The Imperfection of Translation :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

The Imperfection of Translation The essential problem with translation is an open one. A word has more qualities than just its denotation. For one, a word has a sound, an attribute which has great importance in poetry (though we should not dishonor its significance in prose, as well). Also, a word consists of various connotations, meanings which alone rarely cross over from language to language. Complicating matters is the nature of literature itself. Writers and poets perpetrate pressure on the language they often choose words because of their well-off variety of meanings, complicating rather than clarifying their subjects. Unfortunately, then, for the translator of literature, the currency of words is not as easy to exchange as the other kind of currency. E. V. Rieu recognizes the intrinsic difficulty of translation. Perfect translation may be impossible, so the scoop we can hope for, he writes in the following, is a translation of the emotional state of t he work I call it the principal of equivalent effect and heed it as signifying that that translation is the best which comes nearest to creating in its audience the equivalent impression as was made by the archetype on its generation (55). Rieu criticizes the translators of the King James Version of the Bible for remaining stubbornly closelipped to the original language. Here he presents a parable, the moral of which is undoubtedly hurt by awkward translation. St. Luke in xvii. 8 reports Jesus as imagining a scene in which a master says to his slave, Get something ready for my supper. The Greek is colloquial and the master is not represented as speaking politely. to that extent the authorized translators put into his mouth the words Make ready wherewith I may sup. (55) In that example the superiority of Rieus plain-spoken translation is obvious, but it begs the interrogative of how much freedom does one give a translator. Rieus ideal that a translated work mus t cause the same impression as the original seems to give scholars license to embellish. Werner Winter believes that, regardless of the degree of embellishment, translation cannot empty altering the work. Try as we might, Winter writes, Meaning and form cannot be dissociated from one another (70).