translate without completely rewriting a long passage of the book unless a footnote was used. But in general I would only use footnotes as a last resort.

But don't you think that turning a great, fluent masterpiece into a clumsy read is doing injustice to the book as well?

I think footnotes should be on the page and as short as possible. In this case, In English, I would simply have "Bridewell prison" as the footnote. This immediately gives the reader exactly what Austen is getting at. The problem with many scholars is that they feel the need indulge in providing excess detail, e.g., you'll see things like: "Bridewell Palace, London, was originally a residence of Henry VIII, and later became a poorhouse and prison. Its name has come to be synonymous with police stations and detention facilities in England and Ireland." Reading gumpf like that will quickly put a dent in your enjoyment (unless you *are* a scholar and have your scholars hat on...)

Note in translating you have more freedom! Why not actually insert "prison" into the main body of the text. Coulson does this kind of thing in Crime & Punishment, where a famous hat shop (Ivanov's, let's call it, I've forgotten the actual name...) is just Ivanov's in the original, but Coulson translates it as "Ivanov's hat shop". I bought Coulson mainly because of this, and did not regret it. Her translation is very readable.

The strict translators in this thread are now likely to give me a serious flaming, so I'll try and avoid it by making a plea for two kinds of translation - one strict, for scholars, ("never add 'hat shop'!") and one for the common reader, who is more interested in not losing the flow of a good story.

[mal4mac]

If she really left out things, made her translations directly without revising and dictionaries, then I doubt the quality of them. One needs to think about words, the connotation of them and one cannot do that in one go.

If you actually read the Oxford Guide (OG), and learned something about Garnett, then you will see that she is taken very seriously as a translator. You could say 'she left out things', but you could also say 'for a good reason', or 'she didn't really leave out things'.

In the the Oxford Guide you will see this spelled out in detail, with different translations of actual passages, compared to hers. This led me to the opinion that she probably didn't leave out anything of importance (to me), and I'm happy to read her translations.

Why shouldn't an easy read be reached by leaving things out, or adding the name of a hat shop? At least for books aimed at me, the common reader.

Are there any examples of anyone setting out to make a translation "vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions and prejudices of a given public"? Nabakov seems to be aiming at straw translators. I've never seen anyone else suggest that Garnett or any other serious, plain spoken translator was aiming at false beautification to sell books. Does Nabakov give any examples?

An example of Garnett simplifying & leaving things out, from the OG:

Rasolnikoff kisses Sonya's foot:
Sonya: Chto vy, chto vy eto? Peredo mnoy?
Literal: What are you, what are you doing? In front of me?
Garnett: What are you doing to me?

Garnett here translates more than just the language, she translates the response into the kind of response an English person would make. An English reader encountering the literal translation has to do part of the translation themselves! "What are you doing in front of me?" is just not an English expression. The reader might fail to do this, so they would be getting less from a literal translation than from Garnett's translation. As the OG says, "her fluent renderings allow Dostoevsky's current to pass over into English."

[ktr]

If you actually read the Oxford Guide (OG), and learned something about Garnett, then you will see that she is taken very seriously as a translator. You could say 'she left out things', but you could also say 'for a good reason', or 'she didn't really leave out things'.

In the the Oxford Guide you will see this spelled out in detail, with different translations of actual passages, compared to hers. This led me to the opinion that she probably didn't leave out anything of importance (to me), and I'm happy to read her translations.

Why shouldn't an easy read be reached by leaving things out, or adding the name of a hat shop? At least for books aimed at me, the common reader.

Are there any examples of anyone setting out to make a translation "vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions and prejudices of a given public"? Nabakov seems to be aiming at straw translators. I've never seen anyone else suggest that Garnett or any other serious, plain spoken translator was aiming at false beautification to sell books. Does Nabakov give any examples?

An example of Garnett simplifying & leaving things out, from the OG:

Rasolnikoff kisses Sonya's foot:
Sonya: Chto vy, chto vy eto? Peredo mnoy?
Literal: What are you, what are you doing? In front of me?
Garnett: What are you doing to me?

Garnett here translates more than just the language, she translates the response into the kind of response an English person would make. An English reader encountering the literal translation has to do part of the translation themselves! "What are you doing in front of me?" is just not an English expression. The reader might fail to do this, so they would be getting less from a literal translation than from Garnett's translation. As the OG says, "her fluent renderings allow Dostoevsky's current to pass over into English."

You know, if you ACTUALLY read the oxford guide, you might have seen their various criticism of her work.

