accidentals and substantives

lost in translation

In a recent post to the C18 list, Robert Dawson points to an inadvertently ludic phenomenon of the eighteenth-century book trade: texts were sometimes translated into a foreign tongue on the continent only to be translated back into the native language at some later point. He gives the example of Diderot's _le neveau de Rameau_ (_Rameau's Nephew_, a satiric dialogue), which was translated into German by Goethe, and then back-translated into French.

Interesting that the culture and commerce of one generation becomes the parlour game of a later one: the surrealists' various chain games capture something of the spirit (not to mention absurdia) of eighteenth-century translation. And if you listen carefully, you might hear the babel of Enlightenment texts echo in your computer monitor (via Jill) . . .