El modesto misterio

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes has been one of the most translated texts in the history of Spanish language. The translators carefully try to choose the right words to keep the magic created by the author in the original text. However, as we discussed in class, all the translators are indirectly influenced by their place of origin and the period of time they are living in. The translations starting with the one by John Ormsby done in 1885 all the way to the more modern and simple language used by Edith Grossman on 2003. It is worth to mention that out of the four translations, Grossman’s is the one that dared more to get out of the ordinary and create a version much easier to read and understand of Don Quixote, than the other translators. Her choice to start the story with “Somewhere in La Mancha” rather than “In a village in La Mancha” already makes the story more engaging and makes me want to keep reading it.

 Another point to note is that all four translators decided to keep the title in a shorter version than the original by simply stating Don Quixote. It would be awkward to say Mr. Quixote from La Mancha or Mr. Quixote of La Mancha. The word Don is not used in English instead we use Mr. Besides, by the time the book was being translated, it was very famous and known so the title did not have to be catchy at all, rather it had to be something short and easy to remember. Also, we discussed in class how the place where the person comes from plays a very important role in the diction of the translator. All the translators we compared were English native speakers who learned Spanish, so I think the story could sound much different if a Spanish native speaker had translated it instead. In any case, the four translations we compared help us see that to translate something is like creating a completely new product but always trying to maintain the essence of the original, although the translators are not always successful.