Don Quixote · Chapter
About This Translation explained
The translator discusses the history of English translations of Don Quixote, critiquing various versions from Shelton to Duffield, and explains his own approach to producing a faithful translation that respects the original's spirit and avo
What happens
The translator discusses the history of English translations of Don Quixote, critiquing various versions from Shelton to Duffield, and explains his own approach to producing a faithful translation that respects the original's spirit and avoids affectation.
Themes in this chapter
Literature and Metafiction
The chapter is a meta-discussion on translation, examining how different translators have interpreted and represented Cervantes' work, highlighting the tension between fidelity to the original and adaptation for contemporary audiences.
Chivalry and Idealism
The translator emphasizes the unsmiling gravity essential to quixotic humour, contrasting it with the flippant treatment of earlier translations, thereby linking to the idealistic spirit of the original.
Characters to notice
- Miguel de Cervantes
Author of Don Quixote; the translator discusses the original Spanish text and the challenges of rendering it faithfully in English.
- Don Quixote
Central figure of the book; the translator notes that the story and characters are familiar household words in English.
- Sancho Panza
Mentioned as a familiar character in the context of the story's English reception.
- Cide Hamete Benengeli
Referenced indirectly through the Morisco's injunction in Chapter IX not to omit or add anything.
Key passages
“To attempt to improve the humour of Don Quixote by an infusion of cockney flippancy and facetiousness, as Motteux's operators did, is not merely an impertinence like larding a sirloin of prize beef, but an absolute falsification of the spirit of the book”
Adding cheap jokes to Don Quixote, as Motteux's team did, is not just disrespectful but completely distorts the book's true character.
The translator criticizes Motteux's version for corrupting the original's spirit with forced humor.
“Shelton had the inestimable advantage of belonging to the same generation as Cervantes; Don Quixote had to him a vitality that only a contemporary could feel; it cost him no dramatic effort to see things as Cervantes saw them”
Shelton benefited from living in Cervantes' era, so he naturally understood the book's world without needing to imagine it.
The translator praises Shelton's contemporaneity with Cervantes as a unique asset.
“The method by which Cervantes won the ear of the Spanish people ought, mutatis mutandis, to be equally effective with the great majority of English readers”
The approach that made Cervantes popular in Spain should work for English readers too, with appropriate adjustments.
The translator argues for a faithful translation method that respects Cervantes' original appeal.