Lecture 6.
Translation activity in
Europe
in the 2nd half of the 18th 19th centuries
Translation activity in Europe
in the 2nd half of the 18th - 19th centuries
1. Views of German romanticists on
translation.
2. Translation activity in England.
3. Golden Age of Russian literary
translation.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
In the age of Classicism and
Enlightenment French was the most
respected literary language in Europe.
It often served as an intermediary
language for translators.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
French translators felt justified in
adapting translated texts in such
ways as to make them conform not
only to the grammatical, lexical and
semantic norms and conventions of
the French language, but also to
typological and aesthetic models
prevalent in French literature.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
French cultural predominance was
reflected in many German imitations
of French literary models and
translations from French into
German.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
One of Romanticism's key ideas is the
assertion of nationalism, which
became a central theme of Romantic
art and political philosophy.
Romanticists focused on the
development of national languages,
literatures and folklore.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
In the course of the 18th century
German writers gradually shifted from
broad acceptance of French models to
their rejection.
This shift meant emancipation from
French intellectual and cultural
dominance and propagation of an
independent German national
literature.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Translation was seen by German writers
and poets as a way connecting
national culture in its West-European
context with the rest of the world.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Ideas of Johann Breitinger, who insisted that
the translation should not violate the
thoughts of the original or deviate from the
source text in any other way, were further
developed by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock
(1724-1803) and Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744-1803), who invested the “spirit” of
the original with the ultimate authority.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
For Johann Wolfgang Goethe
(1749–1832), as for many of
his German contemporaries,
translation was a gateway
between on the one hand the
strengthening notions of
nationality and the Western
tradition, and on the other the
broader world (especially the
‘Orient’).
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Goethe wrote about two maxims in
translation:
one requires that the author of a foreign
nation be brought across to us in such a
way that we can look on him as ours;
the other requires that we should go across to
what is foreign and adapt ourselves to its
conditions, its use of language, its
peculiarities.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Goethe believed that a high-quality
translation should be identical with
the original, so that “one would not
be valued instead of the other, but in
the other’s stead”.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
August Wilhelm Schlegel (17671845) a German poet,
translator, critic, and a leader of
German Romanticism.
His translations of Shakespeare’s
plays made the English
dramatist's works into German
classics.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Schlegel’s principles of translation were based on the
interpretation of works of art as organisms.
Sharing Herder’s view, he considered every literary work
as an entity comprising form and content.
Unlike Herder and the Sturm and Drang poets, who
argued that this entity was unconsciously created by a
genius, Schlegel considered this entity as an “organic
created nature” (organische Kunstform) which
resulted from a conscious, intentional creative effort.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Accordingly, each Shakespearean drama was a skilfully
constructed organism, in which every detail (each
scene, character etc.) was related to the whole by
inherent necessity, and from which, in turn, it derived
its meaning.
So a translator can do justice to the original only by
paying attention to and translating every detail, and
any change distorted and destroyed the perfect
organism.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
The language had to be light and pleasing
and the reader was to get the
impression that s/he was reading an
original German text, not a translation.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
In other words, Schlegel tried to combine
the “objective” and the “subjective”
aspects of translation:
fidelity to the source text, on the one
hand,
and the creative transformation and
naturalization in accordance with targetside requirements, on the other.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
The Romatic concept of translation
expressed in Schlegel’s theory and
practice of Shakespeare’s translation,
was systematically analyzed by
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834),
an influential German theologian and
one of the key scholarly figures of
German Romanticism, in his lecture ‘On
the Different Methods of Translating’,
delivered to the Royal Academy of
Sciences in Berlin in 1813.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Schleiermacher insisted that the reader
should be brought to the author, that
the reader should learn to accept
‘alienation’, or what would now be called
foreignization of translations.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
In his lecture, Schleiermacher distinguishes
between interpreting (‘Dolmetchen’),
by which he understands not only oral
interpreting, but also business-related
translation,
and the translation proper (in the fields
of art and scholarship).
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Two basic methods of translation proper:
moving the author to the reader
(naturalization method)
or the reader to the author (alienation
or foreignization method).
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Translators who follow the first method
often claim that they want to make their
author speak the way he would have
spoken if he had written the work in the
translator’s language.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
In his lecture, Schleiermacher
criticizes this formula implying that
this method often turns out to be
imitation in disguise.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Thus, there seems to be only one option
left for the translator who wants to
transmit ‘the living power’ which
‘creates new forms by means of the
plastic material of language’:
the reader has to be brought to the
author.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Schleiermacher’s metaphoric formula to describe this
translation:
it will be ‘perfect when one can say that if the
author had learnt German as well as the
translator has learnt Latin he would not have
translated the work he originally wrote in Latin
any differently than the translator has done.’
Views of German romanticists on translation.
And while at one point Schleiermacher
talks about moving the reader to the
author, he also describes them as
meeting ‘at a certain point in the
middle’,
i.e. they meet through and ‘in’ a
translator who opens up the
gateway of the foreign.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
However, this foreignizing method
challenges the reader and it places
a strain on the language of the
translation.