"In comparison of the various translation's of Tolstoy's major novels, Henry Gifford suggested that Maudes' version was the most accurate, but also commended Edmonds for her rendition of dialogue, and Garnett for her "modest harmonies" (1978)

you could stop there, however, it goes on

"My consideration of the same material has led me to rather different conclusions. Garnett omits more than Maudes or Edmonds (which may be the reason she appears 'more harmonious')

then it goes on, on Dostoevsky

"Garnett sacrificed some of Dostoevsky's idiosyncrasies in order to produce acceptable English text... Like Garnett's, these versions are fluent, but tend to flatten and abbreviate the texts."

[kiki1982]

If you actually read the Oxford Guide (OG), and learned something about Garnett, then you will see that she is taken very seriously as a translator. You could say 'she left out things', but you could also say 'for a good reason', or 'she didn't really leave out things'.

In the the Oxford Guide you will see this spelled out in detail, with different translations of actual passages, compared to hers. This led me to the opinion that she probably didn't leave out anything of importance (to me), and I'm happy to read her translations.

Why shouldn't an easy read be reached by leaving things out, or adding the name of a hat shop? At least for books aimed at me, the common reader.

What???? Alow me to be this little bit exasperated. Making the work of a writer better by leaving things out??? That is an insult to the writer to say the least. I prefer to think of my role as a translator as something humble and hopefully adequate. I will not attempt to make anything better as the work is at its best clearly in its original versin, and maybe, maybe, I can just offer a glimpse of it in another language, depending on how far the structure of the target language is away from the source.
Things in literature are there for a reason and are not to be left out by one who is too lazy to make sense of it, or because 'it is easier'. What should the people say who read the original? That it is boring or even better, taking your logic, worse than the translation?

Are there any examples of anyone setting out to make a translation "vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions and prejudices of a given public"? Nabakov seems to be aiming at straw translators. I've never seen anyone else suggest that Garnett or any other serious, plain spoken translator was aiming at false beautification to sell books. Does Nabakov give any examples?

Maybe Nabokov doesn't give any examples, but Garnett springs to mind certainly in this instance.

An example of Garnett simplifying & leaving things out, from the OG:

Rasolnikoff kisses Sonya's foot:
Sonya: Chto vy, chto vy eto? Peredo mnoy?
Literal: What are you, what are you doing? In front of me?
Garnett: What are you doing to me?

Garnett here translates more than just the language, she translates the response into the kind of response an English person would make. An English reader encountering the literal translation has to do part of the translation themselves! "What are you doing in front of me?" is just not an English expression. The reader might fail to do this, so they would be getting less from a literal translation than from Garnett's translation. As the OG says, "her fluent renderings allow Dostoevsky's current to pass over into English."

Have you actually any idea what you are saying? And what she can have missed out? The Russians do read that sentence the same a you in English (literal), although the question is where the 'doing' comes from. But, point is that Garnett misses the whole ambiguousness of Raskolnikov as person against God, a kind of Faust. Therefore, 'what are you', 'what are you in front of me'. He is not doing anything to her, for God's sake. She is asking him what he is doing kissing her leg (not her foot apparently). Garnett could have chosen 'before me' if necessary, but not 'to' as the sense is totally different. But she chose to let her ignorance show. And I sincerely believe that.

So, no she did not make that better, if anything, she ruined it. And I sincerely mean that as well.

In some cases, it is entirely impossible to convey the true beauty of the piece. No matter what you do, it is impossible.

A simple example will follow in the next post.

[Annamariah]

Fascinating topic! I'm intrigued by this term: realia. Can you guys clarify it a bit more for me?

I defined the term when I first used it: "There are always some realia in texts (culture-bound elements and concepts, which pose particular translation problems in some situations), like Finnish "sauna" (a well-known one worldwide), or "jälkiuunileipä" (a certain kind of 100% rye bread, literally "after oven bread"), and those always add that that feeling of the original text and emphasize the source culture." So basically realia are things that appear in one culture, but cannot be directly translated to another language, because the concept doesn't exist in that other culture, so there is no vocabulary to describe it.

For example that "jälkiuunileipä" - it just doesn't exist in British or American culture. One can use hypernym "rye bread" to translate it, but what most people think when they hear "rye bread" is nothing like the Finnish "jälkiuunileipä". Just compare these two pictures I got from a quick Google search:

First "rye bread":


Then "jälkiuunileipä":

You need some strong teeth to chew this bread, it is not soft at all

Really? Older doesn't necessarily mean better. (As a medievalist, I never thought I'd say that! ) You said yourself that languages are always evolving, so anything that sounds dated at the time of the translation (the oldest one you can find) will no doubt sound even more dated now. I think there's a lot to be said for modern translations, esp. now that English/Comp Lit departments around the country are beginning to see "translation studies" as a legitimate field.

