Is there a case for new translations?

[rjyjate]

12 hours ago, sacklunch said:

My (limited) experience suggests that these issues are not part of the normal discourse in classics/classical studies departments. 

Huh, this definitely came up in my undergrad courses and I had assumed this was a fairly standard discussion for students as soon as they grasp enough of the language to move beyond strict literal translations. Maybe it depends on the school (or professor)?

40 minutes ago, Agrippina said:

If we have tried to attempt "word for word" then it will be no translation at all, except for a really small area where the two languages happen to overlap in idiom. A faithful translation, to me, gets at "idea for idea" while maintaining the integrity, and where possible, the structure of the original. Mars puellam amat. "Mars loves the girl" is faithful. "Mars fell in love with the girl" is not. "Mars thought she was hot" isn't a translation: it becomes a derivative work, to my mind.

I think we're roughly on the same page - like heliogabalus when I hear someone argue for fidelity I generally assume they're referring to more literal translations, because that's usually how I've heard it used. 

[heliogabalus]

2 hours ago, Agrippina said:

Mars puellam amat. "Mars loves the girl" is faithful. "Mars fell in love with the girl" is not. "Mars thought she was hot" isn't a translation

Ha. Depending on context, all of those could work in a translation. 1. "Mars fell in love with the girl" could work just fine, especially if the amat is a historical present. Also, if the sentence is part of a poetic verse, "Mars fell in love with the girl" may work better with the meter the translator is using. 2. "Mars thought the girl was hot," if switching tenses isn't an issue, might be fun to use if you found it in a poem by Sulpicia and want to highlight that it's by a teenage girl or are publishing for an audience of 15-year-olds.

 

1 hour ago, Agrippina said:

a literary translation not done by a scholar is going to be missing substantially more (and worth significantly less) than a scholarly work not done by a "writer".

 

That depends on what the purpose of the translation is--if it is to help upper division Latin students understand what is being said, absolutely. If it is to communicate the effect and beauty and meaning of the original--and most people translating Latin and Greek know the languages incredibly well--then a scholarly, slavish approach can be less than ideal. 

1 hour ago, Agrippina said:

 "How does this sound in English" should be, in my opinion, a significant consideration of anyone who is trying to render someone else's ideas into English! But "what did the original author actually say?" has to get at least equal weight.

And it does. But think about poetry. If you're translating Horace, in a class where your sight-translation is being used to test your understanding of Latin grammar, translating a future-less-vivid conditional  as "should, would" is something you want to nail to show you understand the construction and how it has been traditionally conveyed in English by grammarians. If you are trying to translate the poem as poetry, it becomes less important because to do so you might have to sacrifice the sound or the meter or the power or effect. (Gotta run, but I'll come up with an example later.)

[sacklunch]

3 hours ago, Agrippina said:

In the program where I am now, attention to the meaning and Latinity is highly important, although our Latin work doesn't involve much, if any, translation to English - it's all in Latin. In our Greek translation work, we pay careful attention to fidelity to the text, whether we are translating Greek to Latin or Greek to English, or any other language.

To the second point I quoted, very often, when you read any translation of, say, the Bible, you find that words and ideas are taken so far out of their original cultural context as not to serve the meaning they had at the time they were originally written.

To the third point I quoted, I am sure that it is a very specialized audience who wants to read Augustine or Jerome, and a much wider audience who would want to read Cicero or Plutarch. Would that change someone's translation, do you suppose?

To your first point, yes, that is more or less my experience in classics depts. 'Fidelity' in this context hinges on the demands of (graduate) students. Admittedly I sometimes have a hard time conceding that textual fidelity ought to differ depending on audience. 'Simple' translations for early teens who are not able to catch the nuances of Cicero may, one could argue, not be reading Cicero at all. But this argument collapses rather easily. One could also argue that any English translation, however nuanced, fails to capture Cicero. In translation studies some make the argument for two types of translation techniques: one tries to bring the reader to the author and the other brings the author to the reader.