Views of German romanticists on translation.
Schleiermacher not only sees translation
as a crucial national enterprise, but
he also dreams of the German
language as a linguistic empire where
the various works of world literary
history are all gathered together.
Translation activity in England.
Alexander Fraser Tytler’s (1747–1813)
Essay on the Principles of Translation
(1791) is often seen as the first
extended thesis on translation written
in English.
Translation activity in England.
Tytler’s Essay reacts against Dryden’s concept of
paraphrase and the loose translations that
resulted from it.
According to Tytler, translation should give a
complete transcript of the idea of the original
work, the style and manner of writing should
be the same as in the original, and translation
should have all the ease of the original.
Translation activity in England.
At the same time, Tytler allows the translator to ‘add to
the idea of the original what may appear to give
greater force or illustration’.
Thus Tytler gives the translator a partnership role with
the original authority and the right to intervene, when
necessary, in order to perfect the text.
For Tytler, the aim of translation is the production of an
equivalent effect that goes beyond linguistic and
cultural differences.
Translation activity in England.
I would therefore describe a good translation
to be that, in which the merit of the original
work is so completely transfused into
another language, as to be as distinctly
apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a
native of the country to which that
language belongs, as it is by those who
speak the language of the original work.
(A. Tytler)
Translation activity in England.
Tytler sees a translator as a judge,
combining the qualities of a critic and a
highly professional writer, whose task is
to present the original author, as he
himself would have wished to be
presented, free of drawbacks and faults.
Translation activity in England.
The translator, in effect, functions as a
kind of censor, who always has the
true interest of author and reader in
view.
Translation activity in England.
For Tytler, then, the status of a translator
could hardly be higher, as an ideal
translator should possesses genius
similar to the genius of the original
author.
Translation activity in England.
During the 19th century Britain was the
scene of much translation activity and
translation was taken very seriously.
The debate about translation was
fuelled by a strong belief that
translation is crucial for literary life in
Britain.
Translation activity in England.
Edward FitzGerald (1809–
83), a poet and a letterwriter, translated
Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam, probably the
most popular English
poem of the nineteenth
century.
Translation activity in England.
In 1869 the American scholar Charles Eliot Norton
reviewed FitzGerald’s translation in the most flattering
terms:
‘He is to be called ‘‘translator’’ only in default of a better
word, one which should express the poetic transfusion
of a poetic spirit from one language to another, and
the representation of the ideas and images of the
original in a form not altogether diverse from their
own but perfectly adapted to the new conditions of
time, place, custom, and habit of mind in which they
reappear.’
Translation activity in England.
FitzGerald outlined his approach to translation in a letter
to James Russell Lowell, the American poet, essayist,
and editor:
I am persuaded that, to keep Life in the
Work (as Drama must) the Translator
(however inferior to his Original) must
re-cast that original into his own
Likeness, more or less: the less like his
original, so much the worse: but still,
the live Dog better than the dead Lion …
Translation activity in England.
The free, domesticating approach to
translation seen in FitzGerald’s
translation of Omar Khayyam
contrasts sharply with Robert
Browning’s (1812–89) ultraliteral
translation of Aeschylus’
Agamemnon (1877)
Translation activity in England.
Robert Browning defended his
translation, proclaiming his belief in
the need for translation to be ‘literal
at every cost save that of absolute
violence to our language’.
Translation activity in England.
FitzGerald
was translating a
non-Western text
Browning
was translating one
of the canonical
works of Western
literature.
Translation activity in England.
Translation of Homer’s epics was one of the key
issues of contemporary literary activity in
Britain.
This was the source of the well-known controversy
between Matthew Arnold (1822–88), poet and
professor of poetry at Oxford, and Francis W.
Newman (1805–97), professor of Latin at
University College London.
Translation activity in England.
Arnold criticized (in his lectures ‘On
Translating Homer’, 1861) Newman’s
translation of the Iliad.
Newman wrote a detailed reply and Arnold
responded in his ‘Last Words on
Translating Homer’.
Translation activity in England.
Newman’s
aim
was
ambitious,
as
he
wanted to attract a broad readership
while at the same time staying true to
the various ‘peculiarities’ of Homer’s
epic, and the broad range of expressions
he found in it.
Translation activity in England.
Newman felt that Arnold was attacking the
scholarly basis of his translation.
Arnold in his turn claimed that it was not
so much in the realm of scholarship as in
poetic delivery that Newman has failed.
Translation activity in England.
For all their differences, Arnold and Newman
were
both
children
of
the
Romantic
revolution.
Both
shared
translator’s
the
duty
Romantic
to
be
view
of
the
faithful
to
the
original and of the necessary union of a
translator
translation.
with
his
original
in
a
good
Translation activity in England.
Their disagreement was not so much about aims as about
means.
Arnold: since Homer is a classic, the translation should
adopt the language of the undoubted classic, the 1611
Bible (the Authorized King James Version).
