Pat Sloane's fascinating comment on the proliferation of Dante translations
merits some further comment I think. It presumes what those of us who work
at the language-"reality" interface, or at the interface between two
natural languages, would never even consider: that any word, group of
words, statement, or utterance, let alone a dense poem composed of one
hundred cantos of about 150 lines each, can possibly have a single
unequivocal and uniquely translatable meaning. Philosophical discussions
of language have always highlighted the polyvalence or fuzziness of
language, particularly in the twentieth century, with logical positivism,
speech act theory and latterly with Derridian "différence" and
deconstruction. The philosopher Willard Quine in in the 1950s illustrated
the indeterminacy of any single utterance precisely in terms of its
"translation indeterminacy". No wonder translation studies these days are
going from strength to strength. If within ONE language, meanings are so
elusive and hard to negotiate, how much more so BETWEEN languages. Beware
of the nominalist fallacy that there is a reality out there that pre-exists
language and survives translation into any one language (let alone more
than one language simultaneously)! Which is not to say that the "meaning"
of the Divina Commedia is the sum total of the "meanings" of all possible
translations of the work into every available language. Dante is not unique
in this, except by reason of his towering importance. People will have
noticed how many translations there around these days of Machiavelli's The
Prince (or Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground - under various titles).
Can I take this opportunity to flag to interested parties the ever more
imminent publication of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LITERARY TRANSLATION INTO
ENGLISH edited by Olive Class for Fitzroy Dearborn (London). It has its
own website, viz. - http://www.fitzroydearborn.com/london/littrans.htm
john g-r
>In a message dated 11/21/00 2:13:11 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>> Professor Hollander's translation of the "Inferno" just came out.
>>
>> Random House/Doubleday
>> ISBN: 0-385-49697-4
>>
>> Eduardo Fichera
>
>Why is it that practically every year there's a new translation of the
>Commedia? Is it especially hard to translate for some reason? Is there such
>a thing as a definitive English translation? Singleton was recommended to me
>some years ago. But obviously he isn't that "authoritative" if so many people
>have subsequently issued translations of their own.
>
>pat sloane
John Gatt-Rutter
Vaccari Professor in Italian Studies
Head - School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
La Trobe University
(Melbourne) Victoria 3086
AUSTRALIA
TEL: (#61)-3-9479-1933
FAX: European Studies - (#61)-3-9479-1453
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