Translation as a problem of choice and creative behaviour

Abstract

Abstract One key issue addressed in this article is a translator's right to give up translating certain pieces of writing which he considers unworthy of translation. The issue of a translator's choice and his responsibility are regarded as constituting the ethics of translation. Another question discussed is the criterion for assessing the value of literature. The author argues that there are three types of human beings, and that this classification also comprises writers. Using this typology as a yardstick he puts several poems by Russian poets to an aesthetic test. He goes on developing the dichotomy of poet vs personality, and concludes that poetry is in fact a mode of personal behaviour which helps liberate creativity. The latter is defined as commitment to one's art. It is further stated that an adequate reading of the source text is a prerogative of the translator's creative behaviour. The author describes various distortions in Soviet translations of source texts from the languages of minorities in...