To your point on biblical translations i'll just note that you're mostly wrong. I should note at the outset that I have no 'dog in this fight.' I am neither a Christian nor religious in any sense of the term (it's a shame this needs to be mentioned, but I know it is always a consideration with those who work with biblical texts!). This isn't the place for a detailed discussion (unless you want to!), but modern translations of the biblical texts highlights a lot of the issues involved in translation fidelity. Yes, older translations of biblical texts took liberties (as did early modern translators of Callimachus I suspect). The translator of that 'sacred' translation known as King James, for example, did not have any Greek manuscripts for parts of the book of Revelation. What did he do? He make up his own Greek through recourse to the Latin mss he had! 

As to your point about Cicero and Plutarch, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that such Greco-Roman authors see a wider audience in modern readership, than Augustine and Jerome. Yes? I have no data to back up my claims, but my gut tells me you're wrong. Even if we limit ourselves to what is being read in undergraduate institutions, the number of religion (and certainly theology) majors (not to be even speak of the many theological undergraduate schools across this country) certainly exceeds those majoring in classics (Greek and/or Latin philology). When we look at graduate schools I suspect the same trend is present (even at my own institution [an R1] we have 5x as many doctoral students in religion than in classics) and even exaggerated. There are thousands of masters students across this country required every year to read works by the early Christian Fathers in English. What's my point? Translation is done accordingly. 

 

[Apogeee]

6 hours ago, Petros said:

I suspect the opposite might be closer to the truth.

Interesting! What do you base that on? More people seem to be searching Cicero and Plutarch in libraries and online, and at Amazon.com than Augustine and Jerome. What are the metrics I should be using instead?

[ἠφανισμένος]

2 minutes ago, Agrippina said:

Interesting! What do you base that on? More people seem to be searching Cicero and Plutarch in libraries and online, and at Amazon.com than Augustine and Jerome. What are the metrics I should be using instead?

Well, @sacklunch has given you some ideas. If we take Amazon as a starting point -- although I'm not at all sure that this is useful -- the Oxford World's Classics edition of Augustine's Confessions ranks at #6,688 overall in the "books" category, while the OWC edition of Cicero's Republic and Laws ranks at #57,403 and that of Cicero's letters ranks at #566,412. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, since no one work of Cicero is as recognizable to the average reader as Augustine's Confessions. So let's take a less iconic work of Augustine's. The Penguin edition of The City of God ranks at #43,700 -- well below the Confessions but higher than both the editions of Cicero I mentioned. Of course this is cherry-picking to some extent, and I seriously doubt whether these numbers are useful at all, but it's not obvious to me that Cicero and Plutarch are much more in demand than Augustine and Jerome. Amazon aside, there's a very large number of Christians across denominations who are interested in Augustine and other early Christian writers but not necessarily in their classical, non-Christian predecessors.

[Apogeee]

1 minute ago, Petros said:

 Amazon aside, there's a very large number of Christians across denominations who are interested in Augustine and other early Christian writers but not necessarily in their classical, non-Christian predecessors.

I don't think we can look at sales rankings of particular editions of particular books to get an idea of overall popularity that way. It has to be something more universal. There are Christians interested in Christian writing, but there are many, many people all over the world who are not Christians, many others who are not at all interested in Augustine or Jerome, and many Christians who are interested in the thinking of Cicero - widely considered to be one of the greatest minds of all times. The writings of Augustine and Jerome are for highly specialized readers, while those of Cicero are more universal. I wonder how to get at the answer to this question - and if it matters anyway! Probably doesn't.

[heliogabalus]

Sorry to go on and on... it's just this is one of the rare occasions to dive into my big interests--classics and translation. And thanks, Agrippina, for challenging me on this.

With fidelity and beauty--Yevtushenko made the great, albeit sexist, quote that translations are like women: either beautiful or faithful. I'm not convinced that they are exclusive---either with translations or people--but here goes playing with the concepts:

From Horace's Ode 1.23:

Atqui non ego te, tigris ut aspera
Gaetulusue leo, frangere persequor:
tandem desine matrem
tempestiva sequi viro.

