3 ms·
What do you think of reading an English translation of the classics instead of the original?
by ogogmad 5y ago
What do you think of reading an English translation of the classics instead of the original?
- jnwatson 5y agoI think it is like any translation: you get much of the understanding. Still, it is important to understand the social and cultural background of the author, and reading it as the author wrote it is part of that.
- hodgesrm 5y agoIt's kind of like reading anything in translation. Goethe loses a lot in English. Shakespeare in German is the same.
- webreac 5y agoEdgar Poe earned a lot in translation to french (translated by Baudelaire).
- hodgesrm 5y agoThanks, I need to check that out. It's conceivable that Baudelaire made a few improvements. It's certainly not unheard of. Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam is by some accounts close to an original work. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam