Culture and text: Equivalence revisited

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure the hypothesis that a translator's work will show an overall consistent pattern, the article discusses two English translations of passages from Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. The two translations (by Charles Singleton and Seamus Heaney, respectively) differ in their overall approach according to Catford's distinction between ‘literal’ vs ‘unbounded’ translation. Detailed analysis reveals that these terms do not account for all translational differences, but that in this particular case, cultural elements, notably the historical context of both Dante's Italy and Heaney's present‐day Irish situation, exert an influence on the translator's product. The article concludes that the cultural element is central to a theory of translation and will illuminate a translation, provided it probes deep enough into the spheres of the cultural context which affects the translator.