Chapter 27 - Shelley’s Translations

Summary

Shelley famously asserted that translation is as vain as casting a violet into a crucible to understand its colour and odour. Despite this seeming dismissal of the practice, translation forms an integral component of Shelley’s vocation as a poet and thinker. Throughout his writing career, he translated from French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish and also rendered some of his own poetry into Italian. His translation practice encompasses a wide range of genres: from Greek hymns and Latin georgics to Italian terza rima and ottava rima, to Spanish silvas and redondillas, to drama and philosophical prose. This chapter opens with a discussion of Shelley’s views on translation and the symbiotic relationship between translation and original composition in his own creative process. It then considers the connections between translation and language learning in the Shelley household before concluding with a survey of Shelley’s translations by language.