Another Translation Question - Rabelais

[Pierre Menard]

Alright learned friends, I've got another question for you all. What is the best translation of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais? I'm having a hell of a time sorting through the various contradictory opinions and thoughts on the matter and have no idea what direction to go in.


J.M. Cohen's translation is highly regarded (though I'd have to get it second hand), though criticised for not being scholarly enough.

Screech is a Rabelais scholar and infinitely learned man (His Montaigne translation is great) but I've heard too scholarly.

Raffel I've heard is very loose with the text.

Putnam, solid but not spectacular.

Frame - Good, if not a bit too loose.

Monteux - A beautiful translation, but sections missing/very, very loose.


For the love of God help! (please!)

[Vota]

I like the J.M. Cohen translation from what I have read.

[Pierre Menard]

Thanks, Vota.

The Cohen translation definitely has a lot of fans for it's style and faithfulness to the feel of Rabelais. I think it's a choice between Screech and Cohen. Screech's is still in print, and is regarded highly for it's explanatory notes (though some seem to have issue with how scholarly it is), and seems to be also fairly faithful to the tone of Rabelais.

Was there anyone else at all who also has an opinion on a Rabelais translation? Any help would be appreciated.

[ennison]

Thomas Urquhart's translation.

[Vota]

In my opinion, unless you are reading Rabelais for scholarly purposes I would recommend a translation that best fits his mood and style, rather than one that is a more literal translation. There are strength's and weaknesses in each translation, as it applies to translations in general.

People sometimes hold literal interpretation to be the most faithful even when it presents issues in capturing the feel of the original. Since no translation between languages can be completely faithful, I tend to prefer those that retain the feel of the author and the author's message, while remaining close to what they said, but not as literal as possible.

I have heard that Thomas Urquhart's translation is about as literal as it gets, which would tend to scare me off. A good translator needs to be a great artist in their own right imo.

[ennison]

Whoever told you that was a slubberdegullion druggel, a lubberly lout, a scurvy sneaksbie, a doddipol-jolthead a woodcock-slangham, a ****-a-bed scoundrel and a flutch calf-lolly and probably much worse.

[Eiseabhal]

Indeed Ennison. I find the concept of anyone translating Rabelais "literally" very amusing. There are "errors" in Urquhart but he worked fast in difficult conditions. Part was written while he was a prisoner after Worcester (That was a battle that left many Leodaich bones in Englandshire). He was also a man in whose dictionary words like self-doubt did not appear. What he had going for him was a Rabelaisian personality and a ready way with neologisms.

[ennison]

I don't think any translation compares to Urquhart's in its exuberance and amplification. Abbreviated in one way but enlarged in another. If you look at what he did translate you see clearly how he got carried away in a drunken mad joy in words. A Rabelaisian personality is exactly right Eis. Were he alive today he'd be a rabid Tory and I would not like him but one can still admire talent - even in one's enemies