4
1. History and evolution of translation
Translation is a very ancient activity: its origins date back to the moment of the appearance and
the spread of the different languages in the different countries, as, at the same time, people felt the
necessity of translating texts from a language to another.
Moreover, born as an oral activity, it began a written activity, in France, only during the
Renaissance. Since that period on, there has been an increasing of interventions, arguments, debates
accompanied by an increasing demand of texts to translate, although the real development is
registered at the beginning of the 20
th
century.
Until the first half of the 20
th
century, only translators, or better those who made translations,
were interested into issues related to translation: in other words, there was not a real translation
theory, but just comments on one or another issue related to translation. We have to wait for the
second post-war period to have theoretical contributions helpful for the formulation of a real theory.
That period saw authors who faced, in a global way, the translation field, leading to the birth of a
real linguistic science. Authors such as the French writer Valery Larbaud, the American linguist, of
Russian origins, Roman Jakobson, the English linguist John Catford and above all, the French
linguist Georges Mounin, who is considered by many a real ‘master’ in this field.
It is also important to underline that for a long time, translation has not shown a regular
evolution, as other sciences had, but on the contrary, it saw a ‘seesaw’ between two concepts: literal
translation (mot à mot) and free translation (libre). Only later did it see the achievement of a new
idea that made overcome this querelle and that took the name of interpretative theory or theory of
“sense”.
Until the end of the 16
th
century, literal translation was pre-eminent, as it was considered the
most faithful kind of translation. It represents a translation defined today as a: “traduction qui est
centrée sur la langue du texte, et non sur le sens, et qui traduit donc, mot à mot ou phrase par phrase
la signification, la motivation, la morphologie et/ou la syntaxe du texte original”
1
.
That belief began to waver, also thanks to the contributions of Étienne Dolet and Jacques
Amyot, in the middle of the 16
th
century, until the opposite principle, concerning free translation,
began to be applied. This new translation approach, to its extremes, is defined by Hurtado Albir as:
“traduction qui ne transmet pas le sens du texte original parce que le traducteur interprète
librement le vouloir dire de l’auteur ou se permet des libertés injustifiées dans la reformulation”
2
.
In this way, the age of “belles infidèles” - period between the 17
th
and the 19
th
century - begins.
This expression was first used by the French philosopher and writer Gilles Ménage (1613-1692)
who, commenting the translations of the humanist Perrot Nicolas d’Ablancourt (1606-1664),
affirmed: “Elles me rappellent une femme que j’ai beaucoup aimé à Tours, et qui était belle mais
infidèle”
3
.
The authors who adopted this new view are numerous, among them I will take into
consideration in this work, Madame Dacier, Jacques Amyot, Rivarol and Antoine Houdar de la
Motte.
However, the application of extreme forms of belles infidèles, caused a translators’ reaction that
took the shape of a return to the mot à mot translation. At the beginning of the 19
th
century, in fact,
some translators, such as Leconte de Lisle and Chateaubriand, revalued the use of literal translation,
although with a different usage, compared to the period before.
In the 20
th
century, a continuous wavering between two conceptions was registered and, at the
same time, the necessity of looking for something able to overcome this impasse was felt, as
followers of both theories were aware that their view did not let them accomplish their task of
1
Amparo HURTADO ALBIR, La notion de fidélité en traduction, Paris, Didier Érudition, 1990, p. 231.
2
Ibidem, p. 321.
3
Quoted ibidem, p. 14.
5
translators that is, to be faithful to the original text, unless doing important concessions to the
opposite translation attitude.
Appeared in the 1980s, the new theory based on the sense, or better on the interpretation of the
text to translate, marked an important step in the theoretical evolution of translation, allowing to
overcome the opposition between the supporters of the two conceptions concerning translation:
“Pour traduire, comprendre soi-même ne suffit pas, il faut faire comprendre”
4
.
On this subject, Marianne Lederer, founder of this theory together with Danica Seleskovitch,
declared that “la più meccanica delle interpretazioni comporta sempre una parte d’interpretazione la
più libera delle interpretazioni comporta sempre una parte di traduzione letterale”
5
.
At this point, let us go back trying to understand how this evolution happened, the reasons, by
which works, which authors and so on, giving a particular attention to what happened since the 16
th
century on, and in particular, since free translation began to appear until the birth of the theory of
sense. In particular, a wide space will be given to authors and works of the 20
th
century, as
according to me, they contributed in a decisive way to the evolution of this science.
Literal translation has had undisputed superiority for a very long period, as regards the
translation of literary texts. Actually, this pre-eminence has never been absolute, because there have
always been criticisms, also from very influent personalities. For example, Cicero, in his Libellus de
optimo genere oratorum (46 b.C.) condamned “verbum pro verbum” translation and the same
principle was expressed by Horace in his Ars Poetica (26 b.C.). Another ‘opponent’ was
St.Gerolamo who, in De optimo genere interpretandi, declared that they had to traslate not word for
word, but idea for idea (“Non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu”)
6
.
