Lecture 5 Translation in the epoch of Classicism and Enlightenment (17-18th centuries)

Lecture 5

Translation in the epoch of

Classicism and

Enlightenment

(17-18th centuries)

1. English translators of the 17th-18th centuries.

2. Translation in France. Les belles infideles and the growing demand for faithful translation.

3. Translation activity in Germany. Rational concepts of translatability.

4. Peter the Great and development of translation activity in Russia.

English translators of the 17th-18th centuries.

Sir John Denham (1615–69), an English poet and courtier, more than half of whose poetical works were translations, proposed his ‘new way’ in translating poetry, a method both poetic and accurate.


He was following Horace’s advice in Ars Poetica that the poet should avoid any word-for-word rendering.

But where Horace took translation as one practice of the poet, Denham took poetry as the goal of translation, especially poetry translation.


He wrote: “Poesie is of so subtle a spirit, that in

pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a Caput mortuum”


The “new spirit” that is “added” with this translation method involves a process of domestication, in which the foreign text is imprinted with values specific to the target-language culture.


Abraham Cowley (1618–67) was regarded as the greatest poet of his age, writing English and Latin poetry, plays, essays, and prose work.


Cowley advanced the notion of ‘Imitation’, an ultra-free type of translation.

In his translation of the ancient Greek poet Pindar, Cowley revised and actually abandoned the original text.


In the Preface to his translations Cowley wrote:

“I have in these two Odes of Pindar, taken, left out, and added what I please; nor make it so much my Aim to let the Reader know precisely what he spoke, as what was his Way and Manner of speaking … “


Katherine Phillips (1631–1664) was the first successful woman playwright, though she did not write for the commercial stage.

Her translation of Corneille’s La Mort de Pompe´e made her famous.


Katherine Phillips wrote: “I think a translation ought not to be used as

Musicians do a Ground, with all the liberty of descant, but as Painters when they copy, & the rule that I understood of translations till these Gentlemen informed me better, was to write to Corneille’s sense, as it is to be supposed Corneille would have done, if he had been an Englishman, not confined to his lines, nor his numbers (unless we can do it happily) but always to his meaning.”


John Dryden (1631 –1700),

poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright.


Dryden’s main thoughts on translation are found in the prefaces and dedicatory letters to the various collections in which his versions appeared between 1680 and 1700.


Dryden focused on a number of important questions: the kinds of knowledge that any successful

translator has to possess; the kind of fidelity to his original which he should

seek; the ways in which he might best preserve the

distinctive ‘character’ of each of their originals; the degree to which he might properly add to,

subtract from, or ‘update’ material in his original; the contribution which translation might make to the

culture and language of the nation.


In the Preface to Ovid’s Epistles (1680), Dryden proposed his well-known tripartite division of translation into ‘metaphrase’, ‘paraphrase’, and ‘imitation’.


‘Metaphrase’ (literalism in translation) is rejected as it produces such awkward versions that they can give little idea of the artistic quality of their originals.


‘Imitation’ (abandonment of the source text) is criticized because of an excessive freedom which makes it more properly regarded as original poetry than as translation.


‘Paraphrase’ (translation in which the contours of the original are attentively observed, but with a freedom which allows the translator to convey the ‘spirit’ and ‘sense’ rather than merely the ‘letter’ of the original) is offered as the ideal compromise between the two extremes.


Like Denham, Dryden recognized that the process of translation inevitably involves losses and gains, so that the translation appears to be in an equivocal relationship to the foreign text, never quite faithful, always somewhat free, never establishing an identity, always a lack and a supplement.


Dryden also viewed the domesticating

method as the most effective way to

control this equivocal relationship and

produce versions adequate to the

Latin text.


The Hazards of ‘Metaphrase’’Tis almost impossible to translate

verbally and well at the same time; for Latin … often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. [ . . . ]


The Hazards of ‘Metaphrase’… the verbal copier is encumbered with so

many difficulties at once that he can never disentangle himself from all. He is to consider at the same time the thought of his author and his words, and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of rhyme.


