s.
Quotations have been modernized, except in the case of Middle English
verse, where the original form has been kept for the sake of the metre.

The history of the theory of translation is by no means a record of
easily distinguishable, orderly progression. It shows an odd lack of
continuity. Those who give rules for translation ignore, in the great
majority of cases, the contribution of their predecessors and
contemporaries. Towards the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a small group
of critics bring to the problems of the translator both technical
scholarship and alert, original minds, but apparently the new and
significant ideas which they offer have little or no effect on the
general course of theory. Again, Tytler, whose _Essay on the Principles
on Translation_, published towards the end of the eighteenth century,
may with some reason claim to be the first detailed discussion of the
questions involved, declares that, with a few exceptions, he has "met
with nothing that has been written professedly on the subject," a
statement showing a surprising disregard for the elaborate prefaces that
accompanied the translations of his own century.

This lack of consecutiveness in criticism is probably partially
accountable for the slowness with which translators attained the power
to put into words, clearly and unmistakably, their aims and methods.
Even if one were to leave aside the childishly vague comment of
medieval writers and the awkward attempts of Elizabethan translators to
describe their processes, there would still remain in the modern period
much that is careless or misleading. The very term "translation" is long
in defining itself; more difficult terms, like "faithfulness" and
"accuracy," have widely different meanings with different writers. The
various kinds of literature are often treated in the mass with little
attempt at discrimination between them, regardless of the fact that the
problems of the translator vary with the character of his original.
Tytler's book, full of interesting detail as it is, turns from prose to
verse, from lyric to epic, from ancient to modern, till the effect it
leaves on the reader is fragmentary and confusing.

Moreover, there has never been uniformity of opinion with regard to the
aims and methods of translation. Even in the age of Pope, when, if ever,
it was safe to be dogmatic and when the theory of translation seemed
safely on the way to become standardized, one still hears the v