El modesto misterio

During class it was said how the language is in a constant change. It is the only invention from men which evolved throughout time. In the authors’ interpretations about Cervantes’ Don Quijote is evident how language has changed to improve even translations.

Roughly 200 years later of the original publishing, John Ormsby writes a translation very close to a “literal” interpretation. However, at that time English language was still at a level of long sentences. I couldn’t help feeling heaviness in his style. More than a century after Ormsby, Samuel Putnam translated Cervantes’ work and did a much better job at smoothing the text. I could see more resembles with the flow of sentences used in modern language.

My favorite interpretation was the one provided by John Rutherford. He opts to replace some long phrases for contemporary expressions and used better synonymous words like “recall” and others. It was written in 2003 and, contrary to previous translations, has almost the same flow of words as Cervantes’s Don Quijote emanates. The last interpretation was similarly fluid but the use of the phrase “I do not care to remember” gave me a rather negative impression that the narrator didn’t “care” about his narration. The actual interpretation should be closer to Rutherford’s translation.

Andres Rivera