I agree about the "older is not necessarily better". Many old Finnish translations are written in a language so outdated that they are really hard to understand. Finnish literature and literary language are relatively young, and have mostly evolved during the past century, so the changes have been rapid too. (Seitsemän veljestä, "The Seven Brothers" by Aleksis kivi, often considered the First Finnish novel, was published in 1870.)

For some reason translated language seems to "get old" faster than works written originally in the same language. Partly this might be explained by the translation interference (the effect the original text has on the language of the translation, foreign structures, vocabulary and such) that always affects the translation to some extent.

I'm interested to hear what others think of translating from verse. Do you think translators should try to keep verse in verse form, even if they translate to a (necessarily) different meter and/or rhyme scheme? Should they try to capture some of the rhythm of the original? Or should they do prose translations, sacrificing some style for the sake of accuracy? For me, the best translations have been those that keep verse form (mostly free-form or blank verse) without trying to insist on any rhyme scheme.

Thoughts?

I'm not much into poetry myself, but this again is a matter of opinon, and to what purpose the translations are meant If they are, for example, for someone who wants to understand the original ones better, a word-to-word translation read beside the original work might be good. Then if they are for someone who just wants to enjoy the poetry without getting to know the original work, the translations should work as poetry by itself. In this case the translator should pay attention to rhythm and possible rhymes and not just content. Then if songs are translated, rhytm and rhymes are very important in order to maintain the singability.

[kiki1982]

"CYRANO
Ah ! si, loin des carquois, des torches et des flèches,
On se sauvait un peu vers des choses... plus fraîches !
Au lieu de boire goutte à goutte, en un mignon
Dé à coudre d'or fin, l'eau fade du Lignon,
Si l'on tentait de voir comment l'âme s'abreuve
En buvant largement à même le grand fleuve !
ROXANE
Mais l'esprit ?...
CYRANO
J'en ai fait pour vous faire rester
D'abord, mais maintenant ce serait insulter
Cette nuit, ces parfums, cette heure, la Nature,
Que de parler comme un billet doux de Voiture !
-Laissons, d'un seul regard de ses astres, le ciel
Nous désarmer de tout notre artificiel
Je crains tant que parmi notre alchimie exquise
Le vrai du sentiment ne se volatilise,
Que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains,
Et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins !
ROXANE
Mais l'esprit ?...
CYRANO
Je le hais, dans l'amour ! C'est un crime
Lorsqu'on aime de trop prolonger cette escrime !
Le moment vient d'ailleurs inévitablement,
-Et je plains ceux pour qui ne vient pas ce moment !
Où nous sentons qu'en nous une amour noble existe
Que chaque joli mot que nous disons rend triste !
ROXANE
Eh bien ! si ce moment est venu pour nous deux,
Quels mots me direz-vous ?" (Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand)

Now, this beautiful piece of poetry is the most fantastic thing ever written in French (agreed on by A LOT of people) together with its fellow verses in the whole play. We will not try to translate the verse, or even rhythm because any attempt would be futile, I am quite confident.

But, here, another problem poses itself, because there is (fantastic) wordplay in this and very hard to translate because it cannot mae any sense. There is 'esprit' and 'faire de l'esprit' which is played with here and it is hard because the one is 'spirit' in English and the other is 'be witty', a little the same obsession as Austen had, really.

CYRANO
Oh! if, far from the carquois, the torches and arrows,
we were to follow each other a little to things... fresher!
Instead of drinking drop by drop, from a cute
thimble of fine gold, the bland water of the Lignon,
If we tried to see how the soul waters itself
While drinking largely in one go the great stream!
ROXANE
But the spirit? ...
CYRANO
J'en ai fait pour vous faire rester/I showed some to make you stay (?)
At first, but now it would be insulting
This night, these perfumes, this hour, Nature,
By talking like a love letter of Voiture!
- Let, with one look of these stars, the sky
Disarm us of all our artifcialities
I fear so much that amongst our exquisit achemy
The real of the sentiment would vaporise
That the soul would empty itself with these vain pastimes
And that the finenst means to the end would but be the end!
ROXANE
But the spirit?...
CYRANO
I hate it in love! It is a crime
When one loves to prolong too much this fencing/duel!
The moment comes anyway inevitably,
- And I pity those for whom that moment does not come!
Where we feel that in us exists a noble love
That each beautiful word we say makes sad!
ROXANE
Well! if that moment has come for us,
Which words will you tell me?"

