Flora Ross Amos

“ To one writer fidelity may imply a reproduction of his original as nearly as possible word for word and line for line; to another it may mean an attempt to carry over into English the spirit of the original, at the sacrifice, where necessary, not only of the exact words but of the exact substance of his source. The one extreme is likely to result in an awkward, more or less unintelligible version; the other, as illustrated, for example, by Pope's Homer, may give us a work so modified by the personality of the translator or by the prevailing taste of his time as to be almost a new creation. ”

“ The very term "translation" is long in defining itself; more difficult terms, like "faithfulness" and "accuracy," have widely different meanings with different writers. The various kinds of literature are often treated in the mass with little attempt at discrimination between them, regardless of the fact that the problems of the translator vary with the character of his original. Tytler's book, full of interesting detail as it is, turns from prose to verse, from lyric to epic, from ancient to modern, till the effect it leaves on the reader is fragmentary and confusing. ”

“ Englishmen are most inferior to most of all other nations: for where they set their delight and bend themselves with an honest strife of matching others to turn into their mother tongue not only the witty writings of other languages but also of all philosophers, and all sciences both Greek and Latin, our men ween it sufficient to have a perfect knowledge to no other end but to profit themselves and (as it were) after much pains in breaking up a gap bestow no less to close it up again." To the end of the century translation is encouraged or defended on the ground that it is a public duty. ”

“ Even in the age of Pope, when, if ever, it was safe to be dogmatic and when the theory of translation seemed safely on the way to become standardized, one still hears the voices of a few recalcitrants, voices which become louder and more numerous as the century advances; in the nineteenth century the most casual survey discovers conflicting views on matters of fundamental importance to the translator. ”

“ On the whole, however, though the distinctive contribution of the period is the plea of the renaissance scholars that a reasonable faithfulness should be displayed, the comment of the mass of translators shows little grasp of the new principles. When one considers, in addition to their very inadequate expression of theory, the prevailing characteristics of their practice, the balance turns unmistakably in favor of a careless freedom in translation. ”

“ The most stimulating and suggestive criticism, indeed, has come from men who have seen in the very difficulty of the situation opportunities for achievement. While the more cautious grammarian has ever been doubtful of the quality of the translator's English, fearful of the introduction of foreign words, foreign idioms, to the men who have cared most about the destinies of the vernacular,—men like Caxton, More, or Dryden,—translation has appeared not an enemy to the mother tongue, but a means of enlarging and clarifying it. ”

“ He who is inquisitive to know an author's thoughts will be disappointed in his expectation; and 'tis not always that a man will be contented to have a present made him, when he expects the payment of a debt. To state it fairly; imitation is the most advantageous way for a translator to show himself, but the greatest wrong which can be done to the memory and reputation of the dead."
Though imitation was not generally accepted as a standard method of translation, certain elements in the theory of Denham and Cowley remained popular throughout the seventeenth and even the eighteenth century. ”

“ We can, it is true, point to few realizations of the ideal theory, but in approaching a literature which possesses the English Bible, that marvelous union of faithfulness to source with faithfulness to the genius of the English language, we can scarcely view the problem of translation thus hopelessly. ”

“ The metrical romance—to choose one of the most popular literary forms of the period—is nearly always garnished with references to source scattered throughout its course in a manner that awakens curiosity. Sometimes they do not appear at the beginning of the romance, but are introduced in large numbers towards the end; sometimes, after a long series of pages containing nothing of the sort, we begin to come upon them frequently, perhaps in groups, one appearing every few lines, so that their presence constitutes something like a quality of style. ”

“ Like Puttenham, he makes a distinction between words as suited or unsuited for the epic style. "The names of instruments and tools of artificers, and words of art," he says in the preface to his Homer, "though of use in the schools, are far from being fit to be spoken by a hero. He may delight in the arts themselves, and have skill in some of them, but his glory lies not in that, but in courage, nobility, and other virtues of nature, or in the command he has over other men." In Hobbes' objection to the use of unfamiliar words, also, there is nothing new ”

“ The printer of Carew's translation of Tasso explains: "In that which is done, I have caused the Italian to be printed together with the English, for the delight and benefit of those gentlemen that love that most lively language. And thereby the learned reader shall see how strict a course the translator hath tied himself in the whole work, usurping as little liberty as any whatsoever as ever wrote with any commendations." [356] Even translators who do not profess to be overfaithful display a consciousness of the existence of definite standards of accuracy. ”

“ In the sixteenth century Sir Thomas North translated from the French Amyot's wise observation: "The office of a fit translator consisteth not only in the faithful expressing of his author's meaning, but also in a certain resembling and shadowing forth of the form of his style and manner of his speaking"; but few English critics, in the period under our consideration, grasped thus firmly the essential connection between thought and style and the consequent responsibility of the translator. ”

“ Yet it is surprising to see how nearly the eighteenth-century ambition, "to write a poem that will live in the English language" has been answered in the case of Pope. Though the "tinsel" of his embellishment is no longer even "modern," his translation seems able to hold its own against later verse renderings based on sounder theories. The Augustan translator strove to give his work "elegance, energy, and fire," and despite the false elegance, we can still feel something of true energy and fire as we read the Iliad and the Odyssey. ”

