Dryden’s Contribution in Translation Study

Assignment: Paper No. - 04

Name: Patel kavita

Topic: Dryden’s Contribution in Translation Study

Roll No. – 11

Semester: III

Batch: 2011- 12

      Dryden’s Contribution in Translation Study

The Life of Ovid being already written in our language before the Translation of his Metamorphoses. The English reader may there be satisfied, that he flourished in the reign of Augustus Cesar; that he was Extracted from an Ancient Family of Roman Knights; that he was born to the Inheritance of a Splendid Fortune; that he was designed to the Study of the Law, and had made considerable progress in it, before he quitted that Profession, for this of Poetry, to which he was more naturally formed. The Cause of his Banishment is unknown; because he was himself unwilling further to provoke the Emperor, by ascribing it to any other reason, than what was pretended by Augustus, which was, the Lasciviousness of his Elegies, and his Art of Love. This true, they are not to be Excused in the severity of Manners, as being able to corrupt a larger Empire, if there were any, than that of Rome: yet this may be said in behalf of Ovid, that no man has ever treated the Passion of Love with so much Delicacy of thought, and of Expression, or searched into the nature of it more Philosophically than he. Deeds, it seems, may be justified by Arbitrary Power, when words are questioned in a Poet. There is another ghess of the Grammarians, as far from truth as the first from Reason; they will have him Banished for some favours, which, they say, he received from Julia, the Daughter of Augustus, whom they think he Celebrates under the Name of Corinna in his Elegies. But he, who will observe the Verses which are made to that Mistress, may gather from the whole contexture of them, that Corinna was not a Woman of the highest Quality.

First, that of metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another. Thus, or near this manner, was Horace his Art of Poetry translated by Ben Jonson. The second way is that of paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense, and that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered. Such is Mr Waller’s translation of Virgil’s Fourth Æneid. The third way is that of imitation, where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) assumes the liberty not only to vary from the words and sense, but to forsake them

both as he sees occasion; and taking only some general hints from the original, to run division on the ground-work, as he pleases. In short, the verbal copier is encumbered with so many difficulties at once that he can never

disentangle himself from all. He is to consider at the same time the thought of his author, and his words, and to find out the counterpart to each in another language; and, besides this, he is to confine himself to the compass of numbers, and the slavery of rhyme. It is much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected: and when we have said the best of it,  its but a foolish task; for no sober man would put himself into a danger for the applause of escaping without breaking his neck.

Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of likeness, a good one and a bad. It is one thing to draw the outlines true, the features like, the proportions exact, the colouring itself perhaps tolerable; and another thing to make all these

graceful, by the posture, the shadowing  and chiefly by he spirit which animates the whole. I cannot without some indignation look on an ill copy of an excellent original: much less can I behold with patience Virgil, Homer, and some others, whose beauties I have been endeavouring all my life to imitate, so abused, as you may say to their faces, by a botching interpreter. There are many who understand Greek and Latin, and yet are ignorant of their mother-tongue. The properties and delicacies of the English are known to few; It is impossible even for a good wit to understand and practice them, without the help of a liberal education, long reading, and digesting of those few good

authors we have amongst us, the knowledge of men and manners, the freedom of habitudes and conversation with the best company of both sexes. Thus it appears necessary that a man should be a nice critic in his mother-tongue before he attempts to translate a foreign language.

Neither is it sufficient that he be able to judge of words and style; but he must be a master of them too; he must perfectly understand his author’s tongue, and absolutely command his own. So that to be a thorough translator, he must be a thorough poet. Neither is it enough to give his author’s sense in good English, in poetical expressions, and in musical numbers. For, though all these are exceeding difficult to perform, there yet remains an harder task; and it is a secret of which few translators have sufficiently thought that is, the maintaining the character of an author, which distinguishes him from all others, and makes him appear that individual poet whom you would

interpret.