New translations vs. old: Which do you prefer?

[Stevie B]

There have been a number of times where instead of reading an older book I have on my shelf, I will take advantage of my school's inter-library loan service to order the same book in a more recent translation. I do this, in part, because I'm more likely to be familiar with the translator of the newer version. I also tend to have more confidence that the more recent translation will be a better one. I figure someone wouldn't be paid to re-translate a book if the earlier version had been done well, but perhaps a fresh translation helps in marketing? I'm curious, when having the option of more than one translation, which one would you be more likely to choose? Has anyone felt that the original or older translations have been superior to the newer translations they've read?

 

[Flint]

I suspect that as a rule we tend to prefer older translations, and I think that is because we like to associate the 'classics' with a faintly archaic quaintness of language. This of course can be self-deceiving: the language used in the 'older' translation we like so much may not actually correspond to the language spoken/written at the time the original work was written, but we like the archaic sound of it nevertheless. I guess that's why Smollett's translation of Don Quixote is still so many people's favourite.

Which are usually better - the older or the newer? I've got a big problem here. Usually I only read translations of works written in languages that I don't know well, or that I don't know at all. Therefore I'm in no position to judge.

In Coetzee's Stranger Shores there's a very interesting essay about Kafka translations, which you can read here if you or your employer subscribe to the NYRB.

 

[Hamlet]

Probably the older by instinct, but I've bought a few new translations of classics recently and have been very happy with them.

 

[Heteronym]

I always prefer to read recent translations. After all, the language the books were written in was modern at the time. After trying to read some Constance Garnett translations of Dostoevsky, I decided that I'd only read recent translations. The language flows better.

 

[Hamlet]

You know: thinking about it now, I'd prefer to read a range of translations, given that time and availability was not an issue. Each translator's trying for something slightly different. I'm not quite so bothered about being current and up-to-date, but the latest translators have the benefit I guess of seeing what went before, and the critical reception of the same, mistakes, so they have an advantage over their earlier compatriots in translationland - but it's quite exciting to get something new, read a new take...

 

[Stevie B]

You know: thinking about it now, I'd prefer to read a range of translations, given that time and availability was not an issue. Each translator's trying for something slightly different. I'm not quite so bothered about being current and up-to-date, but the latest translators have the benefit i guess of seeing what went before, and the critical reception of the same, mistakes, so they have an advantage over their earlier compatriots in translationland - but it's quite exciting to get something new, read a new take...

I suppose in some ways it's like an actor recreating a role they've seen performed on stage or the big screen. Some might be tempted (consciously or unconsciously) to co-opt/borrow certain gestures, inflections, or mannerisms. Other actors, however, might purposely avoid the other performances to ensure they're creating something that is completely fresh - the "new take" you mentioned. If I were a translator, however, I think it would be awful tough to go it alone and not have a peek at how certain passages had been expressed by others in the past.

 

[Hamlet]

It's intersting StevieB as the translation of Don Quixote I bought last year makes much use of the colloquial or vernacular, especially working class English expressions, used here to convey Sancho's muddled use of the proverb, mixed-proverb, and to illustrate how at times he's like an old washerwoman, muddling on through his theories and Quixote, in his tempoarary bouts of madness is still able to think clearly enough bizarrely enough and as an educated gentleman corrects him, this blend of high and low styles, and the earthy English banter generally convey very well the humour, I suspect, or at least "the approximate humour and sense" of the original to the 21st century reader.

We've found a way back into a 400 year old text, so the translator here has used various 'tools' to portray the tones of the original, hopefully without disrupting the flow and content of that original and managing to still be faithful, whether/no the older translations are more turgid, or if they are simply an attempt at accuracy, I wouldn't know, but this lightening of the spirit of the translation worked well for me, and I know, unless I learn Spanish and then can understand much old - fallen out of usage - Spanish vocabulary, that would be a difficult read, I've had Spanish speakers confirm as much to me.

