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Title: Don Quijote: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition) by Miguel De Cervantes, Burton Raffel, Diana De Armas Wilson, Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra ISBN: 0-393-97281-X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.75 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (14 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Raffel's Translation: A Little too American-colloquial
Comment: I agree with the other reviewer that Edith Grossman's new (2003) translation is much better than Raffel's. On the whole, Don Quixote has been well served in English translations over the last three centuries. Raffel's is a very competent and at times brilliant translation, but at times it is much too colloquial and, specifically, too American. True, Cervantes wrote in a living, breathing Spanish, but it is always stately, never slangy. Raffel's effort is an American counterpart to the recent (Penguin, 2001) translation by John Rutherford. Rutherford's work abounds in Britishisms (e.g., "Just wait a jiff" . . . "small beer" . . . "codswallop" . . . "I'll be blowed, gents" . . . "a dab hand" . . . "bloke"). Raffel's Americanisms are not nearly as numerous, but he frequently omits deliberate archaisms and settles on too colloquial and/or contemporary an expression. He also, oddly, consistently subsitutes "dollar" for "real" and for some reason omits all the prelimary poetic material in Part I. Overall, Raffel's translation is very readable, which will be a boon for students and other first-time readers, but to attain its readability it often has to sacrifice authenticity. The John Ormsby translation, especially the revision made for the previous edition in the Norton series, was a major achievement and a real advance over all previous English translations. It still has a lot to commend it. In the last fifty years or so, though, Samuel Putnam's rendering (still available, in the Modern Library, in a very affordable edition with extensive notes) has been the best into American English. Putnam's is now superseded, I think, by Grossman's, which is fresh, lively, but never self-indulgent. The Raffel translation itself deserves three stars, but the excellent collateral material in the Norton edition in which it appears makes the volume worthy of a four-star rating. The five-star cudos, though, belong to Edith Grossman!
Rating: 4
Summary: Satire at Its Best
Comment: Laughing and crying. A delusional man ignores the common sense of his friend. Doesn't sound funny, does it?
This book contains stories so funny you will laugh out loud. And yet, in the back of your head, you will be aghast. The story is so sad, so very touching. And yet, it is so funny.
Despite the archaic language and loss of some humour in translation, this book is hilarious. However, it is also a social commentary which still rings true today.
When you set this book down, you will be laughing and crying.
Rating: 4
Summary: Raffel's Translation
Comment: As other reviewers have said, Raffel's rendition is too Americian-colloquial. Indeed all his translations suffer this problem. Just read his Rabelais.
Mr. Raffel is no doubt a very talented man; no American literary translator, as far as I know, directly translate so many different languages into English: Old and Modern French, Saxon, Latin, Spanish, Catalan, Indonesian...but I think his indulgence in Americanism prevent him from being an even greater translator.
Lastly, one has to appreciate any effort of rendering Cervante's Spanish into English, which is no less impossible than putting Dante into German, considering the huge differences between Romanic and Germanic languages.
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Title: Miguel De Cervantes' Don Quixote (Barron's Book Notes) by Joyce Milton, Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra ISBN: 0812035127 Publisher: Barrons Educational Series Pub. Date: May, 1985 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: Don Quixote (Cliffs Notes) by Marianne Sturman ISBN: 0822004151 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 08 July, 1964 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Edith Grossman, Harold Bloom ISBN: 0060188707 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Don Quixote de La Mancha by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, Samuel Putnam ISBN: 0679602860 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 28 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Ap Success: English Literature & Composition (Ap Success: English Literature & Composition, 4th Ed) by Margaret C. Moran, W. Frances Holder ISBN: 0768909813 Publisher: Petersons Guides Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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