... Nabokov on Translation, Literal and otherwise.
Note the link at the end to Nigel's conversation with Lydia Davis.
I once came upon a translation of a poem by Rilke that I had also translated. The other version included a line for which there was no counterpart in Rilke's poem That seemed to me a little too free.
In a 1942 New Republic essay VN commented on the evils of translation:
ReplyDelete"Three grades of evil can be discerned in the queer world of verbal transmigration. The first, and lesser one, comprises obvious errors due to ignorance or misguided knowledge. This is mere human frailty and thus excusable. The next step to Hell is taken by the translator who intentionally skips words or passages that he does not bother to understand or that might seem obscure or obscene to vaguely imagined readers…. The third, and worst, degree of turpitude is reached when a masterpiece is planished and patted into such a shape, vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions and prejudices of a given public. This is a crime, to be punished by the stocks as plagiarists were in the shoebuckle days."