The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice (review)

Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 144 Reviews is truly ecumenical and non-partisan, like the pioneering Anchor Bible Project. If the purpose, as it must be, is to secure the best scholars and achieve the best scholarly results, then we must reach across confessional and denominational lines, and while doing so be willing to sacrifice an illusory and in the long run unachievable unity and consistency. The result is inevitably going to be pluralistic, diverse, multicultural, and potentially cacophonic . But in such noisy dialogue, there is not only strength but truth. The book is, in fact, a mirror of the field, of the state of research and discussion in the last decade of the twentieth century. If an earlier goal or ideal of a unified and focused approach and treatment has to be sacrificed, perhaps that ideal was never a valid one or could be in real life. Certainly, multiplicity in approach and inference, diversity in method and conclusions are a more accurate reflection of the state of biblical studies in our time or in any foreseeable future. The book itself is attractively made and a pleasure to handle. The type is small but clear and readable. The layout is excellent and the binding is very sturdy. The volume asks to be used frequently, constantly, and promises to last indefmitely. And not least, the price is quite reasonable. It is a credit to all those who had a part in creating it: contributors, editors, and publisher, not to overlook the staff, that put it all together. David Noel Freedman University ofCalifornia-San Diego La Jol/a, CA 92093-0104 THE POETICS OF TRANSLATION: HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE. By Willis Bamstone. pp. x + 302. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993. Cloth, $30.00. This book consists of four parts: the first part (pp. 3-131), focusing on translation as art, deals with general issues; the second, historical part (pp. 135-216), takes the Bible as paradigm of translation; the third part (pp. 219-262) is on theory, and its major emphasis is on Walter Benjamin's "Task of the Translator"; whereas the last part (pp. 263-271) presents a personal ABC of translating poetry. In the first part it is stated that the translational act cannot be judged on its attainment of identity, but rather on the quality of its difference in seeking such identity (p. 18). Cicero is quoted as an appui of the thesis that literalism in translation is a feature of boorish translators (p. 30). To un- Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 145 Reviews derline the absurdity of literalism, Cowley's words are cited: "If a man should undertake to translate Pindar word for word, it would be thought one Mad-man had translated another" (p. 86). On the contrary, success or failure in the rendering of literary texts are, according to the author, determined by the degree of functional equivalence between the cognitive and aesthetic elements of source and receptor text respectively (p. 47). Therefore, a real translation may be an original work, in the same way as an original work may be a translation! What happens to good translations is that they obtain the sacred authority of originality. We may hear Odysseus or Homer or Ezra Pound, but we do not hear Ezra Pound translating (p. 112). On the other hand, the adage that translating is serving two masters should not be forgotten, as has been perfectly worded in Middleton's outburst with regard to the same Ezra Pound: "But God forbid that Seferis should ever be translated by Ezra Pound, because then no one would know Seferis" (p. 84). In this context, Bible translations are hardly appreciated. They are seen as translations in which information standards have been imposed upon literary texts, in which the aesthetic has simply been sacrificed for theological fidelity (p. 36), and in which the translation of poetry (as in many contemporary "Good-News-Bible" translations) really is a crib. Aesthetic praise accorded by readers to such a crib can only be judged as a "grave sin" (p. 118). The second part of the book deals first with the prehistory of the Bible and its invisible translations. Translation is here defmed as...