Response to Peer's Post, Week 4: Jenna, on Carson's Preface

Jenna: (Regarding your concluding paragraph) I wonder if our concern should lie in trusting the translator. By which, I really mean this: Given the fact that Carson admits to and underpins the difficulty of transliteration in particular portions throughout the source text, the act of prefacing, of noting, as it were, handing over the translation proper is of merit; it's almost a way of gaining my respect for his theoretical application(s), for the choices and philosophies favor over others. Moreover, I also wonder if, or to what degree, we should approach Carson's translation with distrust or in a reserved manner solely based on his young familiarity / knowledge of the Italian language? Arguably, we should call into question Carson's capabilities, his competency, to translate such a heavy, monumental, text when the source text is written in a language relatively new / foreign to the translator. And yet, to play devil's advocate, does this, should it, matter? In saying that, like Damrosch asserts, each of these translations, "good" and/or "bad" translations, are 'contingent'-- which applies to all nuances transposed.  Does that make sense?