The Hazards of ‘Metaphrase’’Tis much like dancing on ropes with

fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected …


The Translator’s LanguageNo man is capable of translating poetry who,

besides a genius to that art, is not a master both of his author’s language and of his own. Nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his particular turn of thoughts and of expression, which are the characters that distinguish, and, as it were, individuate him from all other writers. [ … ]


The Translator’s LanguageThere is therefore a liberty to be allowed

for the expression, neither is it necessary that words and lines should be confined to the measure of their original. The sense of an author, generally speaking, is to be sacred and inviolable.


The Translator’s BurdenBut slaves we are, and labour on another

man’s plantation; we dress the vineyard, but the wine is the owner’s; if the soil be sometime barren, then we are sure of being scourged: if it be fruitful, and our care succeeds, we are not thanked; for the proud reader will only say, the poor drudge has done his duty.


The Translator’s Burden

But this is nothing to what follows; for being obliged to make his sense intelligible, we are forced to untune our own verses, that we may give his meaning to the reader. He who invents is master of his thoughts and words; he can turn and vary them as he pleases, till he renders them harmonious; but the wretched translator has no such privilege; for being tied to the thoughts, he must make what music he can in the expression; and, for this reason, it cannot always be so sweet as the original.


Dryden’s influence is strongly felt in the work of Alexander Pope (1688–1744),

a prominent English poet and major translator of poetry.


In his preface to “Iliad” Pope insists

on moderation in translation and

the need for an accuracy that

avoids literalism or paraphrase.


Pope’s translation of the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” is perhaps the greatest example of elevated style in English literature.

The poet took what he saw as essential liberties, varying the repetitive epithets, suppressing what was considered offensive to contemporary taste.


The translation was inevitably thoroughly domesticated, making Homer readable in terms of the neo-classical aesthetic and notions of propriety.

However, even some contemporaries found Pope’s text lacking in precision and too dependent on the requirements of the time.


From Alexander Pope’s Preface to The Iliad of Homer It is certain no literal translation can be

just to an excellent original in a superior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect. [ . . . ]


From Alexander Pope’s Preface to The Iliad of Homer It is not to be doubted that the fire of the

poem is what a translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing [ . . . ] Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can, but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the censure of a mere English critic.


In 1755, Samuel Johnson's

Dictionary of the English Language was published.


In his essays Samuel Johnson voiced his views on translation.

In general he adhered to the middle way, promoted by Dryden, advocating freedom rather than slavishness, but not at the expense of accuracy.


Johnson wrote introductions for a collection of English poetry The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets with Critical Observations on Their Work, in three volumes (1779–81), including the lives of Pope, Dryden, and Cowley, with commentary on their translations.


Johnson argued that since ‘poetry cannot be translated’, the criterion must be the success of the translation as an English poem.


From Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” (1755):

TO TRANSLATE. To transport; to remove. It is particularly used of the removal of a bishop from one see to another. To transfer from one to another; to convey; to change; to interpret to another language; to change into another language retaining the sense.

TRANSLATION. Removal, act of removing; the removal of a bishop to another see; the act of turning into another language; interpretation; something made by translation; version.

TRANSLATOR. One that turns anything into another language.

Translation in France. Les belles infideles and the growing demand for faithful translation.

In 1635 The Academie Française was established by King Louis XIII.


Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606 - 1664) extensively translated Greek and Latin authors into French.

In one of his works he used the phrase ‘les belles infideles’ (beautiful and unfaithful), which became a term for the new mode of translation.


Perrot d'Ablancourt advocated censorship, additions, modifications or modernization of the original text in the name of taste and linguistic and cultural differences. Using his method, he adapted classical texts to current canons and genres.


In his preface to his version of the Annals, Perrot d'Ablancourt wrote:

… the diversity that one finds among languages is so great … that it is always necessary to change the air and appearance, unless one wishes to create a monstrous body, like those in ordinary translations, which are either dead or languishing, or obscure, and muddled, without any order or gracefulness.


