An Internal Clarification of Priorities.

Privately I have begun to rephrase our discussions in class around qualitative vs. quantitative translation. One school of translation aims to reproduce the source message in terms as clinically similar as possible, quantitatively reproducing the source works most basic expression, it’s words, in another language. The competing ethos essentially aims to evoke the same qualitative experience within the target language, but willing to shift and change word to word relationships and meanings as the translator deems fitting.

At first I assumed membership to the first school of thought, but as our discussions continue and our reading progresses it’s attractions grow increasingly dull. I admit being attracted to the air of authenticity given it by it’s refusal to change what it sees as the most essential part of a literary work. However, at heart I feel that the writing I most value is valuable due to the state into which it delivers me, not the specific word choice and placement within the text that moves me. Undeniably the best of literature will be replete with phrases that echo in me, but not every word of every sentence has hidden depths. Even were we to admit that the original word choice and phrasing, in it’s specifics and it’s vagaries, was of equal value to the source work’s excellence as the general meaning and emotional impact we would still be unable to translate it in it’s entirety, and as such it is the logical ground on which to surrender to the practicalities of translation.

To butcher another’s metaphor, you could tell me the composition, dimensions, weight, and temperature of a piece of ice, but only when I held it would I know it was cold. I wouldn’t deny that quantitatively true transmission of information is important in many fields of translation, there are many things I would wish to have translated in an exact manner. When cooking by recipe, signing a contract, speaking with a foreign police officer, in fact nearly everything except recreational reading I prefer translated as verbatim as possible. However, literature I read for beauty and pleasure should not be shackled by the disjunction between one language and the next.

Beyond this there is not much I feel capable or drawn to add. I am not advocating extensive unnecessary rewrites, and at heart I feel that this argument is one based on personal preference, I justify the method of translation which most draws me, but there is no objective way to measure one translation against another. I would, however, mention that I recently read “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats, and that it is as eloquent an argument for a free translation as could be had. Keats wrote it after reading Chapman’s translation of Homer in order to express his new appreciation for Homer due to Chapman’s translation.



Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.