CLAS 532
Spring 2025
Exercise #2 Guidelines

Your (double-spaced) translation must be accompanied by a translator’s preface (at least 2 pp./500 words). This should be focused on issues of translation and address such matters as:

• The purpose and function (skopos) of the translation, most importantly its intended readership: describe the target readers’ level of education, their knowledge (if any) of the source language, literature, and culture; their particular needs, norms, and expectations as readers, or anything else that seems relevant to defining them as your target audience; what delivery/performance medium do you imagine for your translation (e.g. classroom use, private reading, public venue)?
  
  
• The overall strategy of your translation: its position on the foreignizing/domesticating continuum, whether or not it requires explanatory notes, how (in)visible you aim to be as a translator, etc.
  
  
• The verse or prose form of your translation.
  
  
• The type of language and diction your translation aims for, and why this is appropriate for your intended readership.
  
  
• Any particular challenges posed by your source text and how you treated these in your translation.
  
  
• Any translation procedures you have followed that seem noteworthy.
  
  
• Interpretative points (e.g. stylistic, cultural, social-historical, ideological or aesthetic aspects) pertaining to your passage that your translation seeks to highlight, negotiate, or elucidate (cf. Venuti's notion of the use of "interpretants" in translation).

In addition, you should append a Works Consulted (primarily scholarly articles and book chapters, commentaries, and published translations of your source text) that you consulted in preparing your translation. Use L’Année philologique, Gnomon Bibliographic Database, TOCS-IN, Google Scholar, etc. (see "Links & Resources" page)

Exercise #2 is due March 31. An assignment folder has been set up on D2L.

HOME