> I have a fairly simple question: could anyone please tell me what role,
> exactly, Coverdale played in the translation of the Bible?
Below find C.S. Lewis's description, in the Oxford _English
Literature in the Sixteenth Century_ (207-209); his
summary judgment, you will see, is that Coverdale was
"an inspired hack."
pfs
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Paul Schaffner | [log in to unmask] | http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pfs/
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Tyndale's immediate successor was Myles Coverdale (1488-1568).... He
claims the honor of having produced the first complete English Bible.
...This was printed at Zurich...in 1535 and the original title-page
claimed that it was translated "out of Douche and Latyn'. It will
be noticed that there is no mention of Greek, still less of Hebrew;
it is disputed whether Coverdale knew any Hebrew and agreed that
he did not know much. "Douche" of course means German.... Only
a part of this Bible was new. Coverdale used the Pentateuch, Jonah,
and New Testament of Tyndale; the residue of the Old Testament he
translated himselfwith help from the Vulgate, Pagninus, Luther,
and the Zurich Bible. From this onward Coverdale becomes, in a
sense, the official government translator, repeatedly employed
in authorized revisions of his own and other men's work for the
Matthew's Bible and the Great Bibles. The tendency of his reveisions
was influenced by the official policy of the moment.... He had
no learning enough to have solid grounds of his own for choosing
between the various interpreters who all lay together on his
desk: ignorance, in a sense, left him free to be accommodating.
It may also be suspected that ignorance left him free to indulge
aesthetic preferences, to follow this or that interpretation
according as it agreed with his own, often exquisitely
melodious, English style. But the suspicion must not be too
readily accepted. [Comparing his 1535 Psalms with the
revised version he made for Cromwell's Great Bible of 1539,]
we find change after change which so improves the rhythm
that one might suppose it made for that purpose alone,
but which in fact brings his rendering nearer to that of
Munster, whom he somewhat overvalued. There is also in
the later version a tendency (I think) to move away from
Luther and Zurich and certainly a tendency to make more use
of the Gallican Psalter (that is, St. Jerome's earlier
version from the Greek)....
In one sense, his work is hardly translation at all,
but a mixed production like Pope's Homer. Sometimes the
misunderstood original [produced] results [that are]
ridiculous.... He can be misleading even where he
understands the text.... But there are felicities
everywhere. He is responsible for "baptized into his
death", for "tender mercies", and for "lovingkindness...."
Compared with Tyndale, and those who made the Geneva,
the Rheims, and the Authorized, Coverdale might perhaps
be regarded as a mere hack: but he is often an inspired hack.
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