Notwithstanding this, literal translation remained the most practised, and the situation did not
change in the Middle Age. Slight signs of changes were felt only at the beginning of 16
th
century.
More and more numerous were the authors who departed from literal translation, such as for
example, the French humanist Étienne Dolet (1509-1546) and especially Jacques Amyot (1513-
1593), who began to apply a way of translating, that was different and ‘free’.
With the beginning of the 17
th
century, as we said, we enter completely the age of free
translation: it was necessary to embellish, to adapt texts that had to be translated to customs, usages,
ideas of the 17
th
century society. Certainly, one of the precursors of this new vision was just Jacques
Amyot, an author strongly criticised, especially because of his translation of Daphnis et Chloé
(1549) by Longo Sofista, a Greek writer lived at the end of the 2
nd
century. This is considered a
typical example of belle infidèle, as Amyot up-to-dated usages and characters of Ancient Greece,
according to the tastes and the habits of France of the 16
th
century.
Étienne Dolet
7
had distanced from literal translation, in his work Manière de bien traduire
d’une langue en l’autre
8
of 1540. In particular, he had listed the five rules a translator has to respect
in order to translate a text in a correct way: to understand the sense, to know the source language
(Latin), to deny literal translation, to avoid using words similar to the source language, and finally,
to know the target language. Even if belonging to the 1540, these rules are very similar, to the
conceptual basis of the interpretative theory of 1980s. Both the authors refused literal translation,
but Amyot went further on, arriving even to comment or explain some passages, worried about the
difficulties a reader could have; he converted measures, “adapted” objects and conventional
phrases, embellished the style, and so on. Historical and social reasons are clear in this behaviour: it
was necessary to eliminate everything was incompatible with the values of that period, making deep
4
Danica SELESKOVITCH, Marianne LEDERER, Interpréter pour traduire, Paris, Didier Érudition, 1984, p. 31.
Italics in the text.
5
Quoted in Josiane PODEUR, La pratica della traduzione, Napoli, Liguori, 1993, p. 16.
6
Quoted in Amparo HURTADO ALBIR, La notion de fidélité en traduction, op.cit., p. 15 and passim.
7
French humanist and printer, Étienne Dolet, is also remembered as he was burnt at stake as a heretic because of an
alleged mistaken of interpretation in his translation of Axiochus. He is culpable of having denied, in this translation, soul
immortality.
8
I maintain here and after the ancient form of the word.
6
changes in the original text, without instilling doubts (even to translators) about the loyalty of
translation.
There are authors as the erudite Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630-1721) who, in his treatise on
Traduction of 1661, set himself against free translation which aimed to modify and embellish
translations in the name of bon goût, and demanded the return to the mot à mot as the only
instrument which granted the respect of the original text.
Even so, free translation (élégante) survived until the beginning of the 19
th
century, as Georges
Mounin remembers:
Ce culte de la traduction dite élégante, qui ne fut que le culte de la traduction conforme aux
bienséances d’une forme sociale donnée, a survécu, contrairement à ce qu’on croit, jusque vers la fin du
XIX siècle; il nous trompe encore, à notre insu, dans plus d’un texte aujourd’hui
9
.
It was used more or less easily. For example, the erudite Anne Lefevre (1647-1720), better
known as Madame Dacier, engaged in the translation of Iliade (1699), was linked more to literal
translation than to free translation, which was adopted only in the most delicate cases, such as the
passages related to passion and love. Her thought is clearly expressed in the work of the French
professor and writer Émile Egger (1813-1885) in the Revue des traductions d’Homère
10
where the
following Mme Dacier’s statement is reported: “[...] il faut toujours s’accommoder, surtout pour
les expressions, aux idées et aux usages de son siècle, même en les condamnant”
11
.
Later, similar will be the view of Antoine Rivaroli (1753-1801), the writer of Italian origin, who
became famous as Earl of Rivarol
12
, thanks to an adaptation to French of his surname. Translating
La Divina Commedia, he had to face the inadequacy of French language of the 18
th
century, so soft
and ‘polie’, in comparison with the crudity, the realism, the energy of dantesque versification
13
.
Therefore, both for Mme Dacier and for Rivarol, the application of free translation is necessary,
because of the impossibility of French language of that period of reproducing ancient texts.
This is how Mme Dacier expresses the impossibility of translating Homer: “J’avoue, dit-elle,
qu’il n’y a pas un seul vers d’Homère où je ne sente une grâce, une beauté, une force, une
harmonie, qu’il m’a été impossible de conserver”
14
. At the same time and with the same issues,
Mme Dacier and Rivarol give the same solution: free translation.
The French poet and dramatist Antoine Houdar de la Motte (1672- 1731) is among the authors
who used widely free translation. Also he, involved in the translation of ancient works, come to the
same conclusion of Mme Dacier and Rivarol, but following a different path: the use of free
translation was justified, according to him, not by linguistic difficulties, but because in order to
make understand and appreciate ancient authors, it was necessary to adapt them to the values of the
society of the time. In his translation of Iliad, he used so much free translation, that in his final
work, there were twelve cantos instead of the twenty-four by Homer. Houdar de la Motte excused
himself saying:
J’ai voulu [...] que ma traduction fût agréable, et de là il a fallu substituer les idées qui plaisent
aujourd’hui à d’autres idées qui plaisaient du temps d’Homère : il a fallu, par exemple, adoucir la
préférence solennelle qu’Agamemnon fait de son esclave à son épouse
15
.
