Troubles in Translation

Translations of Latin and ancient Greek texts have influenced modern-day philosophy, ethics, medicine, government, and much more. Translators' choices play a central role in how a modern audience views ancient texts and the ideas we gain from them. However, translation is rarely a smooth process. My thesis and presentation will delve into two of the difficulties of translating ancient languages. The first is the influence of bias on translation. Every translator does their best to create a translation that follows as closely as possible to the original text, or more accurately, to how they read and understand the original text. This can lead to many translations containing implicit and sometimes explicit bias from the translator. The second difficulty is that translation is done with the intent that it will be read by an audience. With this intent in mind, some translators cater their translations to fit with the expectations of their intended audience. This can cause problems as ancient texts were written in the context of a very different society, culture, and audience than the present. How a translator chooses to illustrate this influences how a new audience will understand and experience these texts. When ancient texts are taken out of this original context and changed to fit a modern society, many important aspects of the original text can be lost. My goal will be to argue that the most accurate translations remain grounded in the original context of the ancient text rather than attempting to make the text better fit into a modern context. A major factor in achieving this is acknowledging the biases that translators bring to their projects and attempting to separate a translator's bias from their work.