Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
No, that's not what I said; please read my post more carefully. What I was asking was whether, on the basis of reading a translation, you were in a position to judge whether or not the original (which you have not read) was or was not a classic.
I'll give you a practical example. I can read both Latin and ancient Greek. There is no translation of either Homer's "Iliad" or Virgil's "Aeneid" which can even begin to give you the "feeling" of the original Greek or Latin hexameter verse. It just cannot be translated. No English translation of the Iliad can put you in a position to judge what the Greek original is actually like. You can translate the "story", but the result is not the same at all.
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I'm impressed. Not many people can read ancient Greek fluently. I also appreciate your argument in regards to the literary merit of translated works. To a varying degree, some things are no doubt lost in translation but I'm not sure the example is a good one.
There's a significant difference between discussing the translation of a 3,000 year-old work in dactylic hexameter ancient Greek (I say this as someone who tried ancient Greek and failed) and a contemporary - I use the term loosely - piece of work; the differences in language and culture are unlikely to be anywhere near as severe as in the example of the Iliad.
I think the art form and skill of translation is taken far more seriously today than was the case historically. It's not merely a technical skill of substituting words from one language to another. I absolutely believe a skilled and experienced translator can do justice to an original work. The crux of the matter, for a non-native speaker, is of course to determine which translation is worthy and which isn't...