You can indeed translate the sense of it. No problem. I just did it, even the 'bland/fade (Fr)' of the river Lignon which makes an allusion to the Astrée as a pastoral (shepherds and shepherdesses and ideal love-making and that kind of thing) can be retained. Even some rhythm of all things! The only thing though which cannot be retained, and mightily important in this piece which actually revolves round it, is the distinction between the soul and the spirit and the wordplay because of it.

And you cannot possibly turn it into another phrase like 'mind' because that is not right. The word 'esprit' in French has two possible translations, 'mind' and 'spirit', yet here it must be 'spirit'. The soul, which Cyrano is at first speaking about is the thing that is constant in all of us (in Christian theology). The spirit is the thing that God gave us to live, his breath so to say. It houses our conscience, intuition and adoration. The question is how to translate it.

This is a translation:

"CYRANO:
If, leaving Cupid's arrows, quivers, torches,
We turned to seek for sweeter—fresher things!
Instead of sipping in a pygmy glass
Dull fashionable waters,—did we try
How the soul slakes its thirst in fearless draught
By drinking from the river's flooding brim!
ROXANE:
But wit?. . .
CYRANO:
If I have used it to arrest you
At the first starting,—now, 'twould be an outrage,
An insult—to the perfumed Night—to Nature—
To speak fine words that garnish vain love-letters!
Look up but at her stars! The quiet Heaven
Will ease our hearts of all things artificial;
I fear lest, 'midst the alchemy we're skilled in
The truth of sentiment dissolve and vanish,—
The soul exhausted by these empty pastimes,
The gain of fine things be the loss of all things!
ROXANE:
But wit? I say. . .
CYRANO:
In love 'tis crime,—'tis hateful!
Turning frank loving into subtle fencing!
At last the moment comes, inevitable,—
—Oh, woe for those who never know that moment!
When feeling love exists in us, ennobling,
Each well-weighed word is futile and soul-saddening!
ROXANE:
Well, if that moment's come for us—suppose it!
What words would serve you?" (by Mary F Guillmard and Gladys Thomas)

Now, the Lignon has gone, so away goes the allusion to the Astrée, a major work and base for this play. Including the contents of Voiture goes, Cupid has suddenly appeared (I suppose that makes it even more ridiculous) instead of keeping the pastoral thing that was going on since the beginning. And, worst of all, the spirit has entirely left the building. The whole thing has, ironically turned into one of those things Rostand is mocking: a pastoral. Ironically, the whole thing, that was so dense, had such emotional tension, almost made one cry with admiration, has left the building and has turned as bland as the river Lignon. It is nothing more at this point than a Romeo and Juliet-scene with a twist.
The whole point of the scene,though, was not reminding Romeo and Juliet to the public, but was to make certain things clear about philosophy, and doing that while satirising Shakspeare's play a little bit. Yet, the point of Cyrano de Bergerac was not only to laugh, but to laugh with intelligence, to laugh at the idyllic ideas that had been created in times past. That 'the means to the end' (the nice words) had in fact become 'the end' (the ultimate thing to strive for). That, everything, was lost in one sad attempt and actually even sadly accomplished wha it was absolutely not to accomplish: lose its contents in favour of gibberish.

If anything, one could have chosen to either leave the wordplay, because that is secondary to contents, or to put a footnote and explain the whole matter, putting the spirit-bit into the translation itself. Abandoning the spirit was the worst thing they could ever do. Not even style should be an excuse for that.

[kiki1982]

Really? Older doesn't necessarily mean better. (As a medievalist, I never thought I'd say that! ) You said yourself that languages are always evolving, so anything that sounds dated at the time of the translation (the oldest one you can find) will no doubt sound even more dated now. I think there's a lot to be said for modern translations, esp. now that English/Comp Lit departments around the country are beginning to see "translation studies" as a legitimate field.

It depends on the language I think. Some like Finnish, obviously , change quite a lot over time. Dutch too. If one watches 80s programms, one wonders how we could ever have talked like that . Still, I suppose it gives a better 'dated' feeling when reading an old translation, but then one can meet people like Garnett for Dostoevsky although she is probably no exception. Personally, I think that English has a rich vocab from a wide variety of eras. So, by the time you get to the 19th century, you can employ all kinds of words and sound very modern despite translating a work that might sound dated in its original language.

