Quote:
Originally Posted by Notjohn
In the Penguin translations of À la recherche du temps perdu, the American edition translates any direct quotations (from French writers, usually) and puts the original in a note at the back of the book. The British edition gives us the quotation in the original language (French, almost always) and puts the TRANSLATION in a note at the back of the book. I often wondered why the British editors thought I could read Mellarme or Racine in the original, given that I had chosen to read Proust in translation.
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But I think the answer is historical in nature. There was a period when educated readers were assumed to have been taught Latin, Greek, and likely French in school, and did not need the translations in line in the test. This notion seems to have persisted in the UK well after it was abandoned here.
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Dennis