Quote#Politics & Power
If the order in which I have classed the three general laws of…
Quote byAlexander Fraser Tytler · 1747–1813
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791, 2nd edition 1797, 3rd edition 1813), p. 224.
English (original)
If the order in which I have classed the three general laws of translation be their just and natural arrangement, which I think will hardly be denied, it will follow, that in all cases where a sacrifice is necessary to be made of one of those laws to another, a due regard ought to be paid to their rank and comparative importance.
— Alexander Fraser Tytler
More from Alexander Fraser Tytler
Works which consist of fact and detail demand a more scrupulous fidelity than those of which the basis is sentiment.
It is always a fault when the translator adds to the sentiment of the original author, what does not strictly accord with his characteristic mode of thinking, or expressing himself.
I. ... the Translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work. II. ... the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original. III. ... the Translation should have all the …
The utility of translations is universally felt, and therefore there is a continual demand for them. But this very circumstance has thrown the practice of translation into mean and mercenary hands.
An ordinary translator sinks under the energy of his original: the man of genius frequently rises above it.
But if authors, even of taste and genius, be found at times to have made an injudicious use of that liberty which is allowed in the translation of poetry, we must expect to see it miserably abused indeed, where those talents are evidently …