Nabokov on Translation, Literal and otherwise
This from Vladimir Nabokov’s Reply to My Critics, a response to criticism directed at his annotated translation of Eugene Onegin:
"If I am told I am a poor poet, I smile; but if I am told I am a poor scholar, I reach for my heaviest dictionary…
The ‘arty translation’ protects them by concealing and camouflaging ignorance or incomplete information or the fuzzy edge of limited knowledge. Stark literalism, on the other hand, would expose their fragile frame to unknown and incalculable perils…
It is quite natural, then that the solidly unionized professional paraphrast experiences a surge of dull hatred and fear, and in some cases real panic, when confronted with the possibility that a shirt in fashion, or the influence of an adventurous publishing house, may suddenly remove from his head the cryptic rose-bush he carries or the maculated shield erected between him and the specter of inexorable knowledge. As a result, the canned music of rhymed versions is enthusiastically advertised, and accepted, and the sacrifice of textual precision applauded as something rather heroic, whereas only suspicion and bloodhounds await the gaunt, graceless literalist groping around in despair for the obscure word that would satisfy impassioned fidelity and accumulating in the process a wealth of information which only makes the advocates of pretty camouflage tremble or sneer."
To which I would only respond, of course yes, particularly if your imperative is scholarly, but if not, and literal translation renders original texts boring, as say Murmansk on a monday night, then, yes, by all means, work some magic and make me want to turn the page. I talk about this topic with Lydia Davis here.