Mike Brady writes: > Or perhaps, "I don't know what it's supposed to mean." I.e., I > recognize that it has been intentionally devised, but I do not know how to > access whatever was intended. > What the creator had in mind is one thing (a notional thing), but it's folly to figure his intention becomes a property somehow inhering in the object -- ITS "meaning". > > BTW, how does one know whether a translation is "accurate," "good," > "reliable," etc.? How can one compare the quality of two translations > of the same passage? > All those JUDGMENTS are notional, and often a function of stipulative criteria, and thus it's wrong to believe they are qualities that "are" or "are not" inherent properties of the translation. Moncrief's Proust, Garnet's Dostoievsky et al, Lowe-Porter's Mann eventually were dismissed as being inaccurate to some degree or other. This allowed other translators to turn a dollar. The overwhelming current consensus of people of sensibility is that the original three have always been the "best".
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