Translations -- validity Re: Great Works

[Captain Pike]

I am reading Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". I am really enjoying reading this old book published by Random House under their "THE MODERN LIBRARY", collection.
It says the book was translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. The book reads well and I assumed that Random House would employ only the best of translators.
I came across an expression that I wasn't sure of (a little embarrassed here) it's meaning: Rira bien qui rira le dernier. The phrase was printed in italics in my book, and, my eyes being less than adequate these days, I thought the verb was spelled, "riva", my eyesight mistaking the italicized r for a v. Of course, this didn't have any meaning, even on the Internet.

I became more interested.
I did what I often do, in times of agitation and doubtfulness (apparently, not a word) went to The Literature Network, online-literature.com. I was astounded to find the translation was markedly different, in fact, the famous French expression does not even appear at all in the online text version!

My head swam! Could Constance Garnett have decided to use this French expression meaning: "he laughs best who laughs last", to convey some meaning set down by Dostoevsky??!! I imagined, Dostoevsky quoted the French expression directly in his work, right?
All throughout his work here, and other works I have read, idiomatic expressions in other languages are used to convey meanings.
An example of this, was his earlier use of the Italian, "se non e vero...", which I did understand actually, an expression meaning, "if it isn't true...", where the implication is, "if it isn't true, it ought to be", kind of thing.

I don't even dare to go look that one up. MY POINT IS: do translators have this level of license? Would they purport to know when to use some foreign language idiom, ALL ON THEIR OWN??

I don't mind telling you that one of the reasons I'm reading this great classic is for the very reason that it is a great classic. Must, or should I learn Russian and suffer through the original work in order to grasp Dostoevsky's real secret?

I don't suppose this means the sky is falling or anything, it just kind of let the air out of my balloon a little. Any thoughts?

[glover7]

Translation is one of those sticky little topics that becomes an issue for just those reasons that you stated. As a comparatist, my advice to you is to learn Russian and read the book in its original language. As a person, I would advise you against it unless you just happen to have a great deal of time and untapped energy on your hands.

To translate something, a person can take one of two approaches. The first is an exact translation of the words. The second is to translate the meaning, or the authorial intention, of the words. The thing is, it is quite difficult to convey idiomatic language in translation unless one opts for the latter means of translation. In that case, Random House may have employed the French in order to give the reader the sense of the character's sophistication or to draw attention to that character's well-traveled mind. Or, as may be equally likely, Dostoevsky truly did use the French in the original. The only way to know would be to find a Russian copy and, as you said, learn some Russian before diving into it.

[Katy North]

Personally, I am a bit of a fan of anime, and while of course anime is incomparable with great literature, the method of translation is.

Anime is originally made in Japanese, which is a culture that has it's own idioms and expressions sometimes beyond the different than the values of the average american... and anime dubbed in english reflects this, while subtitled anime is generally more true to the japanese original. A prime example of this is one anime I watched that had a scene where a girl was comforting a young boy. In the dubbed version, she said "There there, don't cry", to the boy, while in the subtitled version she said "You don't have to cry, you're a boy!". It was obvious that the translator/american dubbing studio felt that the latter translation was too alien for most of it's american viewers, and so skipped this little lesson on Japanese views on masculinity in the dubbed version.

My point, which I am getting to in a roundabout way, is that the translator may have felt that Dostoevsky's expression was too alien for the average American to understand (though the french quip was untranslated, it was an expression that many Americans are probably familiar with. Since Random House is a large publishing company that caters to the average American, my recommendation would be to find a different publisher, perhaps one that largely specializes in translations of Russian literature, and e-mail them asking how close their Russian to English translations are before ordering the book from them.

[dfloyd]

but I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. The Constance Garnedtt translations were the standard Russian-to-English translations used for years, even for the Dostoevsky novels published by the prestigious Limited Editions Club. Garnett was living in Russia with her diplomat husband at the time of the translations, and she was nearly a contemporary of Dostoevsky. If it wasn't for her, the novels would have been delayed being put into English for a number of years.

I have read all four of the great Dostoevsky novels in the Garnett translations: the Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment. Where you are probably missing the flavor of Dostoevsky is not in the translation, but not reading the novels illustrated with the great Fritz Eichenberg wood cuts. Raskolnikov waiting behind Lizaveta's door, axe in hand, perhaps will give some idea of the illustrations flavor.

[kiki1982]

It depends...

I don't think it is making a mountain out of a mole-hill. A translation should be right.

I am now translating Kafka's Das Schloss.The Castle and with all those German 'Ja's and 'gar's and what-nots, it is hard to express the thought of that. Therefore I choose to put them in somehow and not to leave them out. Maybe I will, reading over the text again, tae some 'after all's out or so, but most of them will stay there.

Authorial intent, I think, is difficult, because, if you yourself haven't spoken to the author it is impossible to translate the authorial intent as you don't know what it is. One can read a lot of papers on the author, but nothing says that those papers are right either. What I try to do, is to determine whether there is a chance that the word was meant as something ambiguous or not. That is important, as, as a translater, you have to keep the thing open for interpretation.

All too often, ambiguous meaning is taken away by the translator because he doesn't realise it is there and the text ends up 'flat'. I had a discussion on here about a thesis student about Monte Cristo. And there was a word had been translated wrongly (clearly) which changed the whole meaning of the book even!

About idioms: I try to keep the idiom as far as possible. If it is about a hand, I will not want to change it into something about feet or noses. I will try to stay with the hand somehow. If it is not possible at all, I try to find something that suits the context or that has possibilties to go furher with (in metaphor for example). Mostly, the iiom in that form is there for a reason; Taking the idiom or part of it away, is a mistake as it is a part of the chain. If you take that part away, the chain falls into two pieces.

I don't know if the French idiom in Dostoyevski's work was used by the translator, or by Dostoyevski himself. It is possible that he himself used it. Tolstoy's War and Peace starts with an entire speech in French because the aristocracy spoke French. The English translation I saw had translated the French into English as well which also destroys the elitist and 'apart' nature of the Russian aristocracy to some extent and changes them somehow into English ones that do not stand so far from their 'serfs' as the Russians were. The detached way of living, the ivory tower which we know how it is going to end up in a dramaticly ironic way, is no more. Maybe Dostoyevski did use the French to show either the 'removed' nature of himself, or of his character, maybe Raskolnikov's 'superiority'. Who will say?

I always find that a translation cannot, under no circumstances, change either the wording, nor the cultural intention. It doesn't mean it should not be readable, but some translators go too far and change the text so much, one cannot recognise it. A translation should be as meticulous as possible, preferably retaining every possible nuance there could be.

[kiki1982]

I had a look in the Russian text of it. Indeed, it says 'Rira bien qui rira le dernier!'.

In my mind, the translator should not translate that, but should put a footnote to tell the meaning of the words/the idiom.

http://az.lib.ru/d/dostoewskij_f_m/text_0070.shtml

ЧАСТЬ ПЕРВАЯ. (first part)

(chapter) XI

do control f on your keyboard to find it automatically.

I just realised I made a mistake adressing Raskolnikov... :redface: That is not The Idiot, is it? :willy_nilly:

[mal4mac]

Alan Myers' translation in Oxford World Classics also uses this phrase, as do McDuff in Penguin, and Pevear & V in Everyman. My guess would be that Dostoevsky used it in the original, these other translators, surely, have too much self-respect to steal Garnett's French! To be certain you'll need to do more digging. I found the other translators by searching for the phrase in Amazon, so you might start there (Google Books would be another good place to search...) Oxford and Penguin usually have good introductions, and might explain what is going on here.

By the way, I wouldn't be embarrassed about not knowing the meaning of the phrase! I certainly didn't.

[Annamariah]

A translation should be right.

And this is where we run into a trouble. The thing is that no matter HOW you translate, you're going to do it wrong, at least according to some. It is impossible to create a translation that will please everyone, or necessarily even most of people. Only a word-for-word copy of the original work would be "truly and completely faithful", but the problem is that then it's not a translation, but the original work itself. You cannot transfer it into another language (or media, for that matter) without doing some changes, so translation is always some kind of adaptation and someone's interpretation of the original work.

