Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 4. Translation
Theory

Literalness and Freedom [2]

The proper rule about literalness, I suppose, is that one should keep as close as possible to the original provided the result is that the translation does not read like a translation but like an original poem in Bengali and as far as possible as if it were the original poem originally written in Bengali. Whether that ideal is always realisable is another matter. When it can’t be done one has to dodge or deviate. I admit that I have not practised what I preached,— whenever I translated, I was careless of the hurt feelings of the original text and transmogrified it without mercy into whatever my fancy chose. But that is a high and mighty criminality which one ought not to imitate. Latterly I have tried to be more moral in my ways, I don’t know with what success. But anyhow it is a case of “Do what I preach and avoid what I practise.”

10 October 1934