An analysis of the artistic possibilities of the various methods of translation--with a detailed study of the translations of a Spanish-American epic into English
It is the purpose of the following study to determine the most rewarding method of introducing a foreign masterpiece into a second language. In this discussion and analysis of translation, the material presented will consist largely of poetry. The quotation below effectively states the reasons why such a choice was made: "Poetry, being dependent rather on suggestion than on expression, constitutes the most difficult for translation to tackle, and therefore best exhibits its successes and failures; also what has been done and what remains to be done. Poetry also stages, most particularly, those special characteristics which each language possesses and which are so hard to transpose into another language: doubly difficult, inasmuch as first they have to be appreciated by the foreigner who undertakes the translation, and thereafter he has to overcome the differences of his own language in respect of these characteristics."
