“A verse translation should be faithful to the original, less in form than in sense. Or in other words, a poetic translation should be as beautiful as the original in sense, in sound and, if possible, in form.”

— Xu Yuanchong

Source: 300 Tang Poems: A New Translation (1987), p. xxii

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Xu Yuanchong 6

Translator of Chinese poetry 1921

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“Literary translation may be considered as rivalry between two languages (or even between two cultures) which vie to express the original idea better. It should be faithful to the original at least, and beautiful at best. A literary translator should exploit the advantage of the target language, that is to say, make the fullest possible use of the best expressions of the target language in order to make the reader understand, enjoy and delight in the translated text.”

Xu Yuanchong (1921) Translator of Chinese poetry

"New Translation Theories of the New Age" http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-ZGFY200003000.htm, Chinese Translators Journal, 2000, issue 3, p. 2

“When I started to make translations I was just doing it intuitively, and my tendency was to stick to the original as much as possible. Then I gained more confidence in my own poetry and my own writing and I began to become less concerned about being strictly faithful to the original and more concerned with producing a good poem in English. What I have often found—especially in the translations that are done by scholars—is that they’re very faithful to the content of the original language, but in English they don’t really sound that good as poems.”

Francisco Aragón (1968) poet

On translating Spanish poetry into English in “Interview with Francisco Aragón: Latino Poetry From All Its Perspectives” https://www.sampsoniaway.org/literary-voices/2010/09/16/interview-with-francisco-aragon-latino-poetry-from-all-its-perspectives/ in Sampsonia Way (2010 Sept 16)

“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Preface.

“On translating text into the new language as it is in source language, there is a chance of it being emerged as an absurd sentence in the target language making no sense at all. In the attempt to make the translation meaningful to the target language, there exists a risk of the original work getting meddled by the translator’s style.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Foreword, 'Tales of Transformation: English Translation of Tagore's Chitrangada and Chandalika', Lopamudra Banerjee, (2018). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQPD8F4/</span>
From Prose

“The original is unfaithful to the translation.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Other Inquisitions

El original es infiel a la traducción.
Jorge Luis Borges "Sobre el Vathek de William Beckford" (1943), in Otras inquisiciones: 1937-1952 (Buenos Aires: Sur, 1952) p. 163; "About William Beckford's Vathek", in Ruth L. C. Simms (trans.) Other Inquisitions: 1937-1952 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964) p. 140.
On Henley's translation of Vathek.

“It is generally felt that the educated man or woman should be able to read Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire, Lorca in the original - with, anyway, the crutch of a translation.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)

“To preserve the sense of the 'grey' even in the most powerful green is amazingly difficult and whoever discovers it will be a happy mortal. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Gerard Bilders (1838–1865) painter from the Netherlands

version in original Dutch / citaat van Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands: Om het sentiment van het grijze, zelfs in het krachtigste groen, te houden is verbazend moeylijk, en die het uitvindt is een gelukkig sterveling.
Quote from Gerard Bilders in his letter (July 1860) to his maecenas Johannes Kneppelhout; as cited in Dutch Art in the Nineteenth Century – 'The Hague School; Introduction' https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dutch_Art_in_the_Nineteenth_Century/The_Hague_School:_Introduction, by G. Hermine Marius, transl. A. Teixera de Mattos; publish: The la More Press, London, 1908
1860's

“You should write about me, just like you did about Degas (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van de tekst van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Net zoals over
Remark of Israëls in a talk with the German painter Max Liebermann, c. 1899-1900, drinking coffee together in Scheveningen; as cited and translated by J. Sillevis and others, in exhibition catalog 'Lieberman en Holland, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag 1980, pp. 15-16
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

“There is no beginning, no original word: each one is a metaphor for another word which is a metaphor for yet another, and so on. All of them are translations of translations. A transparency in which the obverse is the reverse: fixity is always momentary.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 4
Context: Since movement is a metaphor for change, the best thing will be to say: nonchange is (always) change. It would appear that I have finally arrived at the desired disequilibrium. Nonetheless, change is not the primordial, original word that I am searching for: it is a form of becoming. When becoming is substituted for change, the relation between the two terms is altered, so that I am obliged to replace nonchange by permanence, which is a metaphor for fixity, as becoming is for coming-to-be, which in turn is a metaphor for time in all its ceaseless transformations…. There is no beginning, no original word: each one is a metaphor for another word which is a metaphor for yet another, and so on. All of them are translations of translations. A transparency in which the obverse is the reverse: fixity is always momentary.
I begin all over again: if it does not make sense to say that fixity is always momentary, the same may not be true if I say that it never is.

“The translator translates a book for the ones who are not familiar with its language of origin. If someone can read it in the language of origin, he will not need to read its translation. So, when you translate, you first suppose that you translate it for someone who does not know its language and could not explore that world and that thought.”

Media Kashigar (1956–2017) Iranian translator, writer and poet

Source: The best critic of a translation is its second translation, Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, 2013 https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/news/3001

“A verse translation should be faithful to the original, less in form than in sense. Or in other words, a poetic translation should be as beautiful as the original in sense, in sound and, if possible, in form.”

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Xu Yuanchong 6

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