The Concept of Translation in Renaissance England

Abstract

Deeply influenced by the medieval theory of translatio, Renaissance humanist educators show that ”translation” is much more than what we think it to be today. There were ”translation practices” indeed, but they must not be seen as Nida's ”dynamic equivalence” in printed form but as a part of rhetoric deriving from classical learning. Wilson (1553) and Ascham (1570) stipulated that ”translation” referred to rhetorical work rather than simply rendering one language into another on a printed page. This work involved a great deal of oral expression practices.The first issue is that grammar schooling all the way through college education since the medieval times has gone through two stages, one without books and papers, the other with printing technology having been invented. The stage without books and papers required pupils to do double oral translating of the classical pieces; the stage with books and papers began to pay more attention to writing training, which, in the following centuries, gradually developed into a translation practice more familiar to us today. Though living in the Early Modern Period, Renaissance writers seem to belong more in the first stage, making translating an enterprise of managing linguistic metaphors. From educators, and particularly from Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, we see very good demonstrations of tremendous personal free will in ”translating” Latin into English. William Tyndale, Sir Thomas Hoby, John Florio, and George Chapman provide outstanding examples of the metaphorical point of view that bound translation to rhetorical training.The second issue is that the political implications of translating the Bible still held sway on the concept (and the business) of translation. Latin was the dominant language in the grammar schools and in the academia, though Mulcaster (1581), more than any other humanist educators, strongly encouraged the use of the vernacular language in schools. In higher education, influenced by Wilson, Ascham, Chapman, Brinsley, Hoole, and Walker, the conflict between the imperial though more useful Latin and the ”political correct” English existed. This made rendering ”foreign” languages into English a matter of hegemonic and legal encounter. On a safer side, though no less ”political” in perspectives, translation became a way of rhetorical training in schools, an adventure into the nature of linguistic sports that made it to self-proximity, not faithfully conveying messages from the source. Moreover, because of its emphasis on use of metaphors, this kind of rhetorical training appears very curious to us.The third issue is literacy. One of the reasons why translation practices in the medieval and Renaissance times look curious to us today is that reading for pleasure was far from a popular cultural activity. Still limited to the blessed wealthier classes, such as the gentry, the clergyman, the tradesman, and the yeoman, the learning of Latin formed a good part of the efforts in socio-political mobility, showing that classical learning, thus rhetorical training, was an important requirement for the young intellectuals in the system of patronage and the aspirers of the lay society, though only in limited number after a great deal of advances. The translation practice as we see in King James' Bible was rare. It simply could not obtain any popular momentum in educational arena, particularly for classical auctores.I conclude that seen from the reality of the translation culture experienced by its time, even though it sometimes exceeds its boundaries with use of metaphors and tropes, ”out-Herods Herod” (Hamlet 3.2.14), the concept of translation in Renaissance England may serve as a polished mirror to hold up to nature for modern translators.