File: avatars-R59zwoqEOhpJ2ajs-(...).jpg (232 KB, 1080x1080)

232 KB JPG

I also agree with their translation philosophy even if the motives are wrong

From the preface to the first volume of the four-volume anthology Friedrich Schiller: The Poet of Freedom

>To translate Schiller, one must first and foremost aim not to please a contemporary audience, which is only accustomed to the language of a dark age. In such an age, the creative verbal transformations, which characterize poetry, will seem foreign. Such an age is acclimated through the mass media to a language, which places emphasis instead upon objects and therefore, locates reality in the expression of nouns.

>All previous translations of Schiller’s work into English are flawed, insofar as they reject in one way or another Schiller’s own emphasis on verbal transformations, rather than on mere nouns. This is intentional, because, as in the case of British translations of Plato, the best way to prevent the circulation of republican conceptions is for oligarchical representatives, to establish a monopoly over their translation.

>The most obvious way in which previous translations attempt to destroy the poet’s work is through deliberate mistranslation of key conceptions, usually under the guise of poetic license. Such mistranslations have nothing to do with poetry and everything to do with license.

>The more insidious way, in which a poem is often destroyed, is, under the guise of making the translation sound more mellifluous, to alter the meter and rhythm of a poem, as if the latter were not consciously selected as integral to the idea of the poem itself.

>The typical translation of Schiller available prior to publication of this volume is, therefore, neither trustworthy in regard to literal idea content, nor in regard to the meter and rhythm. In translation of a poem, the normal procedure has been to eliminate the alternating line lengths, which characterize all Schiller’s poems and to thus end all lines with a stressed syllable. Also, poems written by Schiller in a trochaic rhythm will be transformed into an iambic rhythm. These procedures are usually then accompanied by a willingness to sacrifice the idea content of the poem for the perfect end-rhyme.

>Since the verbal transformations, which occur in a poem are mediated through metaphor, only a literal translation is capable of reproducing the concrete images through which such transformations occur. To the philistine, literal translation reflects a lack of creative individual expression in the translator. However, any departure from the literal, totally aborts the creative process, which is the essence of poetry.

>It is one thing to improve in translation upon the work of a bad poet. But why should one waste one’s time in this way? To rationalize deliberate mistranslations of Schiller, the greatest of poets, as an improvement, especially when they abort necessary metaphorical transformations, is the height of arrogant dishonesty.