Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
As a bit of an aside... regarding the changing meaning of words from the time of composition to the present, we can already see some of that in the Lord of the Rings. As already pointed out, the use of "swarthy" and other terms denoting dark pigmentation relating to some of the enemies of the West is held as evidence of racism in Tolkien's work, though it not necessarily proof of such. On perhaps a more dramatic level, references of being "gay and merry" amongst Hobbits might well confuse a younger reader only familiar with homosexual gays--and might help explain the reams of related fanfiction.
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Makes me wonder how soon we'll need an English translation of LotR
And yet....if a translator of LotR into another language was to us 'non-racist' terminology how far would that damage the 'Light vs Darkness' imagery Tolkien spent such effort building up? Has 'gay' for instance now come to completely lose its original meaning of 'light-hearted' for a general readership for it to actually find the usage strange - do some readers actually interpret it as meaning that some characters are homosexual? And what about 'queer'? I know that in the radio adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by Brian Sibley (its actually an sramatisation of the House of Tom Bombadil/Barrow Downs episode which was missed out of the BBC radio LotR, not the poems) the word 'queer' is used once, then replaced by 'weird' - also suitably Anglo-Saxon, but not the word Tolkien used ('gay' is used in the LotR adaptation - Aragorn says of Merry in the Houses of Healing 'So strong & gay a spirit is in him'). I can't help wondering whether the reason was that the use of 'gay' & 'queer' would provoke giggles in the audience. I only note in passing that in the movie Sam in Lorien says '
silver showers' in his verse on Gandalf's fireworks rather than the original 'golden showers'.....
All of which is to ask how much the changes in language even in the original can affect the reader's perception of the tale. Of course, readers of translations have it easier in some ways than readers of the original, as new translations can be commissioned on a regular basis to avoid the changes in language that may provoke such 'awkwardnesses'.
And it also occurs to me whether any translations are considered as especially significant in themselves, so that they stay in print after a new translation appears? This occurred to me recently when looking at translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses. I noticed that Penguin have two translations currently available - a new one by David Raeburn & Arthur Golding's 1567 translation, widely considered a masterpiece of Renaissance literature in itself. And let's not forget Chapman's Homer! Both are, in a real sense, works of great literature, rather than simply being seen as 'translations' to be surpassed by more 'accurate' versions of the originals. Could there be (if there aren't such already) translations of Tolkien's works which are seen as 'equal' to the original, or are all destined to be 'second best' versions only there for readers who can't read the book in the original?