A very literal/faithful translation would be:

However, I do not, like the rough tigress

 

or Gaetulian lion, pursue you to crush (you):

 

finally leave your mother,

 

(you're) mature enough to follow a man.

It's accurate, but horrible as a piece of poetry.

 

A bit less literal--but attempting to keep something like the 4th Asclepiadean meter.

Yet I’m not the tigress growling so cruelly,

some Gaetulian lion ready to pounce on you.

Time you break away from mom,

girl, you’re ready to chase a man.

 

Less faithful to the vocab and the meter, instead substituting a kind of variation of a balladic structure.

No, I’m no tigress on the prowl,

 

no lion stalking you like prey.

 

It’s time to leave your mom,

 

When you’re ripe for a man.

I think, or at least hope, that all the versions are clearly translations of the original stanza, but they are different. I view it as listening to different contemporary orchestras playing "eine kliene nachtmusik"--they will all be different, yet will still clearly be Mozart.

 

Edited March 20, 2016 by heliogabalus

[sacklunch]

4 minutes ago, Agrippina said:

I don't think we can look at sales rankings of particular editions of particular books to get an idea of overall popularity that way. It has to be something more universal. There are Christians interested in Christian writing, but there are many, many people all over the world who are not Christians, many others who are not at all interested in Augustine or Jerome, and many Christians who are interested in the thinking of Cicero - widely considered to be one of the greatest minds of all times. The writings of Augustine and Jerome are for highly specialized readers, while those of Cicero are more universal. I wonder how to get at the answer to this question - and if it matters anyway! Probably doesn't.

We should be cautious that our own love for Greco-Roman literature is not assumed for the rest of the world. There is also a difference between folks actually being interested in the ideas of Cicero--and then buying an English translation--verses students required to read Augustine or even Cicero as part of their course. It's also worth mentioning that the renown of a particular work or author may not impact the sale or reading of translations. So, yes, while many outside of the academy might have a vague sense of who Marcus Aurelius was, they have not likely ever purchased nor read his works. This goes the same for even the various corpora labelled 'the bible': many are familiar with the ideas therein, but few have sat down and read any part of them. My point, and why it 'matters', is fidelity for translations of ancient works into modern English depends on the intended audience. For 'pagan' Greco-Roman works, I suspect the majority of these readers have more specialized ('arcane') interests and I dare even suggest higher literacy levels (even if this means they didn't attend college/graduate school) than those among readers of Augustine and the biblical texts. 

[ἠφανισμένος]

15 minutes ago, Agrippina said:

I don't think we can look at sales rankings of particular editions of particular books to get an idea of overall popularity that way. It has to be something more universal. There are Christians interested in Christian writing, but there are many, many people all over the world who are not Christians, many others who are not at all interested in Augustine or Jerome, and many Christians who are interested in the thinking of Cicero - widely considered to be one of the greatest minds of all times. The writings of Augustine and Jerome are for highly specialized readers, while those of Cicero are more universal. I wonder how to get at the answer to this question - and if it matters anyway! Probably doesn't.

I agree that sales rankings are problematic as a way of getting at what we're interested in here. In fact, I mentioned my reservations already. But if you share those reservations, then I'm puzzled as to why you brought up the numbers of people searching at Amazon and libraries.                                        

The second bolded statement needs qualification. Augustine wrote some of his works for "highly specialized" readers, I suppose, but then so did Cicero. Both wrote quite a lot, however, that can be read with profit and enjoyment in translation by a reasonably educated person. But what works do we have in mind? If we compare De amicitia to De civitate Dei, then we should also compare the Confessiones to something like De natura deorum.

[sacklunch]

7 hours ago, rjyjate said:

Huh, this definitely came up in my undergrad courses and I had assumed this was a fairly standard discussion for students as soon as they grasp enough of the language to move beyond strict literal translations. Maybe it depends on the school (or professor)?

I think we're roughly on the same page - like heliogabalus when I hear someone argue for fidelity I generally assume they're referring to more literal translations, because that's usually how I've heard it used. 

