venuti

Canon 79possess stylistic simplicity. The reviewer for the London Magazinedeclared that Orlando Furioso is characterized by “this exquisitesimplicity, which bears the distinctive mark of a superior genius”(London Magazine 1824:626).In Frere’s case, fluency meant a linguistic homogenization thatavoided, not merely archaism, but “associations exclusively belongingto modern manners,” generalizing the foreign text by removing asmany of the historically specific markers as possible. The translatormust,if he is capable of executing his task upon a philosophic principle,endeavour to resolve the personal and local allusions into thegenera, of which the local or personal variety employed by theoriginal author, is merely the accidental type; and to reproduce themin one of those permanent forms which are connected with theuniversal and immutable habits of mankind.(Frere 1820:482)Frere rationalized these admitted “liberties” by appealing to a“philosophic principle”:The proper domain of the Translator is, we conceive, to be foundin that vast mass of feeling, passion, interest, action and habitwhich is common to mankind in all countries and in all ages; andwhich, in all languages, is invested with its appropriate forms ofexpression, capable of representing it in all its infinite varieties, inall the permanent distinctions of age, profession andtemperament.(ibid.:481)In Frere’s view, a fluent strategy enables the translation to be atransparent representation of the eternal human verities expressed bythe foreign author.The principle on which Frere’s theory rests is the principle that cannow be recognized as central to the history of fluent translation: liberalhumanism, subjectivity seen as at once self-determining anddetermined by human nature, individualistic yet generic, transcendingcultural difference, social conflict, and historical change to represent“every shade of the human character” (Frere 1820:481). And, likepreceding versions of this principle, Frere’s may appear to bedemocratic in its appeal to what is “common to mankind,” to a