There's no consensus about what a "perfect" translation would be like even among those doing research in the field of translation studies. Some defend domestication, others think foreignization is the only way to go, many people say both are needed depending on the situation.

Also the translation is always targeted FOR certain audience BY someone BECAUSE of some reason, which invariably affects the translation process.

One could say translation is a really unrewarding job - no matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy with the final result and will point out to you exactly why your translation sucks. Still there are always us fools who are willing to do the work :lol:

[Captain Pike]

Alas, what a humbling experience it has been digging into this. I find it strangely fascinating, exploring other languages and translations. You were right on Glover

The only way to know would be to find a Russian copy and, as you said, learn some Russian before diving into it.
So that's just what I did -- I found a copy of, "The Idiot", in the original Russian -- but who knows, is it? It is Russian, and, fooling around with it using some online translators, what I have here seems to be this great work, in Russian:
http://ilibrary.ru/text/94/p.11/index.html

But then you wonder, how this material, this content as we say these days, made it into a whirling hard drive somewhere, long after poor Fodor's demise. I guess at some point we have to trust these anonymous servants.

And, I am rather reassured to find that indeed, as verified by Kiki1982 (thank you) this French idiom is written as such (written in French) in the Russian document I found. I could only imagine that a learned fellow like Dostoevsky would be well-traveled and probably well-versed in several languages and would, in my opinion appropriately, pen his meanings in the languages that said them best.

And maybe it's best that here at the literature network, the translation we have includes the same saying, only written in English -- TRANSLATED. Sticking strictly to the meaning of the word, a "translation", for use by students, should indeed be a translation -- a complete translation.

I was also amazed by the apparent power of the Internet. I was able to do all this research, idly, while listening to some music and maybe even streaming a movie and replying to a few e-mails. I discovered a site whose sole purpose is to provide pronunciations for words all over the world. The site is of course:
http://www.forvo.com

This site is one of these peer produced and peer validated informational systems much like Wikipedia (which I loathe). It is an amazing thing, these kind of self fulfilling/self ratifying tumors of data on the Internet. It's amazing how they grow. Somehow it's begun then people sign up and begin voluntarily adding content. And since "verified" users are able to judge and rate the entry of their compatriots, the whole system moves to a dynamic averaging of contributors knowledge -- or does it?
There's something very 1984 about this: we assume the software is designed to do what the site purports. There must be checks and balances in there somewhere, but nobody actually knows anyone else. Doesn't it seem like someone should be, "in charge", a body of knowledge? That's why they have names for encyclopedias. Is Britannica better than Merriam-Webster? Isn't there some federal agency that oversees the meaning of words -- I hope not, right? Of course I'm joking... but, there is something about Wikipedia that really scares me.
Shouldn't research be grueling and unappealing? I don't know, I bookmarked all these sites which do this magic stuff for free -- it makes for a fun rainy afternoon.

[applepie]

I'll confess that I don't read many translated works for the exact worries you expressed. Have you found one publisher that you trust to have it correct?

[Annamariah]

I'll confess that I don't read many translated works for the exact worries you expressed. Have you found one publisher that you trust to have it correct?

I still stand by my statement that a translation can never be "correct". It can be good, excellent even, it can be adequate, bad or horrible, but those are always subjective opinions. For a translation to be "correct" there would have to be the concept of a "perfect" trasnlation, meaning just one right answer to the question how should a certain work be translated, and that's just impossible.

Everyone has their own opinion as to whether a certain translation is a good one or not and what they are generally speaking looking for when they're searching for a good translation. For example, some look for word-for-word accuracy, others want a fluent read. If source and target languages differ from each other greatly, either one or the other has to be sacrificed almost always. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to create a good translation, merely that there are always people who disagree about the quality of the product.

[applepie]

Perhaps a publisher with a widely accepted translation would be a better request :) I realize that no translation will ever be truly correct. Not only are the languages being changed, but often the time in which the document is translated is quite removed from the time it was written. I do try to look for the oldest translation into English that I can find if I'm reading a translation, but that is my own rule of thumb.

[kiki1982]

A translation cannot be 'correct' absolutely, but at least one can try. All too often certain things are abandoned just because it is easier. One translation of War and Peace was mentioned on this forum where the comparison of Napoleon with a horse was abandoned. That is not only forgetting a mere small tiny detail, but a major judgment on Napoleon, important to Russian culture, not to mention the fact that the meaning of that whole section was changed. The same as the translation of Dumas's Monte Cristo I was talking about. Changing the whole meaning of the book in this case, is beyond your job as a translator. Or maybe the readers could conclude that the translator actually did not fully understand the work... Worst thing was that this translation was being used for analysis for a master's thesis. Had he taken his translatin for true, the poster had misinterpreted the whole book.

It is impossible to ever 'domesticate' a work simply because it is not at home in another culture than the one its author came from. Wanting to domesticate it is futile. Just try to make it readable, not necessarily word for word, but maybe better idea by idea, feeling by feeling. Use italic for stress, use additional adverbs for feelings, use inversion, by all means.

Wherever there is possibility that a word has an ambiguous meaning, its ambiguity should be retained, otherwise, one possibly makes a flat work. The same goes for expressions: French is important in Russian culture as it expresses the noble class and their removed nature (as I said Tolstoy starts War and Peace in French). Not retaining the French, is domesticating the Russian aristocrats into English ones, but after all, we do not, under no circumstances, change St Petersburg into Peterborough, do we, or Bath or something? The story plays in Russia, so Russian culture should be retained ANything else is doing the work short or possibly even violating it.

[Annamariah]

A translation cannot be 'correct' absolutely, but at least one can try. All too often certain things are abandoned just because it is easier. One translation of War and Peace was mentioned on this forum where the comparison of Napoleon with a horse was abandoned. That is not only forgetting a mere small tiny detail, but a major judgment on Napoleon, important to Russian culture, not to mention the fact that the meaning of that whole section was changed. The same as the translation of Dumas's Monte Cristo I was talking about. Changing the whole meaning of the book in this case, is beyond your job as a translator. Or maybe the readers could conclude that the translator actually did not fully understand the work... Worst thing was that this translation was being used for analysis for a master's thesis. Had he taken his translatin for true, the poster had misinterpreted the whole book.

Of course it's sad when that happens, especially if the reader thinks they are getting a loyal and unabridged translation. For example in Finland it used to be common to make abridged translations especially for young readers without ever mentioning the fact that they were abridged. A great portion of L. M. Montgomery's books that have been translated into Finnish are shorter and in some cases even cencored versions, which is a pity.


It is impossible to ever 'domesticate' a work simply because it is not at home in another culture than the one its author came from. Wanting to domesticate it is futile. Just try to make it readable, not necessarily word for word, but maybe better idea by idea, feeling by feeling. Use italic for stress, use additional adverbs for feelings, use inversion, by all means.
It's not impossible, and it is constantly done with chilren's books. Especially picture books are often almost completely domesticated. With adult literature, however, the domestication is usually more subtle, but it is very rare to find a book without any domestication in it.


Wherever there is possibility that a word has an ambiguous meaning, its ambiguity should be retained, otherwise, one possibly makes a flat work. The same goes for expressions: French is important in Russian culture as it expresses the noble class and their removed nature (as I said Tolstoy starts War and Peace in French). Not retaining the French, is domesticating the Russian aristocrats into English ones, but after all, we do not, under no circumstances, change St Petersburg into Peterborough, do we, or Bath or something? The story plays in Russia, so Russian culture should be retained ANything else is doing the work short or possibly even violating it.

In domestication it's all about where to draw the line. Yes, in literature targeted for grown-up audience Russia and St. Petersburgh are Russia and St. Petersbourgh, but in case of a children's book it's not at all unheard of Russia becoming Britain and St. Petersbourgh Liverpool or something.

But the Russian culture is a more difficult part. One can say, for example, that a certain manner of speaking and addressing people is very characteristic for Russians, but maintaining that particular style that works in Russian might end up being something rather incomprehensible, clumsy and far from fluent in English or some other language. So it's all about balancing between the original style and fluency in another language, because making a very unfluent translation that is hard to read would hardly do justice to the original work which is fluent in its original language.