Its metre should imitate the original.
Newman: saw Homer as primitive and popular,
used ballad metre and
what he called a “Saxo-Norman” language.
Translation activity in England.
Arnold’s authority was widely
acknowledged in the 19th century and
well in the 20th.
Newman’s practice was largely ignored.
Translation activity in England.
Yet, Newman’s practice represents an
important tendency to “foreignize” the
original and make readers conscious
of the gap between their own culture
and the culture represented by the
original.
Translation activity in England.
Newman was the first among Victorian
translators who developed
foreignizing strategies and
opposed the fluent, domesticating
method that dominated English
translation since the 17th century.
Translation activity in England.
Francis W. Newman:
One of these [dogmas] is, that the reader ought, if
possible, to forget that it is a translation at all,
and be lulled into the illusion that he is reading
an original work. Of course a necessary
inference from such a dogma is, that whatever
has a foreign colour is undesirable and is even
a grave defect. The translator, it seems, must
carefully obliterate all that is characteristic of
the original, unless it happens to be identical in
spirit to something already familiar in English.
Translation activity in England.
Francis W. Newman:
From such a notion I cannot too strongly express
my intense dissent. I am at precisely the
opposite — to retain every peculiarity of the
original, so far as I am able, with the greater
care, the more foreign it may happen to be,—
whether it be a matter of taste, of intellect, or
of morals. […] the English translator should
desire the reader always to remember that his
work is an imitation, and moreover is in a
different material; that the original is foreign,
and in many respects extremely unlike our
native compositions.
Translation activity in England.
Italian culture was spread in
England by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti (1828–82), painter
and poet, who was bilingual in
Italian and English.
In 1861, Rossetti published his
influential collection The Early
Italian Poets.
Translation activity in England.
In his preface Rossetti, while insisting on the need
for inspiration also fully acknowledged the
limits that a desire for fidelity imposes:
The task of the translator … is one of some selfdenial. […] His path is like that of Aladdin
through the enchanted vaults: many are the
precious fruits and flowers which he must pass
by unheeded in search for the lamp alone;
happy if at last, when brought to light, it does
not prove that his old lamp has been
exchanged for a new one,—glittering indeed to
the eye, but scarcely of the same virtue nor
with the same genius ...
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
The 19th century - the golden age of
Russian translation.
If the 18th century had made translation
a professional activity, the 19th c.
raised this activity to the level of high
art.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
The new Russian school of translation:
Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826)
Vasiliy Zhukovskiy (1783-1852)
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Karamzin regarded translation as an effective tool for
improving a writer’s style as well as an invaluable source
of information.
He saw the purpose of translation in
 satisfying curiosity,
 establishing historical texts,
 entertaining women,
 providing material for new magazines,
 acquainting Russian readers with books that have not yet
become well known.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Vasiliy Zhukovskiy,“the genius of translation”
(Pushkin).
He translated Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Walter Scott
and other prominent writers.
The range of his creative translation activity
covered a wide variety of genres, from fairy
tales by Charles Perrault and the Grimm
brothers, to Homer’s Odyssey and Old Russian
epic Slovo o polku Igoreve.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Like Karamzin, Zhukovskiy advocated free
translation, which sometimes resulted in
paraphrase or even a new story on the
subject of the source text.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
The practice of taking liberties with the
source text was also characteristic of
prose translations of the period.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Irinarkh Vvedenskiy (1813-1855), a very
popular translator of many novels by
Charles Dickens and William Thackeray,
justified his free treatment of the original
by the desire to please the reader, claiming
that the translator had the right to freely
recreate the spirit of the source text, to
give a new life to the ideas of the author in
a new situation, “under another sky”.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov made a
significant contribution to the improvement of
literary translation in Russia.
In their poetic paraphrases and imitations they
managed to reproduce the most important
features of foreign poetry and, above all, their
renderings were remarkable works of art in
their own right, in no way inferior to their
original masterpieces.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
These free translations served as a model for
other translators and established an
important principle:
a good literary translation should be an
integral part of the national literature
in the target language.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Pushkin always showed great interest
in the problems of translation.
He emphasized the importance of the
initial selection of the literary works
to be translated.
His insistence on faithfulness to the
source text along with the high
quality and expressiveness of the
translator’s literary style was a
positive influence on the best
Russian translators of the 19th and
20th centuries.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
P.Vyazemskiy, N. Gnedich and A. Fet insisted on
complete faithfulness to the source text, on
literalism even at the cost of sense and clarity.
However, they did not always practise what they
preached. Sometimes the translator’s artistic
intuition and talent broke through the barrier of
literalism.
Golden Age of Russian literary translation.
Free translation was sometimes practised as a means
of promoting democratic ideas, which would not
have escaped official censorship in original works.
Some translators introduced in their translations subtle
changes which caused associations with the Russian
context.
It was during this period that using translation as a
vehicle of dissent became part of the Russian
tradition.