One of the oldest translations I've read is Dryden's translation of the Aeneid (1697). His was one of the translations (along with Mandelbaum's and Fitzgerald's) that were constantly consulted in my Latin class in our own (petty) attempts to translate the original Latin. Though I think Dryden was a brilliant poet, I found his adherence to rhyming heroic couplets not only distracting, but also less accurate than other translations. Whenever translators insist on translating from one language's verse (Latin dactylic hexameter) to another (English alexandrines), I think there's a good deal of the original rhythm lost. And if they try to add in rhyme schemes on top of that, YIKES!

My Latin is a little bit slacking now I am translating Kafka and learning Russian... I shouldn't have started learning Latin though... I see what you mean about the form of Dryden's attempt... I suppose, it again depends on language pairs. Languages that have roughly the same structure and roughly the same words could still work verse to verse. But I suppose Latin and English are just too different... Still, it depends how much was sacrificed... But yes, usually, for rhyme, too much is sacrificed.

I'm interested to hear what others think of translating from verse. Do you think translators should try to keep verse in verse form, even if they translate to a (necessarily) different meter and/or rhyme scheme? Should they try to capture some of the rhythm of the original? Or should they do prose translations, sacrificing some style for the sake of accuracy? For me, the best translations have been those that keep verse form (mostly free-form or blank verse) without trying to insist on any rhyme scheme.

I suppose, as I have demonstrated in Cyrano de Bergerac above, that I choose to not rhyme and try to keep the wording as similar as possible. French to English is fine, though, German is harder and other languages are probably hard. I don't know about prose translations, although, if you are saddled with a poet who makes amazingly long sentences broken up into verses, and you have to change the whole thing around because the verb is in the wrong place, like in the Aeneid I expect, then it can give solace. I am more of an accuracy person though. Give me any style, but please, please, please, retain the contents (although one can argue about the concept of verse being part of the contents ).

[mal4mac]

You know, if you ACTUALLY read the oxford guide, you might have seen their various criticism of her work.

"In comparison of the various translation's of Tolstoy's major novels, Henry Gifford suggested that Maudes' version was the most accurate, but also commended Edmonds for her rendition of dialogue, and Garnett for her "modest harmonies" (1978)

you could stop there, however, it goes on

"My consideration of the same material has led me to rather different conclusions. Garnett omits more than Maudes or Edmonds (which may be the reason she appears 'more harmonious')

then it goes on, on Dostoevsky

"Garnett sacrificed some of Dostoevsky's idiosyncrasies in order to produce acceptable English text... Like Garnett's, these versions are fluent, but tend to flatten and abbreviate the texts."

I was trying to counter the, seemingly, unthinking criticism of her in this thread. I HAVE read the criticism of her work in the OG and was hoping someone else would actually bother to read the OG and bring them up. Nice job

More modern translators also come in for a great deal of criticism, and, on balance, Garnett's still top of my list for reading Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot'. The Maudes didn't translate Dostoevsky, but they are definitely top of my list for reading Tolstoy. The Maudes rated Garnett highly and, indeed, asked her to collaborate in the Tolstoy translations. But she preferred to go it alone.

I gave an example of Garnett flattening & abbreviating the text. For me, it was 'flattened' from incomprehensible literal translation and 'abbreviated' into fluent English. These are plus points for me, others may differ...

[mal4mac]

"...yet here it must be 'spirit'. The soul, which Cyrano is at first speaking about is the thing that is constant in all of us (in Christian theology). The spirit is the thing that God gave us to live, his breath so to say. It houses our conscience, intuition and adoration. The question is how to translate it....

Now, the Lignon has gone, so away goes the allusion to the Astrée.... Including the contents of Voiture goes, Cupid has suddenly appeared ... And, worst of all, the spirit has entirely left the building...

The addition of Cupid seems entirely valid, I had no idea what all those arrows, quivers, what have you, were doing until he made his appearance. Of course you could add a footnote, but adding Cupid in the text does the job without hindering the flow of reading.

Also losing 'Lignon' seems fine, not many English people would know it is a river. Making the poem more understandable by losing a small amount of local colour seems a price worth paying.

Lowell Blair had an even more radical solution to the 'spirit problem', he translates it as Roxanne saying "You yourself..." This is the most obvious shortening in English of what Roxanne is 'trying' to say - "But you yourself used your wit to create images of love...". So the esprit here, seems to me, to translate very well as 'wit', and Blair makes it obvious that it's Cyrano's wit that is in question.

