Can and should literature be read as a translation?

Sfdere   Sat Aug 22, 2009 8:42 pm GMT
I think great works of literature, whether it's Don Quixote, Divine Comedy, Canterburry Tales, Faustus or Brothers Karamazov, lose their full meaning when they are translated. Not only does each language have concepts that are truly unique to it, but the translator also adds, whether on purpose or inadvertently, a part of his own mind to the text. Do agree or disagree?
rasputin   Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:14 pm GMT
Well, so what are you suggesting, that we don't read them at all? Keep in mind that, for 99% of language learners, they will get more out of the story by reading a translation than by reading the original text. The original text with all its wonderful features does little good to someone who hasn't mastered the language. On the other hand, translators usually have a higher than average mastery of the language and are able to at least in part render the original in the native tongue of the learner.
A lot of people learn languages to read texts in the original because, as they say, so much is lost in translation. But they will lose even more reading the original because of a lack of knowledge of the language.

So the bottom line is that translations are better than nothing.
not in Bovina   Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:31 am GMT
If you want to read world literature, you'll have to settle mostly for translations. You simply don't have time to learn more than one or two foreign languages, and there's great literature to be had in dozens of languages, both living and dead.

For example, how many people want to learn Sumerian, Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Ancient Chinese, Etruscan, etc. just to read a couple of poems, plays, stories, etc.