Last Latin lesson of 2009

I had thought, like two or three others, that next week was our last Latin class of the term, not this week. This was relevant as we were all going to have brought in goodies to eat during our last class. Still there was enough to go round without our contribution.

The Latin class has been the most eye-opening course of the last few months. In particular, I have discovered what a rich and complex field translation studies is. I had approached the subject with a somewhat naive view that there were fairly fixed meanings in the original language and that translation produced a reasonably fixed meaning in the target language. But reading Unberto Eco, George Steiner, etc, has shown me just how wrong this view is. And that it is wrong helps my own goal related to my PhD. I don't need to fear the idea that there is just one "correct" translation against which my work would be measured.

But all this has served to highlight my own lack of imagination in respect to English. Probably this is a matter of me tending to go with my first idea, rather than doing a second review and perhaps changing my translation, based on what a English speaker would actually say to produce the same meaning. So, for instance, in today's Latin class I had initially translated "dominus meus nuptias hodie facere uult" as "My master wants to make a marriage ceremony today" while on review, the better expression is "My master wants to get married today". At present, I haven't really thought about translation enough to polish or edit a first draft into something that reads like it isn't a translation.

I was particularly struck by a discussion in Umberto Eco's book (Mouse or Rat) about translations into English of Dante's inferno. I hadn't realised that the original Italian is in a somewhat complex rhyming pattern of ABA, BCB, CDC, etc. Eco provided an example of the original together with several English versions which were radically different from one another. I have discovered that we have three versions at home, one of which does rhyme (the Dorothy Sayers) version. Each time I come across the great variety of apparently acceptable translations, I am somewhat amazed. Slowly I am developing more of a feel for this issue.

Over our lunchtime goodies, I was talking to the Australian lady who I think works as a lecturer at Oxford. I manoevred the subject round to the production of tranalations by academics and she pretty much confirmed how much of this is farmed out to others. Indeed, she does so herself. So I am thinking about investigating this much more seriously. In my case, this could take the form of using a second tranlator to correct my first attempt. Alternatively I could use someone external where I have found a passage too hard. Finally, I am quite struck my the idea of using a German-English translation as a way of interplaying with a Latin-English one. As soon as I get accepted for my PhD, I will be working out the detailed practicalities of each of these.

In the meantime, I really have to work hard over the Christmas break on getting the work we have done so far fully set into my head. Overall, I am very pleased with the course so far. But I do have lots to do to really get the most from it.