§ 3. Renaissance translation

In culture this period marks a greater role of translated secular literature. Special emphasis was placed on translating the classics (ancient Greek and Roman literature), which was the model for Renaissance ideas and culture. Thus the object of translation changed, though the Gospel translation from Greek into Latin was also carried out (Erasmus Desiderius, 15-16^th c.). In the late Renaissance, close to the Enlightenment period, attempts were made to translate the Scriptures into national languages.

Still being the international means of communication among educated people, Latin was a primary target language until the 17-18^th centuries. A new phenomenon at this time was that vernaculars, or mother tongues, served as source languages: F. Petrarch’s sonnets and Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais were translated into Latin. F. Petrarch translated into Latin one of the novels by G. Boccaccio. German entertainment literature was translated into Latin. In the 17^th century, the English philosopher Francis Bacon translated his philosophical works from English into Latin in order to immortalize them.

Latin, a much-used language of great prestige, was incomprehensible for ordinary people, few people could read it, and, being beyond the commoners, translations were accessible only to the intellectual elite. From the 16^th century, humanists began to promote translation into the vernacular for an expanding readership who did not have direct access to classical sources, the tendency widely maintained throughout the Enlightenment period.

The 10^th century gave the world the first manuscript Latin- English glossary by Abbot Aelfric.⁶⁶ The first bilingual glossary to find its way into print was a French-English vocabulary for the use of travelers, printed in England by William Caxton in 1480. The words and expressions appeared in parallel columns on twenty-six leaves. But far more substantial in character was an English-Latin vocabulary called the Promptorius puerorum ("Storehouse [of words] for Children") completed by Pynson in 1499. It is better known under its later title of Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum ("Storehouse for Children or Clerics") commonly attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian (Galfridus Grammaticus), a Dominican friar of Norfolk, who is thought to have composed it about 1440.⁶⁷

In the Renaissance period, translators made an effort to summarize their rules and recommendations for a good translation. Such was the work by an Italian humanist, translator of Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo Bruni, De interpretatione recta (“The Right Way to Translate”). One of the first writers to formulate a theory of translation was the French humanist Etienne Dolet (1509-46), who was tried and executed for heresy after “mistranslating” one of Plato’s dialogues. In 1540 Dolet published five translation principles, “How to Translate Well from One Language into Another”:

1. The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning of the original author, although he is at liberty to clarify obscurities.

2. The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both source language and target language.

3. The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.

4. The translator should use forms of speech in common use.

5. The translator should choose and order words appropriately to produce the correct tone.

It is evident that Dolet’s principles stress the importance of understanding the source text as a primary requisite.⁶⁸ Dolet is also known to have introduced the terms ‘traduction’ (translation) and ‘traducteur’ (translator), though the verb ‘traduire’ (to translate) was coined a little earlier by Robert Esperre (1503-59) on the basis of the Italian ‘traducere’.

While Renaissance secular literature was translated primarily from the vernacular into Latin, the Bible translation was of another direction. The cardinal principle of that time, the ideology of the Reformation, was that each person should be granted access to the text of the Bible in his or her own tongue, that is, in the vernacular. The result was the development of education and literacy. The first translation of the Bible into English was carried out in the 14^th century by John Wycliffe (1330-84), the noted Oxford theologian, and his collaborators, but this work was attacked as heretical and condemned for many years to come.

One of the pivotal figures of Western civilization, as well as of Christianity, wasMartin Luther, the leader of the 16th-century Reformation movement and of Protestantism. He devoted more than a quarter of a century to creating his version of the New Testament. The main principle of Luther’s translation was to grasp thoroughly the message and to render it in a “living” German language. He even advised the future translators to use a vernacular proverb or expression if it fitted in with the New Testament - in other words, to add to the wealth of imagery in the source language text by drawing on the vernacular tradition, too.⁶⁹

No less important for developing the national language was the English translation of the Bible known as the King James Bible: The Authorized Version. It was published in 1611 under the auspices of James I of England. Of the 54 scholars approved by James and supervised by William Tyndale(1494-1536), 47 labored in six groups at three locations for seven years, utilizing previous English translations and texts in the original languages. Tyndale intended to offer as clear a version as possible to laymen, and by the time he was burned at the stake in 1536 he had translated the New Testament from the Greek, and parts of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. The translation had a marked influence on English style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible for more than three centuries.⁷⁰

The Renaissance period witnessed the beginning of translators’ skepticism. Dante Aleghieri is believed to be the first to doubt the absolute possibility of the accurate translation of texts. His reasoning was that it is impossible to convey all the harmony of poetry through another language. His ideas were supported by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who believed that no matter how artful a translator could be, he would never be as skillful as the original author.

Though the concept of “untranslatability” is not shared by the majority of today’s translators, it was a progressive theory for the time. It implied a rejection of the naive idea of interlanguage identity and of identical ways to express the same thoughts in different languages.