Smollett, Orsmby, and Grossman:
Evolving Translation
In order to complete my new translation from Don Quixote and to gain insight into previous approaches to translation, I chose to focus primarily on three previous English versions of the novel, distributed fairly evenly over time. The first I referenced was Tobias Smollett’s 1755 version, which I analyze further in an essay below. Written in an antiquated style, Smollett’s version contains many stylistic departures from the original that can provide material for a fascinating discussion on the amount of license that translators are able (or unable) to take; for more perspectives, see Thomas R. Hart’s Review of the Smollett translation here and Carlos Fuentes’s reading here. Second, I looked at John Orsmby’s version, published in 1885, which remains one of the best remembered translations of its time; read a review of Ormsby’s Translation from the 1886 edition of The Nation here. Finally, I examined Edith Grossman’s 2003 version—the only English translation performed by a woman—which is considered one of the best modern renderings of the novel; find reviews of Grossman’s work by Carlos Fuentes here and A.S. Byatt here. For a more general discussion of Don Quixote in English, also see translator Natasha Wimmer’s comparative article here. After examining and comparing this trio of translators, I was struck by the many commonalities and disparities that have surfaced over time and became only more inspired to explore my own reading of the novel through translation.
Tobias Smollett, editor del Quijote
Tobias Smollett, a poet and novelist from Scotland, published his translation of Don Quixote in 1755, and—despite the wealth of English translations of the novel that have appeared since—his version is still read today. Chapter LXII—entitled “Containing the adventure of the inchanted head, with other trivial incidents which, however, must not be omitted” in Smollett’s version—presents several barriers to English translation through which we can explore Smollett’s approach to the text.
Unknown Artist, ca. 1770
National Portrait Gallery, London
Before any of its superfluities or additions become visible, the most salient aspect of Smollett’s translation is its intentionally archaic style of language. Antiquated choices in spelling such as “inchanted” render the text less accessible to modern audiences, but they reflect Smollett’s literary intentions rather than the conventions of the time in which he was writing; this is evident given that the 1742 translation by Charles Jervas (usually recorded as Jarvis), to which Smollett seems to have referred extensively in completing his own version, uses “enchanted” throughout. It appears that Smollett intended to take the reader further into the past than previous translations had done. His attempt to employ an archaic English, however, often comes at the price of clarity and results in many moments of awkward phrasing and dialogue. A salient example of this awkwardness in Chapter LXII is in a passage where Don Antonio Moreno references Sancho’s love of food; Don Antonio mentions manjar blanco and albondiguillas (a subtle reference to a feast in Avellaneda’s unauthorized sequel), which is difficult to convey in English both because of the cultural specificity of these foods and the fact that the definition of manjar blanco evolved significantly in the 17th-century from a meat dish to a dessert. Whereas Jarvis took the minimal approach of “capons and sausages,” Smollett produces an extremely awkward rendering as “fowls and balls of forced meat.” But perhaps the most startling detail in Smollett’s choice of language is his translation, throughout the text, of the word señor; rather than leaving the recognizable term of respect in Spanish or translating it into a rough equivalent such as sir or my lord, he uses the Italian “signor.” This choice, which may represent an attempt to foreignize the text or to capture the pronunciation of señor with English spelling, instead complicates the setting of the novel.
Some of the most interesting points of discussion occur where the text itself refers to the act of translation. Chapter LXII concludes with an episode in which Don Quixote meets a writer who is in the process of printing his translation of Le Bagatele from Tuscan into Castilian; Don Quixote essentially tests the man’s abilities by confronting him with a series of words, which he is easily able to translate. Here, Smollett replicates Jarvis’s approach of leaving the sets of words in their respective languages, though he again attempts to make the Spanish words seem even more archaic than they appear in the original, for example by changing abajo to abaxo. In this case, Smollett’s choice to keep the terms in Spanish has the effect of highlighting the fact that the text is a translation. But an important detail of Cervantes’s original text is his misspelling of the Tuscan words in this passage; these words are fairly commonplace by design, and in Don Quixote’s speech Cervantes spells them as Spanish interpretations of the Tuscan sounds, so that pignattabecomes piñata. Smollett seems to have overlooked the significance of this choice and simply revised the text to fix these “errors.”
Beyond the semantics of word choice, Smollett seems to have had no qualms about intervening on the structure of the text, and he frequently changes the formulation of sentences, splitting or joining phrases as he sees fit; the same can be said of the book as a whole, which he divides into further layers of sections so that Chapter LXII becomes Chapter X of Book IV, perhaps in an attempt to remedy the fact that the original novel is divided into books in the first part but not the second. Smollett’s version is also noticeably longer than other translations because he tends to add information based on his reading of the text, seeming to think that the text needs clarification. For example, where Cervantes refers simply to la ciudad, Smollett specifies that the setting is Barcelona; at another moment, after a mention of the Duke’s castle (which featured prominently in an earlier part of the novel), Smollett adds a qualifier: “where he had been so hospitably entertained.” Such additions seem to indicate a certain lack of faith in Cervantes’s ability to construct the narrative with sufficient detail.
Smollett’s version of Don Quixote, in short, takes a great deal of liberties and in many ways represents a revisionist approach to translation. At times, Smollet’s antiquated speech is effective in replicating Don Quixote’s conspicuous formality of speech, but elsewhere his language creates complications that do not exist in the original text, interrupting the flow of the novel. Given the quality of translations that have appeared in the centuries since Smollett’s Quixote, his work seems best implemented today as a reference for historical and literary comparison rather than as the means for an English reader to experience Don Quixote for the first time.
Texts Consulted:
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Ed. Francisco Rico, Joaquín Forradellas, and Martín de Riquer. Barcelona: Instituto Cervantes, 1998.
Jarvis [sic], Charles, trans. The Life and Exploits of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de La Mancha. By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Boston: L.C. Page and Company, 1898.
Smollett, Tobias, trans. The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote. By Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Ed. Martin C. Battestin and O. M. Brack. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003.