Raffaella Cornacchini wrote:
should a translation be fluent and unfaithful, although deliberately so, as Marie- Helene, or the other way round? Possibly one should have the best of both worlds, but I would like to stress that good translations are also compared to "belles infidéles"
Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt - Wikipédia[1] Aussi, selon Voltaire, Perrot d'Ablancourt est-il un « traducteur élégant et dont on appela chaque traduction la belle infidèle. [2] » ...
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Perrot_d'Ablancourt - 20k - Copia cache - Pagine simili
and my Latin teacher in high school always said "ad sententiam non ad verbum" (try to render the meaning of the whole sentence and do not translate literally) when she tried to explain how Latin (or Greek) should be translated. That was when translating started to be fun...
raffaella
I came across this thread long after the conversation had died, but nevertheless have to add my two cents in the form of a few quotes from my Personal tab that I think are relevant here:
"The original is unfaithful to the translation."
(Jorge Luis Borges)
¶
"Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful.
If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful."
(Yevgeny Yevtushenko)
¶
"Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering
every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing
that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life."
(Voltaire)
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