The free dynamic translations known as

‘les belles infideles’ aimed to provide

target texts which are pleasant to

read and this continued to be the

dominant feature of translation into

French well into the 18th century.


The dominant principle for French

translators of the time was

“please the reader and improve

the author”.


Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630-1721) most clearly formulated the importance of a certain literalism in translation in his treatise “On the best way of translating”.


He urged the translator to show humility to the source text.

According to Huet, the best translation both correctly renders the author’s thoughts and carefully follows the language of the original.

Huet emphasized the importance of non-fiction, scientific translation, which he saw as one of the important tasks of the civilization.


In the early 1690s the Académie

Française was shaken by the literary

and artistic argument which got the

name of the Quarrel of the Ancients

and the Moderns.


In 1699 appeared the prose translation of the Iliad (followed nine years later by a similar translation of the Odyssey) by Anne Dacier’s (1654–1720) who belonged to the group of the Ancients.


Anne Dacier’s translation, which made

Homer known for the first time to

many French men of letters gave rise

to a famous literary controversy.


In 1714, Houdar de la Motte (1672-1731)

published a poetical version of the Iliad,

abridged and altered to suit his own taste.

Houdar de la Motte argued that as a translator

he aimed to achieve three goals: precision,

clarity and pleasantness, and to achieve

these goals he had to change notions

characteristic of Homer’s age.


Anna Dacier severely criticized his translation, pointing out that Houdar de la Motte failed to achieve what he aimed at.

She wrote that trying to soften Homer’s images and substitute his own thoughts for Homer’s, he only disfigured the author and deprived the poem of its natural spirit.


From Anne Dacier’s ‘Preface’, translated by Ozell

Some will say, there is a surer way of approaching to the original, which is to translate it into verse; for, as they allege, poets are to be translated into verse, to retain their fire.

This would certainly be best, were it practicable; but to believe it possible is a mistake …


From Anne Dacier’s ‘Preface’, translated by OzellA translator, in prose, may say all that Homer has said;

this he can never do in verse, especially in our tongue, where he must of necessity be always altering, retrenching, adding.

This is my first reason. There is another, which is the same I have already explained.

Our poetry is not capable of expressing all the beauties of Homer, and soaring to his height; it may follow him in some select places; [ . . . ] And what can be imagined meaner than a cold and flat piece of poetry, wherein nothing is tolerable that is not excellent? […]


From Anne Dacier’s ‘Preface’, translated by Ozell

Nay, I am not afraid to say, and could be able to prove it, that poets translated into verse cease to be poets.

When I speak of a translation of prose, I do not mean a servile translation, I mean a noble and generous translation which, adhering strictly to the way of thinking in the original, searches out the beauties of its language and represents the images without retailing the words.


Anne Dacier’s scholarly translation of

Homer marked the beginning of the

end of the “belles infideles” in

France.


The 18th century saw a gradual loss of

interest in classical languages and a

growing interest in German and

English cultures.


The philosopher and encyclopedist Diderot (1713-1784) was especially keen on English literature and produced an imitation of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.


Voltaire (1694-1778)

contributed to a

passionate interest in

English thought and

literature in France.


The dramatist Jean-Francois Ducis (1733-1816) adapted Shakespeare’s tragedies for the French stage.

The major works of the English literature of the 17th century were translated into French, among them Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones”, John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, Alexander Pope’s “Essays”.


The complete works of William

Shakespeare were translated into

French by Pierre le Tourneur

(1737-1788).


Throughout the 18th c. translations from English outnumbered those from any other language.

There were some translations of German and Italian works, e.g. Dante’s “Divine Comedy” was translated into French in 1783.

Translation activity in Germany. Rational concepts of translatability.

Martin Opitz (1597-1639), a great German poet of that time

Justus Georg Schottel (1612-1676), a grammarian


In “Deutsche Poeterey” (1624) Opitz

argued that translation serves a dual

purpose: translating from Greek and

Latin poets is a good exercise for the

translator and it is beneficial for

German as a literary language, as

translation enriches its potential.


