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  • From: RSRICHMOND AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Question: Off topic? More
  • Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 09:06:12 EST


Randall Buth at biblicalulpan.org (don't I wish) notes - as long as we're off
topic -

>>To what may this be compared?

English and German are sister languages like Arabic and Hebrew.

German Shakespeare is good,

English Shakespeare is Shakespeare.<<

German Shakespeare is "unser Shakespeare". The early 19th century
translations of Shakespeare made by August Wilhelm Schlegel and Ludwig (or
was it Ursula - sorry - I'm on the road today, and my major in German is
nearing a half century in the past) really make Shakespeare a living writer
for Germans, even more than he is for English speakers. Schlegel and Tieck do
a remarkable job of creating a Shakespearian verse style in German:

Mitbürger, Freunde, Römer, hört mich an!
Begraben will ich Cäsarn, nicht ihn preisen.

When I was in high school reading Shakespeare in the original, I used to use
Schlegel-Tieck for notes - they always come up with some kind of a meaning,
even for the most corrupt passages - though they aren't always right.

But this is what literary or scriptural translation has to be - the
re-creation of a voice in a new world. Biblical translators do have the
special advantage of being informed by the Spirit.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee




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