“ That we have no greater change of words to answer so many of the Hebrew tongue, it is of the riches of that tongue, and the poverty of our mother language, which hath but two words, image and idol, and both of them borrowed of the Latin and Greek: as for other words equivalent, we know not any, and we are loth to make any new words of that signification, except the multitude of Hebrew words of the same sense coming together do sometimes perhaps seem to require it. ”

“ A vigorous advocate of translation, however, he does not despise his own tongue. "The cunning is no less," he declares, "and the praise as great in my judgment, to translate anything excellently into English, as into any other language," and he hopes that, if his own attempt proves unsuccessful, others will make the trial, "that such an orator as this is might be so framed to speak our tongue as none were able to amend him, and that he might be found to be most like himself." ”

“ Fall when he falls, and when he rises, rise,
a precept which Tytler, writing at the end of the next century, considers the one doubtful rule in The Essay on Translated Verse. "Far from adopting the former part of this maxim," he declares, "I consider it to be the duty of a poetical translator, never to suffer his original to fall. He must maintain with him a perpetual contest of genius; he must attend him in his highest flights, and soar, if he can, beyond him: and when he perceives, at any time a diminution of his powers, when he sees a drooping wing, he must raise him on his own pinions." ”

“ It is difficult to kill a sheep with dignity in a modern language, to slay and prepare it for the table, detailing every circumstance in the process. Difficult also, without sinking below the level of poetry, to harness mules to a wagon, particularizing every article of their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of the knots that kept all together. ”

“ None but a poet can translate a poet. The freedom which this precept gives will, therefore, in a poet's hands, not only infuse the energy, elegance, and fire of the author's poetry into his own version, but will give it also the spirit of an original." [432] A similarly clear statement of the real facts of the situation appears in Johnson's remarks on translators. His test for a translation is its readability, and to attain this quality he thinks it permissible for the translator to improve on his author. ”

“ Secular translation produced nothing so homogeneous. The existence of so many translators, working for the most part independently of each other, resulted in a confused mass of comment whose real value it is difficult to estimate. It is true that the new scholarship with its clearer estimate of literary values and its appreciation of the individual's proprietary rights in his own writings made itself strongly felt in the sphere of secular translation and introduced new standards of accuracy, new definitions of the latitude which might be accorded the translator ”

“ Clear, idiomatic English is essential even when it demands the sacrifice of verbal accuracy. He presents not word for word but sense for sense, and prefers the "pure and open words of the language of this people," to a more artificial style. His Anglo-Saxon Preface to Genesis implies that he felt the need of greater faithfulness in the case of the Bible: "We dare write no more in English than the Latin has, nor change the orders (endebirdnisse) "; but it goes on to say that it is necessary that Latin idiom adapt itself to English idiom. ”

“ Who are to be the readers, who the judges, of a translation are obviously questions of primary significance to both translator and critic, but they are questions which have never been authoritatively settled. When, for example, Caxton in the fifteenth century uses the "curious" terms which he thinks will appeal to a clerk or a noble gentleman, his critics complain because the common people cannot understand his words. ”

“ The growing dignity of this department of literature and the Augustan fondness for literary criticism combined to produce a large body of comment on methods of translation. The more ambitious translations of the eighteenth century, for example, were accompanied by long prefaces, containing, in addition to the elaborate paraphernalia of contemporary scholarship, detailed discussion of the best rules for putting a foreign classic into English. Almost every possible phase of the art had been broached in one place and another before the century ended. ”

“ The fate of Pope's Homer helps us to reconcile two opposed views regarding the future history of verse translations. Our whole study of the varying standards set for translators makes us feel the truth of Mr. Lang's conclusion: "There can be then, it appears, no final English translation of Homer. In each there must be, in addition to what is Greek and eternal, the element of what is modern, personal, and fleeting." [459] The translator, it is obvious, must speak in the dialect and move in the measures of his own day, thereby very often failing to attract the attention of a later day. ”

“ Consequently ecclesiastical must always give way to popular usage. "Our meaning is not, that if any Greek terms, or words of any other language, have of long time been usurped in our English language, the true meaning of which is unknown at this day to the common people, but that the same terms may be either in translation or exposition set out plainly, to inform the simplicity of the ignorant, by such words as of them are better understood. ”

“ For although an Englishman hath his mother tongue and can talk apace as he learned of his dame, yet is it one thing to tittle tattle, I wot not how, or to chatter like a jay, and another to bestow his words wisely, orderly, pleasantly, and pithily." The writer knows men who could speak Latin "readily and well-favoredly, who to have done as much in our language and to have handled the same matter, would have been half black." Careful study of this translation will help a man "as well in the English as the Latin, to weigh well properties of words, fashions of phrases, and the ornaments of both." ”

“ Cowper's prefaces show that he has given serious consideration to all the opinions of the theorists of his century, and that his own views are fundamentally opposed to those generally professed. His own basic principle is that of fidelity to his author, and, like every sensible critic, he sees that the translator must preserve a mean between the free and the close methods. This approval of compromise is not, however, a mere formula; Cowper attempts to throw light upon it from various angles. ”

“ Even in cases of apparent falsity explanations suggest themselves. There is nearly always the possibility that false or contradictory attributions, as, for example, the mention of "book" and "books" or "the French book" and "the Latin book" as sources of the same romance, are merely stupidly literal renderings of the original. In The Romance of Partenay, one of the few cases where we have unquestionably the French original of the English romance, more than once an apparent reference to source in the English is only a close following of the French. ”