Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For acomplete list, please see the bottom of this document.
OCTAGON BOOKS
A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York 1973
Copyright 1920 by Columbia University Press
Reprinted 1973
by special arrangement with Columbia University Press
OCTAGON BOOKS
A Division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
19 Union Square West
New York, N.Y. 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Amos, Flora Ross, 1881-
Early theories of translation.
Original ed. issued in series: Columbia University studies in
English and comparative literature.
Originally presented as the author's thesis, Columbia.
1. Translating and interpreting. I. Title.
II. Series: Columbia University studies in English and comparative
literature.
[PN241.A5 1973] 418'.02 73-397
ISBN 0-374-90176-7
Printed in U.S.A. by NOBLE OFFSET PRINTERS, INC. New York, N.Y. 10003
This Monograph has been approved by the Department ofEnglish and Comparative Literature in Columbia University asa contribution to knowledge worthy of publication.
A. H. THORNDIKE,
Executive Officer
In the following pages I have attempted to trace certain developments inthe theory of translation as it has been formulated by English writers.I have confined myself, of necessity, to such opinions as have been putinto words, and avoided making use of deductions from practice otherthan a few obvious and generally accepted conclusions. The procedureinvolves, of course, the omission of some important elements in thehistory of the theory of translation, in that it ignores thediscrepancies between precept and practice, and the influence whichpractice has exerted upon theory; on the other hand, however, itconfines a subject, otherwise impossibly large, within measurablelimits. The chief emphasis has been laid upon the sixteenth century, theperiod of the most enthusiastic experimentation, when, though it wasstill possible for the translator to rest in the comfortable medievalconception of his art, the New Learning was offering new problems andnew ideals to every man who shared in the intellectual awakening of histime. In the matter of theory, however, the age was one of beginnings,of suggestions, rather than of finished, definitive results; even by theend of the century there were still translators who had not yetappreciated the immense difference between medieval and modern standardsof translation. To understand their position, then, it is necessary toconsider both the preceding period, with its incidental,half-unconscious comment, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,with their systematized, unified contribution. This last material, inespecial, is included chiefly because of the light which it throws inretr