[blazeofglory]

Translation is indeed a very tough job. I write for instance in two languages at the same time -English and Nepali. I cannot translate what I write in Nepali into English for there are some feelings that are indigenously Nepali and if I follow the idea of translating word by word I will be misled. Therefore I do not want to republish my Nepali writings for the English audience and I write in English originally keeping the English audience in mind. I want to perfect both languages at the same time

[kiki1982]

I understand what you are saying about children's literature. It is difficult to do anything else as a child's scope is not so great as an adult's should be. That said, I do not believe in full domestication for adults. Some things are difficult and it is not possible to retain them. But for others there is no reason to domesticate.

For example, a simple thing in German:

'Herr Lasemann', simple: 'Herr Lasemann' in English. I would not opt for 'Herr' to be translated into 'Mr' as that would become too English. We are still in a German village.

'Herr Doctor/Wirt' is still possible in English: 'Herr Doctor/Innkeeper'. It brings something German into the text which you have kind of lost by translating it into English.

But 'die Herren Lasemann sind im Haus' is not easy anymore. You cannot translate into 'The Herrs Lasemann are in the house', nor 'Herren Lasemann...' So you need to go with 'gentlemen', but that's kind of sad, because it takes a little away from the form of address.

But I do not believe that translating names and forms of address is at all helpful. Unless it really cannot work in the target language as above because it is gramatically wrong.

[Annamariah]

For example, a simple thing in German:

'Herr Lasemann', simple: 'Herr Lasemann' in English. I would not opt for 'Herr' to be translated into 'Mr' as that would become too English. We are still in a German village.

'Herr Doctor/Wirt' is still possible in English: 'Herr Doctor/Innkeeper'. It brings something German into the text which you have kind of lost by translating it into English.

But 'die Herren Lasemann sind im Haus' is not easy anymore. You cannot translate into 'The Herrs Lasemann are in the house', nor 'Herren Lasemann...' So you need to go with 'gentlemen', but that's kind of sad, because it takes a little away from the form of address.

But I do not believe that translating names and forms of address is at all helpful. Unless it really cannot work in the target language as above because it is gramatically wrong.

Addressing people is a tricky part. Why should not Herr be translated into "mister", as it means the same thing, if Doktor becomes "doctor"? (I don't know German, but isn't it written with a K in German instead of a C like in English?) It is a word, after all, and the same kind of addressing is used in English too. Why should this one word of German be preserved while the rest are translated?

With Finnish it's a bit more complicated. Sure you can translated Mr or Herr into "herra", which means the same thing, but the end result is a bit clumsy, as Finns avoid addressing each other as much as possible. In translating classics it's easier, as in old days Finns (at least the nobility) used polite forms of address. In modern literature, however, it just doesn't sound believable apart from very formal occasions if a speaker addresses people a lot. Partly this of course brings in the foreign culture, but in some cases it's really going to get only distracting and irritating. Often the compromise is to keep the address in certain situations and leave it out when it's not necessary. Of course that "necessary" is the word everyone has their own interpretation of...

P.S. Rest assured, full domestication for adults is a very rarely used method indeed in contemporary literature :)

[kasie]

.....A great portion of L. M. Montgomery's books that have been translated into Finnish are shorter and in some cases even cencored versions, which is a pity.....

L M Montgomery censored? Why? :shocked:

[Annamariah]

L M Montgomery censored? Why? :shocked:

I don't really know. In the translation of Emily of New Moon many of the impertinent comments she makes to and about her relatives have been left out, some parts have been made milder and so on. The other books are abridged ones, sure, but the overall feeling of the books is pretty much the same in Finnish than it is in English. Finnish Emilia is however much lamer person than the original Emily... Perhaps they didn't want Finnish children to take example of her :p It was translated in the 1920's.

[kasie]

Ah, I see, thank you - can't have children learning to be impertinent. :biggrin5:

[ktr]

I am reading Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". I am really enjoying reading this old book published by Random House under their "THE MODERN LIBRARY", collection.
It says the book was translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett. The book reads well and I assumed that Random House would employ only the best of translators.

i can't tell how i am supposed to react to this. if you're being serious, i'm about as sad as i am pissed off, if you're trolling - this is brilliant.

[kiki1982]

Addressing people is a tricky part. Why should not Herr be translated into "mister", as it means the same thing, if Doktor becomes "doctor"? (I don't know German, but isn't it written with a K in German instead of a C like in English?) It is a word, after all, and the same kind of addressing is used in English too. Why should this one word of German be preserved while the rest are translated?

You are right about 'Doktor'. Thinking in English there ;).

I take your point about Finnish and formal and informal address. Still, in books with stories that play in an older period, it wouldn't go amiss. For modern books, that isn't possible though as that relies on modern culture and for the Fins that is a culture without address at all.

But I do not agree about translating the form of address in itself if at all possible. Indeed 'Mr'/'Mister' and 'Herr' do mean the same, but such things can always be understood by any public and if translated they take away the foreign feel of a work. Those particular things, together with currencies and other particulars that are unique to the original culture, are the only things left in a translation to give a feel of the original. If that goes, the whole cultural thing is gone.

A Frenchman addressing his public or someone in particular with 'Monsieur' or 'Madame' can easily also do that in a translation. You cannot call 'Monsieur' the brother of the French king 'Mister' as the role doesn't exist, but more to the point, 'Mrs Bovary' wouldn't sound very well. Or well-known figures as 'Mme de Montespan' could not be called 'Mrs de Montespan'. What should one do with the 'de' anyway? 'Of' is not an option because there is no English county or whatever area called Montespan and then she is also not a Lady per se. 'Mademoiselle' is also such a problem. Those French terms evoke a certain respect and a certain cultural thing in France that you cannot put into English.

Not to mention for example the term 'gentilhomme' in the musketeer-books. You could put 'gentleman' but it is not really that. It is a class of people of low nobility who are the honour of France and who went to fight for their country as officers. There is not such a class in Britain: nobility that was actually sometimes an equivlent of low middle class and sometimes even working class farmers, but with the honour of nobility; they were considered to take their own decisions idenpendently from the king.

I do not believe in domestication that way because, as I said, to me it is impossible to domesticate entirely as the book is still written in a certain culture and is preoccupied with certain things unique to that culture. Or one has to make it flat but then the whole point goes. It is even difficult to translate something into a modern version sometimes without taking away some content.

[mal4mac]

I could only imagine that a learned fellow like Dostoevsky would be well-traveled and probably well-versed in several languages and would, in my opinion appropriately, pen his meanings in the languages that said them best.

I'm not sure about this. From what (little) I've read I get the impression that *all* Russians of his class, learned or not, picked up French with their (gold label) Mother's milk. So Dostoevsky is not trying to 'look clever and well travelled' by using French, he is simply reflecting the speech patterns that his characters would use, and that he used while growing up in upper crust Russian society. Note, also, that French would not have been translated in a footnote, Dostoevsky and and Tolstoy just assumed that their original readers would understand French.


I understand what you are saying about children's literature. It is difficult to do anything else as a child's scope is not so great as an adult's should be. That said, I do not believe in full domestication for adults. Some things are difficult and it is not possible to retain them. But for others there is no reason to domesticate.

For example, a simple thing in German:

'Herr Lasemann', simple: 'Herr Lasemann' in English. I would not opt for 'Herr' to be translated into 'Mr' as that would become too English. We are still in a German village.

'Herr Doctor/Wirt' is still possible in English: 'Herr Doctor/Innkeeper'. It brings something German into the text which you have kind of lost by translating it into English.

But 'die Herren Lasemann sind im Haus' is not easy anymore. You cannot translate into 'The Herrs Lasemann are in the house', nor 'Herren Lasemann...' So you need to go with 'gentlemen', but that's kind of sad, because it takes a little away from the form of address.

You can't use 'gentlemen' explicitly here. You can only say 'The Lasemanns are in the house'. I would translate Herr into English. You could drop the Mr in many circumstances, that would might retain some of the formality. For instance, English public school boys often refer to each other by surname, so 'Lasemann is in the house' retains some of the formality.

You could retain the formality in the plural by using mild irony 'The brothers Lasseman are in the house', or even mild insult 'the Lasseman big wigs are in the house' - if they are German scientists and the bar tender is English (and witty) you could imagine him saying, in an ironic tone, 'The Herr Professor Lassemans are in the house'. But then bar tender is probably German, so better not do that,... Blimey, I'm glad I'm not a translator...

