My reasons for translating Shakespeare

Being now in the finishing stages of my fifteenth translation of a play by William Shakespeare it is somewhat embarrassing that for the first time I should be asking myself in all seriousness why I do it at all. Loving the plays, of course, is not it, since I loved them for many years without transl...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Barbara Heliodora
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 1999-01-01
Series:Ilha do Desterro
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/8188
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Summary:Being now in the finishing stages of my fifteenth translation of a play by William Shakespeare it is somewhat embarrassing that for the first time I should be asking myself in all seriousness why I do it at all. Loving the plays, of course, is not it, since I loved them for many years without translating them, and many people love them without ever getting the urge to translate them into another language. On the other hand, I must say that I never, at any moment, made the awesome decision to become by definition a translator of Shakespeare’s plays, and so it will have to be admitted that a whole set of circumstances must have contributed to what in fact took place—and, I am sure, also weighed considerably as to the type of translation that I have been trying to make all these years.
ISSN:0101-4846
2175-8026