9
Georges MOUNIN, Les belles infidèles, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, rééd. 1994, p. 65. My italics here and
after, unless specific indications.
10
In Nouvelle revue encyclopédique, august-septembre 1845, p. 7.
11
Quoted in Georges MOUNIN, Les belles infidèles, op.cit., p. 65
12
Writer, journalist and smart polemicist, Rivarol wrote his masterpiece, Discours sur l’universalité de la langue
française, in 1784. In the work, he exalted the beauty and the supremacy of French language in comparison with the
other languages. A sentence of his book is famous: “CE QUI N’EST PAS CLAIR N’EST PAS FRANÇAIS”.
13
Still today, Jacqueline RISSET, tries to translate La Divina Commedia: La Divine Comédie, Paris, le Grand livre du
mois, 2001.
14
Quoted in Georges MOUNIN, Les belles infidèles, op.cit., p. 19
15
Ibidem, p.62. Italics in the text.
7
In the 19
th
century it has been registered an increasing refusal of “elegant” translation and a
natural return to literal translation.
Some translators, such as the writer François-René de Chateaubriand, (1768-1848) who
translated Milton’s Paradise lost, contested free translation, burdened with historic-social
prejudices, as they thought that the only translation which was faithful to the source text was the
literal translation.
However, this return showed a new concept of literal translation, called by Mounin “traduction-
reconstitution historique”. The theorist was Charles Marie Leconte (1818-1894), known as Leconte
de Lisle, the translator of Iliad (1866) and Odyssey (1867). His great merit is to have rejected the
general lines of belles infidels and, particularly, to have suggested at the same time, an historical
reconstruction of society, of ideas, of ancient Greek life; Leconte’s literality must be understood as
a strict link with society and life of Ancients more than with their words. Hurtado Albir sums up
Leconte’ thought in few sentences:
Leconte de Lisle entend par littéralité le fait de conserver dans la traduction les façons de
penser, sentir, parler, agir, vivre. Des Grecs anciens que les belles infidèles avaient presque
supprimées. C’est pourquoi le mot à mot de Leconte de Lisle est d’une autre nature car ses
intentions d’attachement à l’original sont d’ordre strictement historique et non pas linguistique: il
veut ressusciter la culture grecque, rompant avec les clichés des belles infidèles et inaugurant
une façon de traduire les auteurs anciens qui est arrivée jusqu’à nos jours
16
.
Another attempt to return to literal translation was carried out by Emile Littré (1801-1881), the
author of the dictionary taking the same name. His attempt did not have a large following (Rivarol
was among them who criticized it) as he suggested a different kind of historical reconstruction, that
consisted in translating a foreign work using the French language corresponding to the age of this
work. Surprising and interesting was, for example, his translation of Dante’s Hell, where he used
the French language of 14
th
century. Definitely, while the belles infidels aimed to eliminate the
temporal distance among different societies, drawing them up as much as possible, Leconte de
Lisle’s approach maintained this distance and these differences, through literal translation, but
reproduced, anyway the “odeur du siècle” of each translated text.
Littré and Leconte introduce the 20
th
century, a period in which debates and controversies
among supporters of the two different ways of translating become more and more sharpen. Some
authors distinguished themselves for their new approach to the question. Great importance has the
German critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), especially for his remarks in the preface to the
translation of Baudelaire’s works (appeared in Italian with the title of, Il compito del traduttore) in
1923 where he investigated the existence, the necessity, the aim of translation. According to
Benjamin, the translation has the function to express, in a perfect way, the source text in a new
context (the target culture), by changing the shape. Moreover, the translation assures the work’s
survival. In other words, as each work was born in a particular context, when this context changes,
the translation acts transferring the essence of the work into the new context, changing the external
aspect.
As regards his way of translating, Benjamin is closer to a classical conception of literal
translation than to free translation, but he associates to literal translation, the possibility to comment
the most difficult passages:
[Übersetzung] ist vor allem einmal eine Technik. Und warum sollte sie als solche sich nicht mit andern
Techniken kombinieren lassen. Ich denke da in erster Linie an die Technik des Kommentars. [...] Sie
hatte ihre Blüte in einer Epoche, die von den Aristotelesübersetzungen des Mittelalters bis zu den
zweisprachigen kommentierten Klassikerausgaben des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts reicht
17
.
16
Amparo HURTADO ALBIR, La notion de fidélité en traduction, op. cit., p. 18.
17
Reiner ARNTZ, La traduzione, Napoli, CUEN, 1995, pp. 38-39. In the note n. 56 of the text, the quotation is
translated as follows: “[La traduzione] è innanzi tutto una tecnica. Perché quindi non dovrebbe potersi combinare con
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