Kan De Dienaar Beter Zijn Dan De Meester?

In the course of history there have been different schools of thought about how texts should be translated, and the effect translations have on the target language literature, either directly or indirectly. Garmt Stuiveling, formerly professor of Dutch Studies at the University of Amsterdam, and for many years chairman of the Dutch Writers' Union, produced the following dictum: in a translation sixty-five per cent of what the author has tried to express, reaches the reader. In translators' circles a variety of views can be heard. This one for instance: the profession of a translator is more demanding than that of a writer. A writer uses his own style, but a translator must master a number of styles, since he translates different authors. Or this one: the achievement of a translator is equal to that of a writer; the source language version and the target language version provide texts of equal literary value. A more modest view, and the one held by the writer of the present article, could be phrased as follows: literary translation is a craft, a creative craft to be sure, but still a craft. And playing with words and stylistic features is part of that craft. A literary translator is to be compared to a performing artist, rather than his creative counterpart. It is noted that there has never been any research into the norms of present day translators. This means that judging translations, whether for purposes of reviews, a jury's decision or the awarding of grants, is often a matter of inspired guesswork. If such research were ever carried out, it should also discover whether translators actually use in their own work the translation strategies they profess to be using. Finally a selection of translating errors culled from literary works is proof that translators are not always good readers, to judge by the non-sense they sometimes manage to produce.