Your soul/spirit distinctions seems to be going down the wrong track, or at least one I don't understand! Me I'm for the witty translation, not the philosophical obfuscating one. My vote, so far, goes to Blair. I await your complete translation, though, then all *may* be made clear...

It really is fascinating how much translations can differ!

[kiki1982]

The addition of Cupid seems entirely valid, I had no idea what all those arrows, quivers, what have you, were doing until he made his appearance. Of course you could add a footnote, but adding Cupid in the text does the job without hindering the flow of reading.

And who says that Cupid actually remotely came in question? Diana/Artemis was also one who used her (silver) arrows. Eros/Cupid, as far as I know was a son of hers. If I am not mistaken,even Apollo could have something to do with this. And that limits it to Greek-Roman gods. Maybe it is even about something totally different that does not occur to me right now. At any rate, what is not known should not be incorporated. And don't tell me that you wer not able to think of Cupid yourself, if you had wanted to make sense of the sentence. Does everyting need to be spelled out or is some faint indication to it not bold enough. Shakeseare also makes faint winks to things like fairytales. I don't see anyone complaining.

Also losing 'Lignon' seems fine, not many English people would know it is a river. Making the poem more understandable by losing a small amount of local colour seems a price worth paying.

Local colour?? There was no local colour in that. The river Lignon is an allusion to a famous pastoral work of literature, not a mere river. Comparable to the Styx if anything, but not in connotation. Everyone knows what that is, here, everyone is supposed to know what the Lignon is. Or at least be able to look it up.

Lowell Blair had an even more radical solution to the 'spirit problem', he translates it as Roxanne saying "You yourself..." This is the most obvious shortening in English of what Roxanne is 'trying' to say - "But you yourself used your wit to create images of love...". So the esprit here, seems to me, to translate very well as 'wit', and Blair makes it obvious that it's Cyrano's wit that is in question.

Your soul/spirit distinctions seems to be going down the wrong track, or at least one I don't understand! Me I'm for the witty translation, not the philosophical obfuscating one. My vote, so far, goes to Blair. I await your complete translation, though, then all *may* be made clear...

It really is fascinating how much translations can differ!

"You yourself"... May I ask where the soul is in that which he was speaking about just before that? It seems that the soul is also part of oneself, or am I mistaken? That speech makes even less sense.

So, not even the simplest philosophical 'obfuscation' makes sense to you? I suggest you read up on some. 'Going down the wrong track'? I think that someone has gone astray here and it is not me. May I remind you that the disctinction between the soul and the spirit is as long as Christianity almost and that it is still being debated.

It is indeed fascinating how translations can differ and with how little people are satisfied, 'because it is easier'. Really, one sometimes wonders why people are reading if they are not willing to go deeper than the story. All three translations (Guillemard/Thomas, Blair, Hooker (?)) miss the entire point ironaically in a work about a philospher. It is amazing that people are still satisfied. Mills and Boon should start publishing translations then.

Worst thing is that such a 'I cannot be a**ed' attitude means that good translations do not stand a chance and that people, amongst the public who do not happen to know the language, cannot even get a translation that incorporates the sources that make it easier to interpret the thing.

And by the way, Jane Eyre is not by Austen, but by Charlotte Brontë.

I can hand you a free translation of it, with comprehensive footnotes on this forum (in the writing section) if you want after I have done Kafka's The Castle for Kafka.org.

[edit] Then there is still the idea that 'Cyrano's wit is in question'. I don't know where that comes from but now that is absolutely as false as it is big. Cyrano was always the 'wittier' one and it was Christian who failed to impress Roxane all along. Cyrano was superior to Christian, but didn't care about it and lent his abilities to failing Christian. Cyrano thought he didn't care about Roxane either... Sad of course. It is that Faustian pact of soul and body that is a major feature. There was never any question whatsoever about wit in any shape. The issue was that Roxane wanted wit and that she was delivered it, but not more than that and that when she has renounced, finally realises who was the man she loved. The character Cyrano was perfect from the start.

[scaltz]

The beauty of the language *may* be lost, but maybe not. If the translator is a really good poet then you may retain (or even improve on!) the beauty of the original.

If the original writer is a giant, like Dante, then, of course, it is unlikely the translator will match the beauty of the language. But the transkation may be 'beautiful enough' (e.g., Mandelbaum.)