This make me think that good translators must be totally bi-cultural, or that there should be two translators, one fluent in each languages - and they need to be very good at talking to each other!

[ktr]

This make me think that good translators must be totally bi-cultural, or that there should be two translators, one fluent in each languages - and they need to be very good at talking to each other!

see: richard pevear and larissa volokhonsky

fak

[Annamariah]

I take your point about Finnish and formal and informal address. Still, in books with stories that play in an older period, it wouldn't go amiss. For modern books, that isn't possible though as that relies on modern culture and for the Fins that is a culture without address at all.
Sure, as I said earlier, addressing people works in Finnish if the story doesn't happen in modern times. For example Jane Austen's characters can call each other "herra" (Mr), "rouva" (Mrs) and "neiti" (Miss) all they want without sounding strange.


But I do not agree about translating the form of address in itself if at all possible. Indeed 'Mr'/'Mister' and 'Herr' do mean the same, but such things can always be understood by any public and if translated they take away the foreign feel of a work. Those particular things, together with currencies and other particulars that are unique to the original culture, are the only things left in a translation to give a feel of the original. If that goes, the whole cultural thing is gone.
I'm not sure I understand why "Herr" shouldn't be translated as "Mr", as the meaning is the same. I mean, the names of places and currencies are also translated to fit the target language, if there is an established domesticated name. Or are you saying that they shoud write Deutschland instead of Germany in an English translation of a German book?

I think culture is about so much more than the specific word used in the form of address. It's not just the way people talk, but also the way they act and think, it's all the customs and things specific and unique to one culture.

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.


A Frenchman addressing his public or someone in particular with 'Monsieur' or 'Madame' can easily also do that in a translation. You cannot call 'Monsieur' the brother of the French king 'Mister' as the role doesn't exist, but more to the point, 'Mrs Bovary' wouldn't sound very well. Or well-known figures as 'Mme de Montespan' could not be called 'Mrs de Montespan'. What should one do with the 'de' anyway? 'Of' is not an option because there is no English county or whatever area called Montespan and then she is also not a Lady per se. 'Mademoiselle' is also such a problem. Those French terms evoke a certain respect and a certain cultural thing in France that you cannot put into English.
This example of "Monsieur" when it is an established role in one culture and not in another is an example of realia, and should be treated as one. It still doesn't mean that in other situations "Monsieur" couldn't be translated as "mister".

I haven't read Madame Bovary, and I can't comment on whether Mrs. Bovary would be better or worse or the same as Madame Bovary. In Finnish the book is however called "Rouva Bovary". Often 'de', 'von', or 'van' or such are considered parts of the name, and left be while the translating the form of address. For example in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca there are "herra ja rouva de Winter", "Mr. and Mrs. de Winter". I've seen this used a lot and it doesn't seem like a problem to me :)


Not to mention for example the term 'gentilhomme' in the musketeer-books. You could put 'gentleman' but it is not really that. It is a class of people of low nobility who are the honour of France and who went to fight for their country as officers. There is not such a class in Britain: nobility that was actually sometimes an equivlent of low middle class and sometimes even working class farmers, but with the honour of nobility; they were considered to take their own decisions idenpendently from the king.
This is again realia, which can be translated in several ways. Sometimes the realia is just left out, sometimes it is used in exactly the same form as it appears in the source text, sometimes the orthography is domesticated, sometimes the word is explicated or replaced with a hypernym - the possibilities are numerous.


I do not believe in domestication that way because, as I said, to me it is impossible to domesticate entirely as the book is still written in a certain culture and is preoccupied with certain things unique to that culture. Or one has to make it flat but then the whole point goes. It is even difficult to translate something into a modern version sometimes without taking away some content.
Full domestication of course isn't possible, and usually not desirable anyway, but still think that there is rarely a translation without some degree of domestication in it. Without any domestication a translation could easily become incomprehensible, especially if the source and target cultures differ greatly.

[kiki1982]

I find the translation of forms of address like 'Herr' or 'Monsieur' (except of course the realia) unnecessary and foremost, taking the cultural reference away. But obviously, there are certain precedents in certain languages. believe that Madame Bovary stays the same in English where obviously it is translated in Finnish.

No, I am not suggestion that 'Deutschland' should be kept that. But Berlin should stay Berlin or Brussels should stay Brussels.

[Captain Pike]

Not sure whether this deserves my attention at all, but...


i can't tell how i am supposed to react to this. if you're being serious, i'm about as sad as i am pissed off, if you're trolling - this is brilliant.

seems completely non sequitur. I don't expect any "reaction" to my opening the conversation about translation by simply telling the truth about my enjoyment of this work.
I'm not very well read and I'd like to improve upon this. At the same time, I happen to enjoy the experience. This book that I have came from my parents shelves. It has that nice dusty smell of the library; its pages are slightly yellowed and fragile. The binding is worn. It's a nice feeling for me to read through a book my parents enjoyed many years ago.

Trolling?! WTF? I'm a 50-year-old married guy in a wheelchair -- what's to troll? I don't even get your point.

I am glad to see that it is interesting topic, with lots of tangential musings. As our technological world grows, it has the effect of drawing our cultures together, in some ways. These are great times to be a student of life.
I think many of us are interested in the experiences and insight that made up a guy like Dostoyevsky. We are wanting to understand as best as possible, how he intended to portray this, humble and inquisitive, "mouse that roared". I nurture the "Idiot" in me.

[ktr]

I think many of us are interested in the experiences and insight that made up a guy like Dostoyevsky. We are wanting to understand as best as possible, how he intended to portray this, humble and inquisitive, "mouse that roared". I nurture the "Idiot" in me.

I'll skip the rest of your post and reply to this - constance garnett is the biggest joke when it comes to serious literature and translation. if you like her translations of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, chances are - you like HER prose, not their prose. she routinely skips over entire passages that gave her too much trouble to translate, sometimes substituting her own. One can not read a her translation and claim to like the supposed author, they are not reading anything but her half-***, overproducing, word-garbage.

i apologize if i sound angry but the topic infuriates me, so many people just don't know what the deal is.

quick google search

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/07/051107fa_fact_remnick

[kiki1982]

Waw, now that was an interesting article for me. It makes me even more determined to surpass the stage of Kak-vy-pozhivaetye-ya-pozhivayu-khorosho!

[mal4mac]

constance garnett is the biggest joke when it comes to serious literature and translation....

Now that's trolling :)

The Oxford Guide to English Literature in Translation takes Constance Garnett very seriously: "Garnett's translations read easily... and the basic meaning of the Russian text is accurately rendered on the whole.... her fluent renderings allow Dostoevsky's current to pass over into English."

What more can you ask for?

[kiki1982]

Yes, and just one question, anyone actually read the original in Russian when writing that Oxford Guide?

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.

An easy read should not be reached by leaving things out or even worse, manipulation. As Nabokov said (and there is not much I agree on because he was arrogant, but that I do): 'The worst degree of turpitude is reached when a masterpiece is planished and patted into such a shape, vilely beautified in such a fashion as to comform to the notions and prejudices of a given public.'

The brilliance of long sentences should not be sacrificed by one who can't make sense of them. If one cannot make sense of those sentences, then one needs to read again and again and again until one understands to then convey the meaning, in also a brilliant sentence in the target language.

[Madame X]

I find the translation of forms of address like 'Herr' or 'Monsieur' (except of course the realia) unnecessary and foremost, taking the cultural reference away. But obviously, there are certain precedents in certain languages. I believe that Madame Bovary stays the same in English where obviously it is translated in Finnish.

It does indeed, although Anglo readers obstinately adhere to their own stress patterns and thus end up sounding like they’re talking about some ‘Madame Ovary’, or something. :cool: French president Sarkozy suffers similar indignities, I hear.

[Annamariah]

I find the translation of forms of address like 'Herr' or 'Monsieur' (except of course the realia) unnecessary and foremost, taking the cultural reference away. But obviously, there are certain precedents in certain languages. believe that Madame Bovary stays the same in English where obviously it is translated in Finnish.

