translation
translation‘Translation is so far removed from the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all literary forms it is the one charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own’ (Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, trans. H. Zohn). In just this way the developing literature and culture of Rome can be seen as a series of acts of translation from Greek sources. Translation mediated the relationship between Greece and Rome and, thereafter, Rome and the European vernaculars; Isidorus of Seville (10. 123) etymologizes interpres, ‘translator’, as one standing inter partes ‘between the two sides’. Members of the Roman élite learned, read, and spoke Greek, competing with each other in the cultural fruits of Hellenization (see Hellenism): Cato the Elder ostentatiously addressed a Greek audience in...
[The entire page is 1151 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