Surely it is reasonable for someone, with an interest in reading all the word's literature, to read Dante in translation than, say, spending many years learning Dante's Italian. Steiner, who knows more languages than most, has defended translation in exactly this way. He has said that if he was forced to read everything in the original languages then he would only be able to read the literature of very few countries, and he reads more than five languages at a greater depth than most people could even attempt.

The 'art of the prose' involves a lot more than the 'music of the language', it involves plot, narrative, dialogue, structure, content, imagery, .. and so on.. all of which can be translated, largely, without loss. This means that you can read a translation with great enjoyment, that is, you get sufficient 'art of the prose' to make it worthwhile reading a translation. And please don't say 'you can't'' as I know I can from my experience. Maybe *you* can't, but that's your problem, not mine.

For the first paragraph: do you honestly think that great mainstream translators still exist today, in our society where cow's milk could be even artificially made ?

For the second one: You are basically contradicting yourself, you are making an antithesis about your own point of view about translations. Indeed, the translated version may be 'OK' but an 'OK' copy will never be side by side with the original one! 'Ok' is not and NEVER will be on the same level as 'Perfect'.

Third phrase: Having said that, you're making a good valid point there but your reasoning is really not within this topic. You are basically pointing one of the positive points of a translation which is broadening the novel's crowd and not how it could substitute the original copy.

Fourth one: Ok, let me give you an example. Did you know that the sea in the French literature signifies motherly love? You may ask why, well it isn't because it's lovely when it's calm or that because water is calming.No, it is because sea if we translate it into French is "mer" and so "mer" is the homonym for "mère" which translates to mother in English. Try translating that! By translating, it literally loses it's literary sense right before your very eyes! And your reasoning for the "Art of prose" isn't really clear enough. You state structure; well what if this specific author's structure, pacing is unique for his own language? Or what if he is writing in this language ON PURPOSE for he has something against with this specific language? Or for he has something against the people speaking this language? What if this book is intended to be served as a revolutionary tool (e.g colonized countries may use books in order to indicate their yearning for independence).

[mal4mac]

For the first paragraph: do you honestly think that great mainstream translators still exist today, in our society where cow's milk could be even artificially made.

Yes, but the translators must not be brought up with this milk

the translated version may be 'OK' but an 'OK' copy will never be side by side with the original one! 'Ok' is not and NEVER will be on the same level as 'Perfect'.

Harold Bloom was perplexed about why Poe was appreciated so highly in France and then realised that his very bad English had been translated into very good French.

Kant is very difficult to read in the original German, so much so that German students often read the English translations...

Nothing is perfect, especially my language learning ability, so I'm happy to stick to translations.

Did you know that the sea in the French literature signifies motherly love? You may ask why, well it isn't because it's lovely when it's calm or that because water is calming.No, it is because sea if we translate it into French is "mer" and so "mer" is the homonym for "mère" which translates to mother in English. Try translating that! By translating, it literally loses it's literary sense right before your very eyes!

Well obviously you lose 'something' but I don't see how you would lose much overall aesthetic value. Can you give an example where 'mer' is used in this sense and loses 'everything' in its English translation? This argument is a non-runner, read any book on translation and you'll find lots of expert literary people praising many translations for their great literary value. And I've found great value in many translations

[mal4mac]

And who says that Cupid actually remotely came in question? Diana/Artemis was also one who used her (silver) arrows. Eros/Cupid, as far as I know was a son of hers. If I am not mistaken,even Apollo could have something to do with this. And that limits it to Greek-Roman gods. Maybe it is even about something totally different that does not occur to me right now. At any rate, what is not known should not be incorporated. And don't tell me that you wer not able to think of Cupid yourself, if you had wanted to make sense of the sentence. Does everyting need to be spelled out or is some faint indication to it not bold enough. Shakeseare also makes faint winks to things like fairytales. I don't see anyone complaining.

Well I didn't think of Cupid! I've now glanced at several translations of this passage in Amazon Look Inside, and all them mention Cupid or something similar ('Valentine hearts...')

Local colour?? There was no local colour in that. The river Lignon is an allusion to a famous pastoral work of literature, not a mere river. Comparable to the Styx if anything, but not in connotation. Everyone knows what that is, here, everyone is supposed to know what the Lignon is. Or at least be able to look it up.

Should you expect the common reader to know such things? Should the common reader have to look something up after every line? From looking at the different translators it seems that translators and editors are happy to meet the reader half way, and give some help. And why not? You can make your scholarly translation, with ten pages of notes to one page of text but this is not providing a service to the common reader or playgoer. Useful for scholars, certainly, but surely there is a place for works that capture the spirit of the work *and* can be easily understood in the playhouse.

