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VICTORIANISM
ROMANTICISM: another important landmark in Translation Studies;
Paul van Tieghem defines the Romantic Movement: a crisis of the European
consciousness generated by its essence:
a reaction against Neo-classical ideals of Rationalism and formal
harmony;
stress shifts onto the functions of Imagination.
SHELLEYs Defense of Poesy (1829) centred on IMAGINATION!
- it produces the language for its own needs, i.e. to produce POETRY!
COLERIDGEs Biographia Literaria (1817) his own theory of imagination:
a) PRIMARY IMAGINATION the great ordering principle that makes
PERCEPTION possible;
b) SECONDARY IMGINATION the conscious use of the ordering principle;
- in a poem the 2 parts mutually support and explain each other!
COLERIDGE also distinguishes between:
a) FANCY = the associative power which constructs surface decorations!
b) IMAGINATION = the supreme and organic creative power, opposed to FANCY!
Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and
moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as
possible, and moves the author towards him.
For in the first case the translator tries, by means of his work, to replace
for the reader the understanding of the original language that the reader
does not have. He tries to communicate to the readers the same image, the
same impression he himself has gainedthrough his knowledge of the
original languageof the work as it stands, and in doing so he tries to
move the readers towards his point of view, which is essentially foreign to
them.
the first method is explained metaphorically:
- it will be perfect in its kind 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.
the foreignizing method challenges the reader and places a strain on the
language of the translation!
in order to move the reader to the author and achieve a good translation, the
translator must adopt an alienating method of translation (as opposed to
naturalizing);
- the translator must valorize the foreign and transfer it into the TL!
reaction came from the outstanding Victorian poet and literary critic,
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1868) who criticized the pedantry of
authenticity of some of the contemporary translators, i.e.
NEWMAN;
in Lecture One of the series On Translating Homer (1861);
Advises the readers to put their trust in scholars, as they alone can
judge whether the translation is or not in the spirit of the original!
No translation will seem to them of much worth compared with the
original; but they alone can say, whether the translation produces more
or less the same effect upon them as the original. They are the only
competent tribunal in this matter.
PRACTICAL ADVICE TO A TRANSLATOR:
(1) I advise the translator to have nothing to do with the questions,
whether Homer ever existed; whether the poet of the Iliad be one or
many; whether the Iliad be one poem or an Achilleis and an Iliad
stuck together; whether the Christian doctrine of the Atonement is
shadowed forth in the Homeric mythology; whether the Goddess
Latona in any way prefigures the Virgin Mary, and so on.
(2) I advise him, again, not to trouble himself with constructing a special
vocabulary for his use in translation; with excluding a certain class of
English words, and with confining himself to another class, in
obedience to any theory about the peculiar qualities of Homers style.
(4)
Omar Khayym;
he opposed to LONGFELLOWs view of the translators faithfulness;
although not noted for its fidelity, his version was a high point of the
19th century and was greatly influential;
many of the verses are paraphrased, and some of them cannot be
confidently traced to any one of Khayyams quatrains at all;
he referred to his work as transmogrification (i.e. transformation in
a surprising or magical manner);
My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects
in its detail: very unliteral as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together:
and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a
virtue in him. (letter to E. B. Cowell, 9/3/58)
I suppose very few People have ever taken such Pains in Translation as
I have: though certainly not to be literal. But at all Cost, a Thing must
live: with a transfusion of ones own worse Life if one cant retain the
Originals better. Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle. (letter to E.
B. Cowell, 4/27/59)
he perceived the ST as rough clay, from which the TL is moulded.
he sought to bring a version of the SL text into the TL culture as a
living entity.