2. 1950s/1960s initiated the era for literalist translations: Nabokov's Pushkin, Richmond Lattimore's Homer, Straussians
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Replying to @HeerJeet
3. By literalist translations I mean translations that try to mimic diction & syntax of original, even at the cost of awkwardness in English
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Replying to @HeerJeet
4. Robert Alter's various translations of the Hebrew Bible should be included in this tradition.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
5. Prior to the literalist trend of 1950s, translations were often freestyle, not just loose but often adding & subtracting from text.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
6. Why the trend towards literalism, starting in Cold War era? Connected with the growth of scholarship & formalist valorization of text.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
7. But there was also a politics and philosophy behind literalism, a conservative desire for fixed text.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
8. With Nabokov, crafting English translation that was as close to syntax & diction of Russian as possible was path to lost past.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
9. With the Straussians as well, conservative impulse guided translations: if Great Books encoded secret wisdom translations had to be exact
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Replying to @HeerJeet
10. Straussian translations are often closer to encryption (tranliteral decoding of words) than to translation.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
11. Much of what is wrong with Leo Strauss is obvious when you consider his philosophy of translation.
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12. Strauss: "the perfect translator is either one who understands nothing of what he translates and never presumes that he does..."
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Replying to @HeerJeet
13. Strauss con't: "...or one who understands everything in the text and knows what he is doing."
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