No, I am not suggestion that 'Deutschland' should be kept that. But Berlin should stay Berlin or Brussels should stay Brussels.

I'm afraid I still don't understand what is the basic difference there why "Deutschland" should be translated but "Herr" should not... I respect your opinion, but I'd just like to understand the reasoning behind it :)

[kiki1982]

Haha, Madame X. Yes, Mr Sarkozy also suffers from it... It hadn't occured to me about Bovary, but now you say it, it sounds quite funny. :biggrin5:

@Annamariah:

I see forms of address as the first layer of a culture. If one translates them, one takes away the first cultural reference.

If one is translating Russian, one does not translate 'Zdravstvuyte, Nikolay Petrovich' into 'hello, Mr Petrovich' (or I sincerely hope not). If translating War and Peace, that would be appropriate though, as it is taking place Regency and before. So we can hear Elizabeth Bennet saying 'Good day, Mr Petrovich', not to mention all the girls that should be addressed differently. One could even opt, if there are two 'zdravstvuyte's in one row, to transcribe one in Latin script, and translate one. At any rate, the name and patronymic is a special form of address, unique to Russian culture. It is not hard to understand and it is not translated into 'Mr' which would be the English equivalent.

'Monsieur/Mr', 'Herr', 'Madame/Mme', 'Frau', 'Mademoiselle/Mlle' and 'Fräulein' are not a name, but are also unique forms of address to French and German culture. So there are in other cultures. Translating them takes away the little thing that is left of that culture at first sight in a text. We do not translate currencies either, apart from when it is for children whose scope is not so large. Why not? Because it leaves in the text a certain reference that people might be speaking in the target language, but that we are in another country really.

If there is a name for a city in another language, then it can be translated. Venezia in Italian becomes Venice in English, or Firenze becomes Florence. But there are a whole lot of cities which do not have that. Bordeaux stays Bordeaux, Novosibirsk stays Novosibirsk only transcribed in Latin script. It is not that we can't understand about which city the book is.

The same I find it goes with forms of address. What does it matter that it is not translated? It keeps the first cultural layer in, it is the first thing pople notice: how people address one another, and it is not even hard to understand.
Have them address one another as public school boys and the whole thing becomes an Enlgish traditional village. Yet, we are not in England and people might speak like the English (it cannot be helped), but at least they have kept their way of addressing like the Russians keep it for some strange reason. I wonder why?

Again I see no logical reason for wanting a 'mister' instead of a 'monsieur' in a text. It makes a huge difference.

[Annamariah]

Kiki:

I still think there must be something wrong with my comprehension :blush:

I don't think we are talking about the same thing, considering your example of translating "Здравствуйте, Николай Петрович" into "Hello, Mr. Petrovich". "Николай Петрович" is a name, and I think it should be translated as one. If it was "Здравствуйте, Господин Петрович", translation "Hello, Mr. Petrovich" would be, in my opinion, appropriate.

"Mister", "miss", "Herr" and "Fräulein" are not names, but words, common nouns, so I can't see why they should not be translated if there is an equivalent in the target language, especially in cases when in both languages the way of addressing people is relatively similar.

If it's okay to use a translated proper noun when there is an established one (Deutschland -> Germany), why wouldn't the same apply to common nouns used in addressing people? The manner of using said nouns or names comes through even if the words themselves have been translated.

And about currencies - many of them have translations too. Before Euros the Finnish currency was "markka", but in English "mark". In Finnish we don't talk about francs or liras or roubles, but we say "frangi", "liira" and "rupla" instead. They are realia that have established translations - in this case by means of domesticated orthography.

[kiki1982]

There is obviously something wrong with my principles then... I must be unorthodox ;)

"Господин", wich you would translate as 'Mr' is not 'Mr' as such in its English quality, but is a more polite, formal use of 'Mr/Sir'. It does not qualify in its use as normal 'Mr' in English. "Николай Петрович" is said to a person when he is not really known or considered to be familiar with me. Let's say a neighbour. As far as I know, we do not use "Господин" with it which would be very polite indeed. As such, ''Николай Петрович" is not merely a name, as we do not address people in English, 'Hello, Mary Smith, how are you today!', if they are neighbours or something, but it is a form of address which might involve a name but which is not only that. If I were to translate it into 'Mr' I had the possibility that the formal thing would go out of it, or that I would end up with a weird combinaton of titles and 'Mr' which is also possible. The Russians keep their forms of address because they are names, but other nations have them translated.

We do translate currencies into a form we know as the Finnish one, but we do not change their name as such.

You see, where you, I think, see 'Herr' and 'Monsieur' merely as a word, I see them as a currency, something unique that is understandable and that is to be kept. But I must be one of the few then. At least in English. The few translations of things I have read in Dutch kept the forms of address, but I can have been lucky.

I find that otherwise, one ends up with a text that is neither fish nor meat (as they say in Dutch). A weird combination of people who seem to be English, but are not due to their ways of acting.

I don't know, I'd keep "Господин" in Latin script with a footnote.

[scaltz]

Good question. Well me being young and 5 language speaker; I think that translated works are at best mediocre. Imagine reading Irène Némirovsky's la Suite Française in English, would the story make sense? The answer is obviously no, no I wouldn't for many of the expressions there are used in a French way (for example, poser un lapin means literally "put a rabbit" well if you translate expression-wise, it should be "Stood someone up"). Or even Murakami's works. If you read his books in Japanese--their original language, you would see how DIFFERENT his way of writing is compared to the translated versions.

@Katy North: That's why I prefer fansubbing over company subbing :]. I find company crappy compared to fansubbing for the latter notes the Japanese culture if the sentence isn't clear enough for the viewer.

[mal4mac]

Good question. Well me being young and 5 language speaker; I think that translated works are at best mediocre. Imagine reading Irène Némirovsky's la Suite Française in English, would the story make sense? The answer is obviously no, no I wouldn't for many of the expressions there are used in a French way (for example, poser un lapin means literally "put a rabbit" well if you translate expression-wise, it should be "Stood someone up").


You may just have defeated your own argument by providing a good translation of what you said was impossible!

I don't see how "stood someone up" is mediocre compared to "put a rabbit". Is there anything about the context that would make it a better phrase?

Both phrases are rather strange. Any thoughts on origins? Is "stand someone up" a shortening of "stand someone up to be shot down"? If so, could the rabbit expression come from "put [forward] a rabbit to be shot down"?

If the rabbit theme was important, a good translator might come up with something like "she stood him up, he felt like a rabbit being shot to smithereens." (or something better!) The point is, any nuance in the French, of meaning or metaphor, can be translated into English, or do you have a counter-example?

Serious polyglots, like George Steiner, do not dismiss all translations as mediocre, and I really don't see why good translations cannot be made of all literature.

[ktr]

You may just have defeated your own argument by providing a good translation of what you said was impossible!

I don't see how "stood someone up" is mediocre compared to "put a rabbit". Is there anything about the context that would make it a better phrase?

Both phrases are rather strange. Any thoughts on origins? Is "stand someone up" a shortening of "stand someone up to be shot down"? If so, could the rabbit expression come from "put [forward] a rabbit to be shot down"?

If the rabbit theme was important, a good translator might come up with something like "she stood him up, he felt like a rabbit being shot to smithereens." (or something better!) The point is, any nuance in the French, of meaning or metaphor, can be translated into English, or do you have a counter-example?

Serious polyglots, like George Steiner, do not dismiss all translations as mediocre, and I really don't see why good translations cannot be made of all literature.

I agree with the other dude.

Can you give a similar meaning, sure - but is the art of prose lost? yes. if you speak french fluently (which i happen to) there is beauty in his example, it flows extremely nicely. if you say "she stood him up" - does it mean the same thing... well, LITERALLY - sure, but does it have the same impact? no - so does it really mean the same thing? I don't think so.

[kiki1982]

It is definitely valid that 'to stand up' someone is a mediocre translation that does the phrase sadly short:

'"Poser un lapin" signifie de nos jours ne pas aller à un rendez-vous, sans prévenir la personne qui nous attend. Cependant, le sens était autrefois différent. En 1880 par exemple, cela voulait dire "ne pas rétribuer les faveurs d'une jeune fille". En effet à cette époque, le "lapin" désignait un refus de paiement. Par la suite, il a également désigné un voyageur clandestin. L'expression, sous sa forme actuelle, serait apparue vers 1890 chez les étudiants, et pourrait provenir de "laisser poser", qui signifie "faire attendre quelqu'un"'.