 

[Flint]

It's intersting StevieB as the translation of Don Quixote I bought last year makes much use of the colloquial or vernacular, especially working class English expressions, used here to convey Sancho's muddled use of the proverb, mixed-proverb, and to illustrate how at times he's like an old washerwoman, muddling on through his theories and Quixote, in his tempoarary bouts of madness is still able to think clearly enough bizarrely enough and as an educated gentleman corrects him, this blend of high and low styles, and the earthy English banter generally convey very well the humour, I suspect, or at least "the approximate humour and sense" of the original to the 21st century reader.

We've found a way back into a 400 year old text, so the translator here has used various 'tools' to portray the tones of the original, hopefully without disrupting the flow and content of that original and managing to still be faithful, whether/no the older translations are more turgid, or if they are simply an attempt at accuracy, I wouldn't know, but this lightening of the spirit of the translation worked well for me, and I know, unless I learn Spanish and then can understand much old - fallen out of usage - Spanish vocabulary, that would be a difficult read, I've had Spanish speakers confirm as much to me.

Whose translation was that? Edith Grossman's?

 

[Hamlet]

John Rutherford's, published by Penguin. 2000. repub. 2003.

 

[Eric]

If a novel is. let's say, 150 years old like maybe a Dostoevsky novel, you have two major factors to take into consideration:

a) The Russian language, like the English one, have both moved forward since 1850. When you read something in your mother-tongue, you can sometimes cope with the old language - but look how many pages of notes you have for novels by Dickens, George Eliot, etc! The question is then: is the old translation (perhaps one done in 1890) still comprehensible to a modern readership? Some words and phrases date quickly, others do not. But then we come onto b):

b) Is the translation accurate. Even allowing for age, some translators a hundred years ago took astonishing liberties with abridgement and slurring over difficult passages of the text. If the modern translation is more accurate than the old one, then it is to be preferred. But neither old translations (period flavour) nor modern ones (up-to-date vocabulary) are in themselves better.

 

[Stevie B]

If a novel is. let's say, 150 years old like maybe a Dostoevsky novel, you have two major factors to take into consideration:

a) The Russian language, like the English one, have both moved forward since 1850. When you read something in your mother-tongue, you can sometimes cope with the old language - but look how many pages of notes you have for novels by Dickens, George Eliot, etc! The question is then: is the old translation (perhaps one done in 1890) still comprehensible to a modern readership? Some words and phrases date quickly, others do not. But then we come onto b):

b) Is the translation accurate. Even allowing for age, some translators a hundred years ago took astonishing liberties with abridgement and slurring over difficult passages of the text. If the modern translation is more accurate than the old one, then it is to be preferred. But neither old translations (period flavour) nor modern ones (up-to-date vocabulary) are in themselves better.

Thanks for the insightful response, Eric. Good stuff to mull over when there are translation options. The next time I'm in the mood for a Russian classic, though, I look forward to reading one of David McDuff's translations. It's too bad he hasn't been around for a long time. I used to enjoy his posts.

 

[Jean]

I prefer more modern translations if available. Generally because scholarship has increased through the years and one hopes that the translator will take advantage of it. But specifically I avoid Constance Garnett like the plague.

 

[anarchistbanjo]

In general I have found that whether a translation is old or new, the one translating it must have the intellectual capacity to understand the original and the language skills to say it in the target language. Most of the literature I've translated and compared with existing translations (if available) follows the original much more closely. As a self taught translator I have been appalled at what passes for translation both present and past. The translator often did not even come close to the original idea, feeling or emotion. If a person has never been exposed to a concept, how can they recognize it in a foreign language? I've read wonderful translations of both old and new varieties. Having said that, I find myself incapable of translating in an old writing style and all my work has a modern voice.

-joe

 

[Stevie B]

I was thinking the same. I do prefer the modern translation but my is because i found it more easy and good to understand the literature. Recently finished War and peace and just have to say one thing. amazing.

Who was the translator, nemoz?

