Introduction 1
CHAPTER Ⅰ Description of a good Translation—General Rules flowing from that description 7
CHAPTER Ⅱ First General Rule:A Translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work—Knowledge of the language of the original,and acquaintance with the subject—Examples of imperfect transfusion of the sense of the original—What ought to be the conduct of a Translator where the sense is ambiguous 10
CHAPTER Ⅲ Whether it is allowable for a Translator to add to or retrench the ideas of the original—Examples of the use and abuse of this liberty 22
CHAPTER Ⅳ Of the freedom allowed in poetical Translation—Progress of poetical Translation in England—B.Johnson,Holiday,May,Sandys,Fanshaw,Dryden—Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse—Pope's Homer 35
CHAPTER Ⅴ Second general Rule:The style and manner of writing in a Translation should be of the same character with that of the Original—Translations of the Scriptures—Of Homer,＆c.—A just Taste requisite for the discernment of the Characters of Style and Manner—Examples of failure in this particular;The grave exchanged for the fornmal;the elevated for the bombast;the lively for the petulant;the simple for the childish—Hobbes,L'Estrange,Echard,＆c 63
CHAPTER Ⅵ Examples of a good Taste in poetical Translation—Bourne's Translations from Mallet and from Prior—The Duke de Nivernois,from Horace—Dr.Jortin,from Simonides—Imitation of the same by the Archbishop of York—Mr.Webb,from the Anthologia—Hughes,from Claudian—Fragments of the Greek Dramatists by Mr. Cumberland 80
CHAPTER Ⅶ Limitation of the rule regarding the Imitation of Style—This Imitation must be regulated by the Genius of Languages—The Latin admits of a greater brevity of Expression than the English;as does the French—The Latin and Greek allow of greater Inversions than the English,and admit more freely of Ellipsis 96
CHAPTER Ⅷ Whether a Poem can be well Translated into Prose? 107
CHAPTER Ⅸ Third general Rule:A Translation should have all the ease of original composition—Extreme difficulty in the observance of this rule—Contrasted instances of success and failure—Of the necessity of sacrificing one rule to another 112
CHAPTER Ⅹ It is less difficult to attain the ease of original composition in poetical,than in Prose Translation—Lyric Poetry admits of the greatest liberty of Translation—Examples distinguishing Paraphrase from Translation,from Dryden,Lowth,Fontenelle,Prior,Anguillara,Hughes 123
CHAPTER Ⅺ Of the Translation of Idiomatic Phrases—Examples from Cotton,Echard,Sterne—Injudicious use of Idioms in the Translation,which do not correspond with the age or country of the Original—Idiomatic Phrases sometimes incapable of Translation 135
CHAPTER Ⅻ Difficulty of translating Don Quixote,from its Idiomatic Phraseology—Of the best Translations of that Romance—Comparison of the Translation by Motteux with that by Smollet 150
CHAPTER ⅩⅢ Other Characteristics of Composition which render Translation difficult—Antiquated Terms—New Terms—Verba Ardentia—Simplicity of Thought and Expression—In Prose—In Poetry—Na？veté in the latter—Chaulieu—Pa?elle—La Fontaine—Series of Minute Distinctions marked by characteristic Terms—Strada—Florid Style,and vague expression—Pliny's Natural History 176
CHAPTER ⅩⅣ Of Burlesque Translation—Travesty and Parody—Scarron's Virgile Travesti—Another species of Ludicrous Translation 197
CHAPTER ⅩⅤ The genius of the Translator should be akin to that of the original author—The best Translators have shone in original composition of the same species with that which they have translated—Of Voltaire's Translations from Shakespeare—Of the peculiar character of the wit of Voltaire—His Translation from Hudibras—Excellent anonymous French Translation of Hudibras—Translation of Rabelais by Urquhart and Motteux 204
Appendix 225
Index 231