14 Feb What Schleiermacher said about translation
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First page of the treatease “About the different methods of translation” by Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1816, as displayed in the German Romanticism Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) said about translation: “Either the translator leaves the author in peace as much as possible and moves the reader towards the author; or he leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and moves the author towards the reader.” (transl. The German Romanticism Museum.)
Debate on Translation Methods
All translation students – including me when I was changing careers some years ago – learn about this general problem involved with translation:
Should the translated text reflect the characteristics of the foreign language or rather read like a text written in the native language?
More than 200 years ago, Friedrich Schleiermacher started a debate on possible translation methods. Schleiermacher himself concluded the first method would do best (while most of today’s translators disagree).
I was not really impressed about the debate when I learned about it early in my translation studies.
But I was the more surprised to find the original text displayed in the German Romanticism Museum, Frankfurt am Main.
I never thought I would be able to look the author of the debate in the eye “posthumously”.
Journey into Romanticism – Schleiermacher’s Text
Suddenly, pure theory had a face, a context, a purpose. I could literally see this fundamental idea about translation evolve.
During that time, the Romanticism, poets and scholars translated important foreign literature for the first time, discussing possible approaches. And Schleiermacher, a philosopher, talked about the “different methods of translation” in a speech before the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1813. The book providing the text was from 1816.
The complete text can be read on the internet in a free copy provided by the University of Michigan.
What an effect from such a little book.