Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Can I quote this?
On the translation of texts to suit modern sensibilities
- Thread starter FractiousDay
- Start date
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- Tags
- translation philosophy
Sure, go ahead.
Different strokes for diff people.
I like side by side translations, even if i dont use em that much. I already know pretty well the languages im reading, so bilingual texts only serve as a tempation to read the opp page/end of the book f i get tired of reading this foreign language or theres a word i donno or a construction that puzzles me or im just plain interested in the creativity and skill of the translator.
In other words, for my professors bilingual texts are rarely necessary. For beginners they can be a crutch and often become so. They can be good tools, excellent even. But 90% of the time i just read in latin or in greek and go read a commentary (which bilingual editions usually dont have space for). But i understand this is personal and subjective. I like reading all the intricate bullshit but not many people want to do that.
The old latin/greek loeb editions are venerable and i greatly enjoyed the clay sanskrit library unforunately or fortunately in romanisation, AND the more recent murty classical library of india ( where they keep the scripts for the various languages, more expensive for printing but its nice).
As for translations themselves, too complicated a matter to treat in one post, but i understand it really as an exercise in creativity within certain imposed boundaries, and as a reader myself, i read translations not only or primarily to read 'the' text, but to see the dexterity of the translator, her contribución...anne carson has a WONDERFUL translation of the greek poet sappho, and while i can read and enjoy her in aeolic greek, im just as interested in how a poet and classicist translates her into english. Its not so much about fidelity (what kind of fidelity???). Im looking for the love of language in the translations i like.
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