This paper sets literary translation in the context of literary criticism and creative writing rather than that of Applied Linguistics. Literary translation, the author points out (like the study of English literature) has a relatively recent provenance in the early twentieth century; it further develops, he argues, “the characteristic features of both creative writing and literary criticism”. Having raised some consequent questions about the teaching of literary translation, in which a case-by-case approach is the norm and a now unfashionably evaluative framework based on text typology is recommended, the author goes on to discuss the translation of one of the types identified, namely highly-conventionalised texts. In so doing, he illustrates that a translation can sometimes improve stylistic aspects of the original, at the same time missing its poignancy and allusions. His conclusions invite to consider whether the technical details of translation analysis enable us as readers to understand the nature of translation.