a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication._

A. H. THORNDIKE,
_Executive Officer_

PREFACE

In the following pages I have attempted to trace certain developments in
the theory of translation as it has been formulated by English writers.
I have confined myself, of necessity, to such opinions as have been put
into words, and avoided making use of deductions from practice other
than a few obvious and generally accepted conclusions. The procedure
involves, of course, the omission of some important elements in the
history of the theory of translation, in that it ignores the
discrepancies between precept and practice, and the influence which
practice has exerted upon theory; on the other hand, however, it
confines a subject, otherwise impossibly large, within measurable
limits. The chief emphasis has been laid upon the sixteenth century, the
period of the most enthusiastic experimentation, when, though it was
still possible for the translator to rest in the comfortable medieval
conception of his art, the New Learning was offering new problems and
new ideals to every man who shared in the intellectual awakening of his
time. In the matter of theory, however, the age was one of beginnings,
of suggestions, rather than of finished, definitive results; even by the
end of the century there were still translators who had not yet
appreciated the immense difference between medieval and modern standards
of translation. To understand their position, then, it is necessary to
consider both the preceding period, with its incidental,
half-unconscious comment, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
with their systematized, unified contribution. This last material, in
especial, is included chiefly because of the light which it throws in
retrospect on the views of earlier translators, and only the main
course of theory, by this time fairly easy to follow, is traced.

The aim has in no case been to give bibliographical information. A
number of translations, important in themselves, have received no
mention because they have evoked no comment on methods. The references
given are not necessarily to first editions. Generally speaking, it has
been the prefaces to translations that have yielded material, and such
prefaces, especially during the Elizabethan period, are likely to be
included or omitted in different editions for no very clear reason