'The phrase "poser un lapin" in our time means not going to an appointment with someone without warning the person who is waiting for us. However, the meaning of it was different in past times. In 1880 for example, it meant "not returning the advances of a young girl". In fact, then, the '"lapin" (rabit) signified a refusal of payment. Later, it also indicated a clandestie traveller. The expression, in its present form, would have appeared round about 1890 amongst students, and could result from "lasser poser" ("to let pose/stand"), which means "to let someone wait"'.

So, how does 'stand up' meet this type of expression then? It originated in 1902 and results from 'stand up' as courageous, mainly in fist fights. How is that to be paired with a nasty thing that provokes sadness or lack of money as 'lapin' in French in its first meaning then?

It becomes even more difficult if the writer starts to play with his expression and starts to compare his character to a rabit, or the actor to a magician or something. Where are you then with standing up?

At any rate, one will not come to a result with dodgy etymology and I would not choose to insert a comparison into the text as that ruins the original sentence in itself, which is (to me) an insult to the original writer.

The quality of a translation cannot be measured by the possbility of reading it easily. It should be measured by its closeness to the original, in form, word-use, style, imagery and cultural preservation.

[Annamariah]

You see, where you, I think, see 'Herr' and 'Monsieur' merely as a word, I see them as a currency, something unique that is understandable and that is to be kept. But I must be one of the few then. At least in English. The few translations of things I have read in Dutch kept the forms of address, but I can have been lucky.

I find that otherwise, one ends up with a text that is neither fish nor meat (as they say in Dutch). A weird combination of people who seem to be English, but are not due to their ways of acting.

So I take it that to you "Herr" and "Monsieur" are realia, not just ordinary common nouns? This is again about where to draw the line - even words that have seemingly direct translations hold different connotations in different languages and are never quite identical in their meaning.

I still disagree with you about that "neither fish nor meat" - just because certain words are translated doesn't mean that the foreign culture couldn't come through by other means. A text is always, first and foremost, an entity, and it's the overall feeling that counts.


I don't know, I'd keep "Господин" in Latin script with a footnote.

So you would recommend using footnotes in the translation of literature?

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.


The quality of a translation cannot be measured by the possbility of reading it easily. It should be measured by its closeness to the original, in form, word-use, style, imagery and cultural preservation.

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

[kiki1982]

So I take it that to you "Herr" and "Monsieur" are realia, not just ordinary common nouns? This is again about where to draw the line - even words that have seemingly direct translations hold different connotations in different languages and are never quite identical in their meaning.

I agree that it depends where one draws the line, but I think, these days the line is drawn by the people who teach translation. Mind you, I don't say it out of a grudging thought or something, but where in past times writers translated fellow writers and produced some really lovely things (no doubt out of respect for thei colleague), now things get translated by people who sometimes do not even know what a book looks like. I don't say that to spite you, though, ;) just because I have friends who do it. The only ever thing they have read is one thing by Kafka in German, 'because [they] had to for class' and then they stopped reading quality for ever... At the same time that my friend was doing 'literary translation' as a subject, I had read more things and thought about it longer than my friend who was translating it! It doesn't mean that that goes for everyone, but I found Constance Garnett's story shocking to say the least.


I still disagree with you about that "neither fish nor meat" - just because certain words are translated doesn't mean that the foreign culture couldn't come through by other means. A text is always, first and foremost, an entity, and it's the overall feeling that counts.

I agree with the overall feeling, but I believe too much of it goes if forms of address are not kept where at all possible. All French books I have seen that employ English forms of address or swearwords are to me a strange coming together of English ways and a French story. And it is also like that for me with films. Somehow, it doesn't work,

Mind you, I am not used to things being entirely in my language, though. In Northern Belgium, everything is subtitled so we hear those forms, swearwords and what not in the original language, which, I am just guessing, makes me more sensitive to such things.


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.

I agree with you that they should be avoided as much as possible, that they interrupt the flow. But firstly there is no reason why one should read them, and secondly, there is no reason why they should be too long. A mere explanation about 'gospodin' would do. And for the rest of the book there would be no need anymore to address the word. That said, an introduction can be given as to formal and informal in Russian culture, I don't know, whatever is relevant to the book in itself. Otherwise, i that is not desired, then there is still the internet to look it up.

There are even classics with footnotes in the original language, so I can't see any reason why they should be avoided in a translation. If only to clarify certain motifs they are great. But, some of them are tedious and unnecessary like the ones in my copy of Notre Dame de Paris.


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

That is not necesaarily the case. A clumsy read is also not an option, but the two, authenticity and readability, can be paired, although reservations should be made as to language pairs. I completely understand that some languages are difficult to translate and that it is of course doable, but only if the style is relinquished for example. Certain languages are easier to translate into because they are richer than others. To me Dutch is a nightmare and it is my mother tongue. It just does not have enough scope. Either you end up being hopelessly out of date, or otherwise with a hopelessly small vocabulary. But English is great. However I guess that depends on the language you tanslate from.

[Annamariah]

I agree that it depends where one draws the line, but I think, these days the line is drawn by the people who teach translation. Mind you, I don't say it out of a grudging thought or something, but where in past times writers translated fellow writers and produced some really lovely things (no doubt out of respect for thei colleague), now things get translated by people who sometimes do not even know what a book looks like. I don't say that to spite you, though, ;) just because I have friends who do it. The only ever thing they have read is one thing by Kafka in German, 'because [they] had to for class' and then they stopped reading quality for ever... At the same time that my friend was doing 'literary translation' as a subject, I had read more things and thought about it longer than my friend who was translating it! It doesn't mean that that goes for everyone, but I found Constance Garnett's story shocking to say the least.

That example of a friend of yours is truly horrible. A translator needs to know both source and target languages exceptionally well - and of course go deeper into the text than someone who just reads it for fun.

People who teach translation each have their own ideas on what is a good translation. So far I've had five different translation teachers, and each of them have had different teaching methods and they have emphasized different points in evaluating the translation. My two favourite teachers (one taught translation from Finnish into English and the other one from English to Finnish) always went through the whole text in the class after we had all translated it, and then we would discuss each point separately. We would compare our different translations and explain why we chose to translate it the way we did. Only rarely any "right answers" were given on how something should have been done, and a certain thing was deemed wrong usually only if the translator had clearly misunderstood the text at that point. Another teacher made us always read each other's translations and comment on them. It gives one perspective to see other people's translations and hear what reasons they have to back up their translation choices, it really makes one think about aspects they never would have thought of otherwise.


Mind you, I am not used to things being entirely in my language, though. In Northern Belgium, everything is subtitled so we hear those forms, swearwords and what not in the original language, which, I am just guessing, makes me more sensitive to such things.

Finland is a small country with a language that is not really spoken outside our borders we can't afford not to know other languages. Also we have two official languages, so being monolingual isn't really an option anyway. For example if you go to the movies, the first row of the subtitles is always in Finnish and the second one in Swedish, so it's three languages at one go, though not everyone pay attention to all of them at the same time, of course. But anyway, only children's tv programmes and movies are dubbed, everything else is subtitled, so Finns are exposed to foreign languages from the young age.

Yet still to me it would feel weird if the swearwords and forms of address were not translated. Though in case of words of address I guess the fact that addressing people at all is rare might help maintaining the foreign feeling in translation. I've never seen swearwords left in the text the way they are, that would be weird. There are differences between those, too, in nuances and so on, and you could hardly expect the reader of the translation to be able to swear fluently on foreign languages :p


That is not necesaarily the case. A clumsy read is also not an option, but the two, authenticity and readability, can be paired, although reservations should be made as to language pairs. I completely understand that some languages are difficult to translate and that it is of course doable, but only if the style is relinquished for example. Certain languages are easier to translate into because they are richer than others. To me Dutch is a nightmare and it is my mother tongue. It just does not have enough scope. Either you end up being hopelessly out of date, or otherwise with a hopelessly small vocabulary. But English is great. However I guess that depends on the language you tanslate from.

