[Lexicog] When Semantics Doesn't Matter

[Hayim Sheynin]

<<Shakespeare is better in German translation.>>

Let me share some thoughts relating to this generalization.
1. For whom Shakespeare is better in German translation? It is
clearly for the people who know German better than English.
2. Can you imagine that somebody knows a second language
better than his native language (mother's tongue)?
3. Is this generalization relates to a feeling of a scholar (philologist,
linguist, literary scholar) or an impression of a common reader.
4. Are in German literary references of Shakespeare and his sources
are better understood?
5. Do Shakespeare's witticisms and phraseology sound better in translation?
6. Can anybody state that KJV of the Bible or German Luther's translation
or any other translation of the Bible be better than Hebrew original.
7. Can anybody state that any translation of a classical work (I mean 
one written in classical Greek or ancient Latin) be better than the original?
8. There are many excellent translations from language A to language B,
and how laudable they can be they never are going to be equal to the
original.
9. If somebody who tried his hand in translation can confirm the statement 
above, it would be interesting to analyze this.
However taking in account all the aspects of translation it is very difficult
to accept this opinion.

Hayim Sheynin   

bolstar1 <bolstar1 at yahoo.com> wrote:                                  Bill: Now I'm chuckling over your point about Shakespeare reading 
 better in German than in English(I know it wasn't your own statement, 
 but it was just so darn cute.) This would be an example of the use of, 
 for lack of a better term, hyperbolic hyperbole. I have always thought 
 it a waste of time, personally, to have read through all of 'War and 
 Peace' -- you know, that tidbit of a book by Leo-the-Sparse -- without 
 enjoying Leo's rhetorical genius (Oh, what I must have missed in the 
 translation.) Leo T.quaintly once said of Shakespeare, ""The works of 
 Shakespeare, borrowed as they are, and externally, like mosaics, 
 artificially fitted together piecemeal from bits invented for the 
 occasion, have nothing whatever in common with art and poetry." 
     Granted, Tolstoy may have been in a temporary stupor, or maybe his 
 wife had spilled hot coffee on his pants that morning, or perhaps he 
 didn't read a German translation of Shakespeare......but whatever the 
 reason, he may be in on the theory that Shakespeare wasn't such a hot 
 literary number as he is purported to be. I'd like to see more proof of 
 this though. 
 
 Scott Nelson
  
 
 --- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, billposer at ... wrote:
 >
 > I have been told by people whose knowledge of both
 > Shakespeare and German is better than my own that
 > Shakespeare is better in German translation.
 > It seems odd that anything would be better in translation,
 > but I suppose that the English of Shakespeare is sufficiently
 > different from Modern English that this may be like saying
 > that Shakespeare is better in Modern German translation than
 > in Modern English translation, which is not so implausible.
 > 
 > Bill
 >
 
 
     
                       

       
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