[kiki1982]

Well I didn't think of Cupid! I've now glanced at several translations of this passage in Amazon Look Inside, and all them mention Cupid or something similar ('Valentine hearts...')

Every mention you make more of translations becomes more ridiculous. 'Valentine hearts'??? The times in which this play plays did not even have a feast called Valentine's Day! It is not because a daft translator finds that it reminds him of Cupid, that it is Cupid! As I said, even Artemis/Diana could come in question. Besides, it is presumtious for a translator to put any contents in a work that wasn't there.

Should you expect the common reader to know such things? Should the common reader have to look something up after every line? From looking at the different translators it seems that translators and editors are happy to meet the reader half way, and give some help. And why not? You can make your scholarly translation, with ten pages of notes to one page of text but this is not providing a service to the common reader or playgoer. Useful for scholars, certainly, but surely there is a place for works that capture the spirit of the work *and* can be easily understood in the playhouse.

I do not expect the average reader to know that, no, where the average theatre-goer of Rostand's age would have picked them up, I believe. I didn't know those things either before I looked them up myself. A simple footnote with a simple reference to Astrée and Clorise would suffice to make the point. Meeting the reader half way in a translation is sad. Do you think that the French who read this do not have trouble then? They are faced with the same problem as a reader who could read the piece in a proper translation and not one that tones it down, because they have to read it like that. Do the French complain? No, because they see the brilliance of it and they do read those things with footnotes (Livre de Poche editors make great editions for no price at all). As such I do not see why a reader who reads it in tranlsation should 'be met half way' if it is only out of laziness.

The point is not 'is it compehensible at first sight'. Everything is comprehensible and one can indeed read Cyrano as something about love, but I argue that where one has the two choices in French: to see the surface and the contents, one in translation has no longer the opportunity of reading the contents. One is forced to the surface which was just the thing that Rostand wanted to satirise.

See it as Austen. What is the point of Austen's stories if it is not irony and satire? Without the satire Austen becomes boring, sugary and quintessental romantic. Nice for TV and Mills and Boon, but not for the reader who wants quality. Yet she is read by people who expect quality because of her satire. As such, there is no point in Cyrano if it is not in satire. Doing the piece short of its allusions, is doing it short of satire and as such making it one of the pieces that Rostand is trying to satirise. So reducing it to something ridiculous and pointless. What is the point of reading it then?

There is no halfway.

[mal4mac]

Every mention you make more of translations becomes more ridiculous. 'Valentine hearts'??? The times in which this play plays did not even have a feast called Valentine's Day! It is not because a daft translator finds that it reminds him of Cupid, that it is Cupid! As I said, even Artemis/Diana could come in question. Besides, it is presumtious for a translator to put any contents in a work that wasn't there.

The translator in that case was Anthony Burgess so we are in 'how much license can a genius take?' territory.

I do not expect the average reader to know that, no, where the average theatre-goer of Rostand's age would have picked them up, I believe. I didn't know those things either before I looked them up myself. A simple footnote with a simple reference to Astrée and Clorise would suffice to make the point. Meeting the reader half way in a translation is sad. Do you think that the French who read this do not have trouble then? They are faced with the same problem as a reader who could read the piece in a proper translation and not one that tones it down, because they have to read it like that. Do the French complain? No, because they see the brilliance of it and they do read those things with footnotes (Livre de Poche editors make great editions for no price at all). As such I do not see why a reader who reads it in tranlsation should 'be met half way' if it is only out of laziness.

Readability is an aesthetic value, and you destroy that aspect by forcing the reader to read lots of notes. The original did not have lots of notes because the target audience could read it as easily as modern English authors read Amis, say. So the translator's job is impossible - translate for readability and you lose the literal accuracy, translate for accuracy and you lose the readability. I look for translators who are acknowledged by many to maximise readability while keeping to the spirit of the original - Garnett being an example.

Note - Garnett does not just miss out words, will nilly, just to simplify, she translates the spirit (or at least many people I admire suggest she does - e.g., Maudes, Virginia Woolf, D.H.Lawrence, Middleton Murray, Oxford Guide folks...) That's good enough for me, it may not be good enough for you, but you need to accept there is this other strand of 'spirit translators' who are always going to have a following of significant readers (or is Woolf just one of your lazy people?) You can keep on with your literal translations, but you should get over the fact that there are other kinds of translators out there who are often much more popular (and not because they are being too simple...)