You're right that all of us are going off our own experiences! Mine are formed from taking courses in classics at several universities, some very well-known and others not. One thing that seems beyond dispute is classicists rarely study materials postdating 200 CE. And those in religion rarely study 'Greco-Roman pagan' texts from any period or region. This is really a shame. At my own current university it is so rare to see these two worlds interact with one another on any level (even on the level of philology students in religion often only learn 'koine' and remain ignorant of the most basic facts assumed in classical studies). I remember remarking in an undergraduate course I took on Hellenistic poetry (classics dept.) that Cleanthe's Hymn to Zeus reminded me a lot of not so distant Hellenistic Jewish and Christian authors. The students had no clue what I was talking about. It was simply unknown to them that 'the Logos' is a ubiquitous concept in early Judaism/Christianity (this would be one of the very first things you learn in studying, for example, the Gospels). Much like I have heard students who only study Greek within the confines of the NT voice their utter confusion on why anyone in the ancient world would need to use the optative. 

[Apogeee]

1 hour ago, sacklunch said:

We should be cautious that our own love for Greco-Roman literature is not assumed for the rest of the world.

I was thinking this exact thing about someone's interest in Augustine!

[Apogeee]

1 hour ago, heliogabalus said:

I think, or at least hope, that all the versions are clearly translations of the original stanza, but they are different. I view it as listening to different contemporary orchestras playing "eine kliene nachtmusik"--they will all be different, yet will still clearly be Mozart.

 

You can see that the versions of the lines of Horace all started with the same original.

As to Mozart, when you play his notes in 6/8 time, are you still playing Mozart? How about if you leave all the notes where they are on the staff, but change the key signature from C major to D minor. Don't transpose, just use the different key markings. Would it be Mozart any more? You could probably tell that it started with the original, if you look hard enough. I think there's a continuum, and the farther you are away from the original intent, the less faithful it is.

[Apogeee]

6 hours ago, heliogabalus said:

If you're translating Horace, in a class where your sight-translation is being used to test your understanding of Latin grammar, 

I know there are still people who do this, but it seems so pointless. You can often tell if someone understands the grammar just by hearing them read it aloud.

[Apogeee]

4 hours ago, sacklunch said:

As to your point about Cicero and Plutarch, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that such Greco-Roman authors see a wider audience in modern readership, than Augustine and Jerome. 

Wider as in outside of academia.

[Apogeee]

1 hour ago, Petros said:

I'm puzzled as to why you brought up the numbers of people searching at Amazon and libraries.

Overall searches on authors, not on individual editions of specific works.

[heliogabalus]

10 hours ago, Agrippina said:

I know there are still people who do this, but it seems so pointless.

Is there anywhere--besides maybe Kentucky--that doesn't do this???

[sacklunch]

15 hours ago, Agrippina said:

Wider as in outside of academia.

I would wager that Augustine sees a wider audience within and outside academia by a substantial margin. Even with all the caveats that go along with Amazon's sales of these authors' works, book sales are at least an indicator of something. Maybe they do not indicate that people are actually reading a particular work (though I maintain that likely possibility!). But, you're quite right that some 'pagan' authors are more popular in this country than ancient Christian ones. Homer's Odyssey is listed as #2,370, while Confessions is much higher at #6,688. 

[Apogeee]

6 hours ago, heliogabalus said:

Is there anywhere--besides maybe Kentucky--that doesn't do this???

Cork and Italy that I know of so far. I can't speak to other universities, but it is the current trend in secondary schools, and perhaps methods will change in academia at some point. 

[Apogeee]

57 minutes ago, sacklunch said:

I would wager that Augustine sees a wider audience within and outside academia by a substantial margin. 

I disagree because I think that outside of academia, it's specialized mainly among people of certain religious backgrounds interested in literature that pertains to that religious bent, but readily admit that it is surely possible that Augustine is more widely read than, say, Cicero - and there's no way to really tell, that I know of. Or really any reason other than idle curiosity to check. It's been lovely thinking about it! Thank you all for a fun discussion.