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« Renaissance Translation Strategies and the Manipulation of a Classical Text. Plutarch from Jacques Amyot to Thomas North »

RENAISSANCE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES AND THE MANIPULATION OF A CLASSICAL TEXT. PLUTARCH FROM JACQUES AMYOT TO THOMAS NORTH John Denton 1. Translation history : from value judgments to descriptive neutrality It would be an exaggeration to say that personal value judgments and emphasis on primitive errors in thé scholarly study of translation in a diachronic perspective are now entirely a thing of thé past, even after thé determined assault by thé descriptively, (poly)systemically oriented adhérents of thé now well established independent discipline of Translation Studies, in thé évolution of which thé collective volume edited by Théo Hermans (1985) is a significant landmark. It will still take some time before older studies are dislodged from their now undeserved position as classics (Denton forthcoming). An important step forward in thé systematic study of translation practice and ils theoretical backup before thé upheaval of Romanticism is represented by Frederick Rener's wide ranging survey (1989), to which ail translation historians owe a debt of gratitude, now attested by fréquent citation in most récent work in thé field. Rener provides us with thé micro and macro linguistic parameters conditioning translation activity from Classical Antiquity to thé late 18th. century. He reminds us (2-10) of thé two «avenues» of research traditionally followed by translation scholars, one focussing on statements in Latin and vernacular treatises, dedications and epistles to thé reader, and thé other, potentially more productive, though less frequently taken up, focussing on translation performance. Failure to recognize thé essential unity of views of 68 JOHN DENTON language over this admittedly vast time span, an essential component of which was thé separability of res and verba, and unnecessary temporal and geographical fragmentation are seen as thé main causes of unsatisfactory results, to which one might add an unhelpful evaluative stance, telling us as much about thé scholar's own ideological position as about that of his/her subject of study. Rener, thé self styled « archeologist » (8)1 provides a clear, unadorned picture of thé facts, within thé limits of his aims and methods. Further, complementary illumination can be provided by an increasingly adopted socio-historical approach concentrating on ideological and sociocultural constraints affecting both thé translation process and réception of its products (Kittel 1988 : 160, Lefevere 1992). Hère investigation of thé history of translation has learned much from sociologically oriented comparative literary and cultural studies, though a timely warning (van Leuven-Zwart 1991 : 38-41) reminds us of thé necessarily central rôle of texts and their translations that constitutes thé specificity of thé discipline2 . General conclusions cannot be drawn without thé necessary underpinning of case studies attaining a satisfactory degree of both descriptive and explanatory adequacy (Lambert and van Gorp 1985). 2. Renaissance readers and thé Muses Renaissance translation activity, particularly that into vernaculars, being firmly grounded in hermeneutics, foregrounded reader response, and, as a conséquence, tended to adopt a « domesticating » rather than « foreignizing » method. This paper will look at varying degrees of this « ethnocentric réduction of thé foreign text to dominant cultural values... » (Venuti 1995 : 81, cf. also 67-68) at work in thé case of a central Classical text adapted for Renaissance readers, who, either through necessity or préférence, wanted to read it in their own (or at least a contemporary European) language. Plutarch was one of thé most widely read and influential Greek writers in 16th. century Europe (Criniti 1979). Considering thé fact that Greek was only known to a restricted circle of scholars, this meant he needed to be made accessible in either Latin or vernacular translation. The reasons for this popularity are to be found in his moralizing, biographical approach to history Rener (8) states that « thé intention hère is to explain, not to criticize », in contrast with evaluativeapproaches, and refers specifïcally to Kelly (1979 : 5). In fact, Kelly's descriptive/critical approach is more in Une with Rener's than thé latter would hâve us believe. Lefevere (1992 and many previous studies) places socio-ideological-poetological constraints above those of language, but he uses thé term in a more restricted sensé than that intended by Rener. THE MANIPULATION OF A CLASSICAL TEXT 69 (in thé Parallel Lives) and his status as a mine of encyclopédie information on so many aspects of Classical Antiquity (in both thé Lives and Moralid) (Burke 1966 : 142-143). The view of history as a storehouse of examples...