Both Opitz and Schottel went well beyond common 15th and 16th-century practices in their use of German and in their translation methods because they were convinced that German was a fully fledged literary language or, with practice, might become one, and that it was capable of poetic and oratorical style second to none.


In the 18th century, Johann Christoph Gottsched

(1700-1766) and Jakob Breitinger

(1701-1776) contributed to the development of some principles of translation theory which were current in later centuries.


In 1740 Gottsched came into conflict with the Swiss writers Johann Jakob Bodmer and Jakob Breitinger.

The conflict arouse over Bodmer’s translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1732).


Both Bodmer and Breitinger demanded that the poetic imagination should not be hampered by artificial rules.

Gottsched stubbornly stuck to his principle that poetry must be the product of rules.


Gottsched and Breitinger followed the rationalist view according to which there is an essential resemblance between languages and they are, therefore, translatable – at least in principle. Both agreed that different languages are not mirror images of each other.


However, they had different opinions as to whether a translation should be permitted to compete with the linguistic, stylistic and formal features of the source text and violate target side norms.


Gottsched believed that a good translation had to be in agreement with the principles of enlightened, normative poetics.

The translation had to be a German text in its every feature.


In contrast, Breitinger argued that the mentalities of different nations are reflected in the peculiarities of their languages. So, a translation can not violate the thoughts of the original or deviate from its source in any other way.

Peter the Great and development of translation activity in Russia.

17th-century translators in Russia fell into four groups.

First, there were staff translators in various administrative departments. These were mostly foreigners (Poles, Germans, Dutchmen) or natives from the southern or western parts of the country.

The second group consisted of a few monks who had a scholarly background and translated only religious and didactic books from Latin and Greek. The best known among them were Epiphanius Slavinetsky, Arsenius the Greek and Dionysius the Greek.


The third group were part-time translators who occasionally made one or two translations in their spare time.

The fourth group were translators who worked on their own initiative and chose the source texts they wanted to translate. Among them there were some attendants of the tsar, e.g. Prince Kropotkin.


Tsar Peter issued a special decree on translation demanding a faithful rendering of the original sense.


M. Lomonosov and other prominent writers, such as A.P. Sumarokov and V.K. Trediakovsky, produced many translations, mainly of poetry.


They often supplemented their translations with theoretical discussions, explaining why they rendered the source text the way they did and emphasizing the great value of the translator’s work and its creative nature.


A new stage in translation activity

began to develop in three

directions.


First, translation began to be

institutionalized – there emerged

structures whose function was to

organize and supervise the work of

translators.


A group of translators were assembled in Tsar Peter’s Foreign Collegium and in 1735 the St. Petersburg Academy of Science established the Russian Assembly, which was the first professional organization of translators.


In 1768, the Society for the Translation of Foreign Books was established with 114 members, among them Trediakovsky, Sumarokov and Radishchev.

The Society existed for 14 years and produced many literary translations. It also stimulated discussions on theoretical problems of translation.


The second dimension of this new stage of translation activity involved a change in terms of the selection of books for translation.

At the turn of the century, translations of classical authors began to be supplemented by many books of a pragmatic nature, which were needed to support the age of reforms.


Translators viewed their work as a service to their country and they expressed this belief in forewords and prefaces to their translations.

They believed that their mission was to enlighten and instruct their compatriots, to set moral standards and to create a new Russian literature. From that time on literary translations always enjoyed a high status in Russian culture.


This new awareness of the social

importance of translation and

translators was the third

characteristic feature of the period.


Translation was now considered a kind of creative writing, no less worthy of respect than original literature. The translator was regarded as a rival of the source-text author. Translations were expected to meet high literary standards and even to surpass the source text in terms of artistic quality.


One of the achievements of the 18th century was the emergence of poetry translation in Russia, which later developed into a highly esteemed activity.

Lecture 5 Translation in the epoch of Classicism and Enlightenment (17-18th centuries)

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