Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
I think there are really two issues here:
- bowdlerization, e.g. Politically Correct modification of the author's intent by removing objectionable material.
- modernization, e.g. what is essentially a translation from old to new English. The author's intended meaning is preserved, even if the words themselves are different.
For some reason virtually everyone as near as I can make out conflate the two concepts. |
These are two different concepts, but your "modernization = translation" simply doesn't apply to texts written in Modern English, not even Early Modern English. Chaucer is Middle English and does indeed need translation for people who don't want to seriously study Middle English. Shakespeare is Early Modern English (as is Spenser, and Panda's examples above are perfectly readable) and doesn't call for translation but for annotation. And the same goes for everything written since.