That is true, at least to a certain extent. You need a broad vocabulary to bring out the subtle nuances, or at least a language in which new words can be coined easily (like Finnish with all the possible inflections, suffixes and compound words). But even a vast vocabulary doesn't help that much if the difference between target and source cultures and languages is great. For example English has much more words than Finnish does, yet Finnish has dozens of words for different kinds of snow, ice, and frost that are just impossible to translate into English, because no such vocabulary exists in that language. Also in languages that are not related to each other structures vary greatly, which makes maintaining the style in translation even harder. Then one just has to decide whether they should try to convey the form or "feeling", the reaction that the reader of the original text has for the style.

[Wilde woman]

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


I do try to look for the oldest translation into English that I can find if I'm reading a translation, but that is my own rule of thumb.

Really? Older doesn't necessarily mean better. (As a medievalist, I never thought I'd say that! :biggrin5:) 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.

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!

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?

[mal4mac]

I agree with the other dude.

Can you give a similar meaning, sure - but is the art of prose lost? yes. if you speak french fluently (which i happen to) there is beauty in his example, it flows extremely nicely. if you say "she stood him up" - does it mean the same thing... well, LITERALLY - sure, but does it have the same impact? no - so does it really mean the same thing? I don't think so.

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.

[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 :biggrin5:

"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? :frown2:


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":
http://www.yourpersonalgourmet.com/images/ryeBread.jpg

Then "jälkiuunileipä":
http://feed.ne.cision.com/wpyfs/00/00/00/00/00/0F/F9/DA/FB_Oululainen_Juhla_Jalkiuunileipa_mood_090707.jpg
You need some strong teeth to chew this bread, it is not soft at all :D


Really? Older doesn't necessarily mean better. (As a medievalist, I never thought I'd say that! :biggrin5:) 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! :biggrin5:) 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 :rolleyes:. 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. :goof:


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 :rolleyes:).

[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 :biggrin5:

"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 :frown2:?

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...)

[kiki1982]

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

If that is Anthony Burgess then Wilde Woman can draw her conclusions. His replaceent of wit for poetry also gives me doubts. The two things are not even remotely the same. Yet license? Sorry... Wit is no poetry. Austen already knew it.


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...)

Readability is not an aesthetic value. As far as I know, nor Virginia Woolf, nor DH Lawrence actually knew Russian, so how can they remotely comment on a translation? The Maudes clearly did know Russian and if Tolstoy approved himself, then I can conceide to them having produced good work. However, Garnett seems to have largely taken any contents out of works and it is the question whether she could capture the smallest hint to something if she worked quickly as is attested.

Spîrit-translation is not translating the meaning of the sentence, but the meaning behind the sentence and being aware that there can be a double, triple, four-fold etc. meaning. That needs to be conveyed, not the meaning of the text in its literal wording. I agree that there are sometimes problems, but it is no reason to turn phrases as I can see Garnett has done. If anything, it is taking the spirit away rather than translating it. Tell me, what is a person without spirit? Dead, I'd say. What is a book without its contents? Dead. There is only a story on the same level as Mills and Boon. It is nothing, it is unintresting, it has no base, it has no source, it is alone.

The thing is not that everyone absolutely needs to read a work like it is supposed to be read. Of course one can stay with the wonderful story of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy or Roxane and Cyrano, but, and there is the great danger for any translation, it needs to stay possible to know or to get to know by dedication (or footnotes, whatever you prefer) what is the contents. As such, nor Anthony Burgess, nor Guillemard/Thomas, nor Hooker give that possibility. Again, they turned the piece itself into 'the finest end' and they did not keep 'the finest end' to be accomplished by 'the finest means' which were the words in the play. Cyrano could be speaking about the whole piece there, and then a translator is going to take the opportunity away. The piece becomes a piece that is no more than nice words and that is just what Rostand was trying to say: 'nice words have become the reason for love, love has turned into nice words, but love is more than nice words and it needs a soul to go with it'.

I'd say the problem is not that people are lazy (although sometimes one wonders considering native English works), but that they do not know any better. They do not have the possibility to learn, because the opportunity is not there.

Tell me, if someone reads Milton, does he also complain about the footnotes or does it need to be translated?

[mal4mac]

Woolf compared Garnett to major English authors, and declared Garnett superior. This kind of comparative evaluation, when performed by a major literary figure, is surely worth taking into account. Buy I agree you should also take translators into account - the Maude's admired Garnett, Oxford Guide folk (on balance!) admire her, major editors keep on publishing her...

I think an English person should read Milton, not a translation. But the footnotes should not be excessive I recently bought the Oxford World Classics version, after looking at every version I could find, because it seemed to have *just enough* footnotes. The editors involved are *very* big cheeses so perhaps they did not feel the need to 'show off' their scholarship. Less is more. The RSC Complete Shakespeare is another example of two big cheeses getting the footnotes right. For the common reader, 'getting the footnotes right' seems to me of paramount importance, but very few publishers do this well.

[kiki1982]

As I said, if people do not know better then why would they change it.

Volkhonsky said she could not even recognise Dostoevsky in Garnett's translation. A similar point was addressed by Nabokov. If those two say that, and they are both Russians and have read his books, then there is a problem.

So, frankly, if Virginia Woolf praised Garnett, well, was there anything else available? Probably not. So what is her praise worth? She was a good writer, yes, but is her praise worth anything if she couldn't read the original? She couldn't even compare.

Of course you are right about footnotes. One doesn't have to write another novel doing them. Short is good. Elaborate is for the notes in the back or front, to read afterwards.

Though the right wording is of paramount importance and that is where most translations faulter.

[mal4mac]

The Oxford Guide account of Dostoevsky translations is available online:

http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/7154/Dostoevsky.html

Some interesting discussion points:

Andrew MacAndrew compares his work to that of a conductor performing a classic on an orchestra of outlandish instruments, and speaks of the need to adapt the music to the instruments. Like Magarshack, he tends to anglicize proper names (‘Mr Karamazov’ rather than ‘Dmitry Fyodorovich’).

McDuff carries literalism the furthest,"the convoluted style might make the reader unfamiliar with Dostoevsky's Russian question the translator's command of English. More seriously, this literalism means that the dialogue is sometimes impossibly odd—and as a result rather dead... Such ‘foreignizing’ fidelity makes for difficult reading."

And Garnett's domsticating translation is often considered to be more accurate than McDuff's hyper-literal translation! "Garnett's ‘worship you’ is more accurate here than McDuff's ‘pray for you’, and her ‘full of hatred’ is arguably a better translation than ‘wicked’ of the difficult Russian adjective zloy"

With literal translators like Pevear and Volokhonsky you end up with phrases like, from Demons,: ‘The old woman brings her something from the wing every once in a while for the love of Christ.’ With greater freedom, this is much better rendered by Michael Katz in his Devils: ‘The old woman who lives in the annexe sometimes gives her something to eat out of charity.’

"While one may criticize the normalizing tendency so well illustrated by Constance Garnett, it does not seem that the literal echoing of the syntactical and stylistic peculiarities of the Russian is enough to convey the life of the text."

[kiki1982]

Well, of course the sentence should be sentence in English. That sentence, admittedly, from Demons is not a sentence, it should be turned the right way, though adding a 'who' where there was none in the original I find a little doubtful. There is definitely a Russian word for 'who' and 'which' which is the same, so I don't see why it should be put anywhere if it is not implied in the first place.

As to the Garnett translation of злой, it is clear: in every internet dictionary there are only things like 'wicked', 'mean' and the like; it can even mean 'ugly', but I suppose more in a psychological way, then. 'Full of hatred' is not even anything like wicked, but just frustrated. That is toning it down rather than naming the child by its name.

More to the point, it depends why the dialogue 'is impossibly odd', because the dialogue in the original was 'impossibly odd' (which is not unthinkable) or because the translator made it 'impossibly odd'? I'd opt for the first one. Of course sometimes things are odd (at least the example you showed, its Russian original was odd). Kafka's dialogues are odd sometimes, does it mean that I have to make my own or even give it my own meaning? More at home, some dialogues in Wuthering Heights are odd, do we have to translate them and make them easier to understand?
It does not.
One, as a translator, is not there to make one's own work, one is there to put another person's work in another language, taking into account all kinds of strange quirks and themes in a book.

