Abstract
This paper seeks to examine Friedrich Schleiermacher’s celebrated 1813 treatise “Ueber die verschiedenen Methoden des Uebersetzens,” first, within its own context and aims and, second, in light of its mandate and implications for the wider activity of cultural and historical transmission of meaning. His rationale for emphasizing the original meaning of texts is not entirely self-evident and appears to lead to the peril of archaizing or foreignizing, thus impeding, rather than enhancing, present-day understandings of the past. This paper defends Schleiermacher’s choice as reflecting his wider body of hermeneutical and historical understanding, including elements of his teaching about the non-eliminability of the individual subject.
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Notes
- 1.
Unless otherwise indicated, translations from German are my own.
- 2.
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher Kritische Gesamtausabe I.3. Schriften aus der Berliner Zeit 1800–1802, ed. Günter Meckenstock (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), lxxxii–xciii, 249–279 introduces and contains the extant pages of this unfinished project.
- 3.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wieland’s Andenken in der Loge Amalia zu Weimar gefeiert den 18. Februar 1813, in: Wieland’s Todtenfeier in der Loge Amalia zu Weimar am 18. Februar 1813. Gedruckt als Manuscript für Brüder [Weimar 1813], Beilage V, 16, cited in Schleiermacher Kritische Gesamtausgabe I/11, xxxiv, n. 113.
- 4.
On the ambiguity that surrounds Schleiermacher’s sense of history, see Pauck (1984: 66–79).
- 5.
Concluding his remarks on the first mode of translating, Schleiermacher writes: “These are the difficulties that beset this method and the imperfections essentially inherent in it. But once we have conceded them, we must acknowledge the attempt itself and cannot deny its merit. It rests on two conditions: that understanding foreign works should be a thing known and desired and that the native language should be allowed a certain flexibility. Where these conditions are fulfilled this type of translation becomes a natural phenomenon, influencing the whole evolution of a culture and giving a certain pleasure as it is given a certain value” (Lefevere 19; Schleiermacher 83–84).
- 6.
This is the burden of Schleiermacher’s Fifth Speech, (1996: 95–124).
- 7.
“Just as a man must decide to belong to one country, just so he must adhere to one language, or he will float without any bearings above an unpleasant middle ground” (Lefevere, 23; Schleiermacher, 87).
- 8.
Reprinted from Franz Rosenzweig, Die Schrift und Luther (1926), as printed in Buber and Rosenzweig (1936: 88–129).
- 9.
Robinson’s significant work became available to me only after the conference in Lisbon on October 24–25, 2013, where a version of this paper was presented.
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Crouter, R. (2016). Revisiting Schleiermacher on Translation: Musings on a Hermeneutical Mandate. In: Seruya, T., Justo, J. (eds) Rereading Schleiermacher: Translation, Cognition and Culture. New Frontiers in Translation Studies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-47949-0_2
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