Handbook for translators of Spanish historical ... - University Library

HANDBOOK FOR TRANSLATORS OF SPANISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
know that it can never "be reached. The accuracy and readability
of a translation are to "be judged on a relative
basis by the reader. The value of a translation depends
upon the ability of the translator to understand the idea
in the mind of the writer of the original, and his success
in transferring that idea into another language. A word
by word rendition is acceptable only when the meaning is
not violated in any way. This type of translation, however,
is seldom accurate. To emphasize, permit us to repeat:
not the word or the phrase, but the idea in the
mind of the writer is the important matter in translation.
Prospective translators differ with this view, for they
believe that occasionally the sensibilities of the reader
must be safeguarded. Retrospective translators, on the
other hand, adhere closely to the substance of the original
rather than to the form. Obviously then, the best
translation is that which finds a happy combination of
these two schools of thought.
Translation may be divided into four definite types:
commercial, scientific, literary, and historical. In both
commercial and scientific translation, accuracy and readability
are easily attained inasmuch as technical terms are
well standardized. The translation of literary and historical
matter, however, is a difficult task. It is seldom
that one is called upon to translate "the feeling, the
life, the power, and the spirit of the original," in commercial
or scientific writing, although in these two types,
too, accuracy and readability are the prime prerequisites.
Furthermore, in these types, accuracy smd readability are
confined to a factual rendition of the original in a manner
comprehensible to a reader whose main interest is in
no way literary. In literary and historical translations,
on the other hand, it is essential to retain as much of
the feeling as can be grasped and rendered into another
language. Literary and historical translation go hand in
hand until they reach the milepost of retrospection. At
this point differences of point of view commence to insure
a thinly disguised separation.
Whereas literary translation, in its prospective attitude,
permits, and often demands, alteration of the exact
meaning of the original idea, often sacrificing the form,
in cases where a literary translation finds difficulty in
rendering the exact idea, a similar idea may be substituted,
as in the case of poetry. Note, for instance, the
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