 

[tiganeasca]

I posted the excerpts below in the obituary thread noting the death of Richard Howard, a wonderful translator from French into English. His obituary in the New York Times referred to an interview in "The Translation Review" he gave in 1981. Although the interview is well worth the time to read in its entirety, I re-post two questions and answers here that I think are particularly interesting and may be missed by anyone not reading the obituary thread:

"Could you speak more about the impossibility of translating poetry?
As a poet, a reader of poetry, I'm interested in what the line does, in its quality. And since it's almost impossible to translate the line in most poetry, one is not translating poetry at all, one is translating what the poetry says, which is a very different thing. One is translating the myth of the poem.I have found, however, in working on Baudelaire, that a great deal could be done. This was because it was all formal verse, and one could at least invent a formal verse of one's own that was providing some sort of disciplined movement; some kind of order was replacing an order that was surrendered--in this case, the order of rhymed verse. I don't think I would be very happy translating any other poetry, and I doubt if I'll be doing it."

"Is there such a thing as a definitive translation?
No. Translations always date and great works never do. Most works should be translated again every twenty-five years. The advantages of period style, which translations sometimes have, as in the case of the first translation of Proust, are usually outweighed by the increasing gap that exists between the translator's venture and the writer's, which are really two different things. Most successive translations of a work attempt to move closer and closer to the original. They can never do so; there's an asymptotic relationship between the translation and the original; the translation is doomed to be forever tangent. But most later translations are improvements. The translations we're reading of Tolstoy and Turgenev now are much better than the old translations. There's a great argument for Constance Garnett: she created a period style that made us feel we were really reading nineteenth-century Russian discourse, but it all sounds the same. She makes Dostoevsky sound like Tolstoy and Turgenev sound like Gogol. And we know that isn't the case; we know that those writers are vastly different from one another. The new translations of those writers are much more sensitive to the writer's individuality--an individuality we didn't used to think Russian literature possessed. It was just "the Russians" in 1900, and now as we approach 2000 I think we have learned to feel that there's as much distinction between Turgenev and Dostoevsky as there is between Voltaire and Rousseau."

 

[Leseratte]

" No. Translations always date and great works never do. Most works should be translated again every twenty-five years.". I feel that too.

 

[Liam]

Many modern translators (especially in America) take great liberties with old/ancient texts in order to appeal to modern readers. Their publishers probably tell them to dumb it down a bit, too, in order to make works like Gilgamesh, The Iliad and Metamorphoses sell well.

Other translators happen to be great poets/writers in their own right, and produce translations that are genuine works of art but fail miserably as translations: a great example of this would be Heaney's Beowulf, which is a masterpiece of modern poetry, but not the "genuine" Beowulf I would prefer people to know of this great medieval text if they could only ever read ONE translation of it.

Novels and short stories tend to fare better because the original language is not as constricted by rhythm and rhyme.

So in the end, I guess my response would be: neither old nor new: I simply prefer good translations,

 

[tiganeasca]

->Liam: which begs the question, sir: what is a "good" translation? Different things to different folks, I daresay. (Still and all, I'm with ya! )

 

[kpjayan]

a great example of this would be Heaney's Beowulf, which is a masterpiece of modern poetry, but not the "genuine" Beowulf I would prefer people to know of this great medieval text if they could only ever read ONE translation of it.

Liam, I am planning to read Beowulf. As of now, closed in on HEaney's translation. Do you suggest any other to start with, before Heaney ?

 

[Leseratte]

As Mr. Richard Howard points out so well, in translation there is a contraposition of the language of the original and the language of it´s current readers.

Maybe the most consecrated German translators of Shakespeare were the romantic authors Schlegel and Tieck. But

" No. Translations always date and great works never do. Most works should be translated again every twenty-five years.". I feel that too.

I think one significant change from the older to the new translation is that the older translations usually took in account only the language of the original while the good modern translations also take into account the language of the current readers.
I´m with Liam there. Between old and new translations I prefer the good ones.