Mandelbaum seems, to me, a (theoretical) cosmopolite. In his introduction, Mandelbaum appears to selectively pick from and adopt theoretical nuances of translation. Perhaps a more universal, a more liberal, yet academically aware and versed, theory of translation--as espoused by Mandelbaum (in his introduction)--is this: "If a text can engender a second, perhaps the engendering need never end, and no antecedent need be forgotten" (xv). I like Mandelbaum's concept; the point, though arbitrary and slightly too permissive (too unrestrictive?), reiterates the need for multiple and continual translations of a text, all the while remaining--as for Borges, as well as Jackson Matthew (being quoted by Musa)--"faithful" and "a good lover" to the original; yet, as a translator, remain well-aware of proceeding translations, which seemingly parallels Damrosch's theoretical assertion: "It has often been observed that translation age fairly rapidly. As a culture's literary values change, a generation's best translations soon begin to turn into period pieces, all too obviously failing to reproduce the source text's tone and values, and no longer working effectively with the evolving culture in which they were produced. True though it is that few translation outlast their immediate generation, it is a mistake to adopt a position of pure relativism, as though one translation is as good as another, or perhaps as bad as another, since all are contingent, and every translation expresses some person's or group's literary values" (Damrosch, 426). Similar to Damrosch, Mandelbaum appears to consider, to welcome all--past, present, and future-- translations of the original 'source' text. I don't perceive this as an act of kindness, on either Damrosch or Mandelbaum's behalf; it is, however, a means of eliminating, to an extent, ignorance and exhibiting (unlike Nabokov) unconceited confidence, as one translator--of the same text--among many.
However, Mandelbaum also adopts and utilizes facets of both Schleiermacher and Nabokov's theories of translation. For example, Mandelbaum, in the concluding half of his introduction, underpins, in part, his version of the Inferno as such: "For the most frequent word termini in Italian are vowel-consonant-vowel termini; and that VCV echoes, on still another level ABA of the first two levels. English, with its even-numbered metrical positions in each line (even Milton, the most sensitive to Italian of our major poets, has little taste for feminine endings in his major work) and its paucity of vowel-consonant-vowel termini can never mime the depth of that prosodic intuition. That is not the reason for my forgoing tercet rhyme in this translation (which was simply dependent on my need to reach as clean and precise a rendering as possible); but it is the reason for the close phonic packing, whether in stressed or unstressed positions, which I have sought throughout this translation---with pure rhymes, pararhyme, assonances, alliterations, and consonances often called into service" (xx). As you can see, Mandelbaum aligns with Schleiermacher, in that he (Mandelbaum) favors and, in part, agrees that: "one cannot possibly produce in another tongue a replica of a work of rhetorical art that in its individual parts would correspond perfectly to the individual part of the original, but that given the differences between languages, with which so many other differences are essentially caught up, we have no other recourse but to contrive a copy, an entire work comprised of parts that differ noticeably from the parts of the original, yet which in its effect comes so close to the original as the differences in the material permit" (Schleiermacher, 48). Though not harped on in the introduction, these conceits, these attributes, of Schleiermacher's become more prominent and self-evident in Mandelbaum's verse translation. I would argue that Mandelbaum measures out just the right amount of theory from both Schleiermacher and Nabokov: when mixed together, Mandelbaum's verse translation is an attempted "pure" 'imitation' that "describes in a series of footnotes the modulations and rhymes of the text as well as its associations and other special features" (Nabokov, 125).
One final passage, that I want to note briefly, derives from Mandelbaum's concluding remarks in the introduction: "Sages, Elders, Emenders, Perpenders, Paraphrasts, Querists, Amphibolists, Nebulists, Quandrists, Phetors, Wreckers, Embalmers, Bores, and Picadors--so many Exegetes, living and dead, from Dante's time to our own have contributed, at some point, to the understandings and misunderstandings that, over some two decades, have made this translation possible" (xxii). I want to point out and highlight the mirroring resonance of this passage with that of Nabokov's pretentiously (in)conspicuous denouncement of who is and is not equipped for, not capable of, "proper" translating. Regardless, I am undecided with Mandelbaum's acknowledgement, and (sincere?) gratitude of all included above. Is he, like Nabokov, taking a moment to brag, to underpin his translation of Dante's Inferno as one of the better in existence? Perhaps. And yet, here Mandelbaum does seem to respectfully pay homage--those both "bad" and "good"--to an amalgam of translations, all of which helped in the (re)production of his own translation.
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