For example: Kafka has a love for a certain word which he doesn't hesitate to use very often (it varies from book to book somtimes). Only that one, despite there being a lot of synonyms, naturally, in German. If one wants to take that aspect away, then fine, one starts to vary, if one does not want to do Kafka short, then one keeps it and repeats over and over again 'by the way' and 'certainly' and 'the land surveyor'. Why? Because it strengthens Kafka's monotonousness that serves not to distract the reader which forces him to think, because there is nothing interesting on the surface (Lowsky).
If I were not to choose this way, then I would take one of the essential qualities away that Kafka has. It has nothing to do with readability, it has everything to do with being careful what one does.

[mal4mac]

As to the Garnett translation of злой, it is clear: in every internet dictionary there are only things like 'wicked', 'mean'... 'Full of hatred' is not even anything like wicked, but just frustrated.


Might Garnett + Oxford expert be better sources than 'internet dictionaries'? 'Full of hatred' seems much closer to 'wicked' than 'frustrated' to me!



More to the point, it depends why the dialogue 'is impossibly odd', because the dialogue in the original was 'impossibly odd' (which is not unthinkable) or because the translator made it 'impossibly odd'?

I'd opt for the first one. Of course sometimes things are odd (at least the example you showed, its Russian original was odd). Kafka's dialogues are odd sometimes, does it mean that I have to make my own or even give it my own meaning? More at home, some dialogues in Wuthering Heights are odd, do we have to translate them and make them easier to understand?
It does not.


Each translator to his/her own! Let a thousand flowers bloom! But I think Penguin should concentrate on providing the easier to understand translations. University presses can provide the 'impossibly odd' but accurate translations. And Oxford something in between, for undergraduate students.

I read Penguins most recent translation of Devils recently and found it almost impossibly odd & a pain to read -- e.g., you had to run to the notes in the back to read translations of the *hundreds!* of French phrase every few minutes. I did manage to finish the novel, bit I will not be re-reading it (at least in that awkward translation...)

There should be the utmost help to the common reader from Penguin. In this case, perhaps, translating the French into English and using pompous English phrasing to indicate the pomposity of the speaker might have done the job. And why not Mr Karamazov? The Penguin introduction could (briefly!) point their readers to the more scholarly translation, which they can turn to if they feel the need to get closer to the Russian.


Kafka has a love for a certain word which he doesn't hesitate to use very often (it varies from book to book somtimes). Only that one, despite there being a lot of synonyms, naturally, in German. If one wants to take that aspect away, then fine, one starts to vary, if one does not want to do Kafka short, then one keeps it and repeats over and over again 'by the way' and 'certainly' and 'the land surveyor'. Why? Because it strengthens Kafka's monotonousness that serves not to distract the reader which forces him to think, because there is nothing interesting on the surface (Lowsky).
If I were not to choose this way, then I would take one of the essential qualities away that Kafka has. It has nothing to do with readability, it has everything to do with being careful what one does.

This is a very good point. I agree with you that Kafka's repetition should be used in any translation - he obviously did it for a reason and no 'domesticating' translation would make things clearer to the common reader. It might be slightly more boring, but that price should be paid...

It is a bigger problem in translating Homer, because of his use of repeated epithets - "rosy-fingered" dawn or "swift-footed" Achilles. Milman Parry explained that the epithet is used to because of the need to stockpile metrically fitting phrases, and because of oral transmission - epithets are aides-memoires. But if you perform a modern translation into prose, aimed at the common reader, should you use the epithets? Both reasons for using epithets are defeated! Only the strict rule 'one must have a literal translation' would lead to maintaining them. But why obey that rule? It seems too strict for all but the most scholarly translation, one aimed at those learning Greek, say. Rieu used epithets very sparingly in his excellent Penguin translation, and I can see why. They become very tedious given the number of times "Achilles" and "dawn" are mentioned! And there's already enough tedium :)

[kiki1982]

Might Garnett + Oxford expert be better sources than 'internet dictionaries'? 'Full of hatred' seems much closer to 'wicked' than 'frustrated' to me!

Ok, so most of the dictionaries on the net are not good. The Oxford Russian-English Dictionary, a reprint from 1985 I think, defines злой as follows:

1 evil; bad; злой гений (zloy geny) evil genious. 2 wicked; malicious; malevolent; vicious; Злая улыбка (zlaya ulybka) malevolent smile; Со злым умыслом (so zlym umyslom) with malicious intent; (leg.) of malice prepense. 3 (short form only) angry; Быть злым (на+а) (byt' zlym (na + Gen)) to be angry (with). 4 (of animals) fierce; savage; "Злая собака" ("zlaya sobaka") 'Beware of the dog!'. 5 dangerous; severe; Злой мороз (zloy moroz) severe frost. 6 (coll.) bad, nasty; Злой кашель (zloy kashel') bad cough. 7 (slang) terrible (= keen, enthusiastic).

Now, there is no evidence that it actually means something like 'full of hatred'. It rather means just 'bad' in all kinds of situations. The only possibility for it being anything less than plain 'bad' is when it changes form to its Intrumental case 'злым'. The basic form Зло means 'evil, harm, disaster, misfortune' you name it. The person злыдень, who also takes his properties from the adjective and its basic form is, guess, a 'wicked person'. And there are a whole load of derivations from the basic form (1 whole page of that dictionary) that refer to bad things: from intrigue and plotting to rogues, bad people, being angry, being in a bad temper etc.

Is there any evidence at all that it means 'full of hatred'? So the 'expert', has he looked in the dictionary?

[edit] By the way, we asked a Russian lady we know today about the problem. Like my husband who speaks Russian said before, she said злой (zloy) can only mean one thing and that is 'bad, evil'. 'Full of hatred' is impossible as an interpretation of it as that has its own expression (if you really want to exaggerat the feeling, but it means someting more passive than just 'bad'): Полный ненавистей (polny nenavist'ey) (Adj. 'full' + Instrumental case of 'hatred'). You can see that even the word 'hatred' itself has no connection with the root 'zlo', so in other words, Garnett's fantasy was too great and the 'expert' was severely wrong.


I read Penguins most recent translation of Devils recently and found it almost impossibly odd & a pain to read -- e.g., you had to run to the notes in the back to read translations of the *hundreds!* of French phrase every few minutes. I did manage to finish the novel, bit I will not be re-reading it (at least in that awkward translation...)

Yes, well, the question is whether it wouldn't be easier to just learn French and be done with it.


And why not Mr Karamazov? The Penguin introduction could (briefly!) point their readers to the more scholarly translation, which they can turn to if they feel the need to get closer to the Russian.

Please, you're reading a Russian story, not an English one. Besides, there are many more grades of acquaintance in Russian than in English. How to solve that? It is not as if 'Piotr Petrovich' is incomprehensible. You are not going to translate 'samovar' either, because it cannot be. So why do it with names then or forms of address? I looked in a German translation of Austen the otehr day in my bookshop. What do I see? Misters, Sirs, Misses etc. In Dutch it is just the same. So we may conclude that it is actually not so that 'it doesn't work', it is just the fact that there is precedent which needs to be broken.


It is a bigger problem in translating Homer, because of his use of repeated epithets - "rosy-fingered" dawn or "swift-footed" Achilles. Milman Parry explained that the epithet is used to because of the need to stockpile metrically fitting phrases, and because of oral transmission - epithets are aides-memoires. But if you perform a modern translation into prose, aimed at the common reader, should you use the epithets? Both reasons for using epithets are defeated! Only the strict rule 'one must have a literal translation' would lead to maintaining them. But why obey that rule? It seems too strict for all but the most scholarly translation, one aimed at those learning Greek, say. Rieu used epithets very sparingly in his excellent Penguin translation, and I can see why. They become very tedious given the number of times "Achilles" and "dawn" are mentioned! And there's already enough tedium :)

I understand what you are saying, but people who read it in Greek also have to read that instead of hearing it. Why then change it? Besides, what is the use of the prose translation if the original was in verse? Then at least leave the lines as they were, although you will lose all the rhythm as those languages are very dense and you need a lot more words to express what's in 5 words of Greek.