Page:The Craftsmanship of Writing.djvu/270

THE TECHNIQUE OF TRANSLATING must also realise the limitations of his English audience and foresee what portions of a foreign-work will be unintelligible for other reasons than that of a foreign tongue. The translator of the highest type is in a measure an appreciative and indulgent critic whose first aim is to make his audience share his own enthusiasm for his subject, to bring out not merely some one beauty, but all the beauties of the original; to make us feel not merely an author's theme but his individual style, not only the action of his story but its pervading atmosphere.

Let us ask ourselves briefly what are the requirements for this ideal type of translator. He must have, first of all, a thorough mastery of the foreign language, and secondly, of his own; he must have a special and intimate acquaintance with the author he has undertaken to translate, and lastly, he needs an intuitive sense of the [256]