Wednesday, 6 May 2015

After Babel: Aspects of language and translation, 3rd Ed.,
George Steiner, OUP, 1998, page 30

Steiner points out that translation is a repetitive task:

As each generation retranslates the classics, out of a vital compulsion for immediacy and precise echo, so every generation uses language to build its own resonant past. At moments of historical stress, mythologies of the 'true past' follow on each other at such speed that entirelt different perspectives coexist and blur at the edges.

If we accept films and plays as a valid translaton of a book, we can see this process in action, perhaps not just for commercial gain. Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" has been through a number of adaptations for the stage and has been seen of screen and TV in 1940, 1980, 1995 and most recently in 2005. A successor is awaited!