Translating Rudolf Steiner
A friend of mine just recently got interested in reading the Bible, and has quoted some of the Old Testament to me. One quote repeated the title "Lord". Why???? No one uses this word in English anymore. No one. For anything. Why is it still figuring so prominently in translations of the Bible? No one knows what it means!
I'm beginning to feel just as impatient with translations of Rudolf Steiner's work.
I'm reading Self Transformation, which is a collection of selected lectures by Rudolf Steiner. This is mostly a re-reading, but in some places it feels like a first reading. I don't know if that's because I'm reading lectures that I'd skipped over before, or because I've got a newly increasing impatience with the translations of these lectures.
For instance:
"Now, if we speak spiritual-scientifically about the human being by differentiating between head man and the rest of man, then these two organizations are, at the outset, pictures for us, pictures created by nature herself for the soul element, for the spiritual element, whose expression and manifestation they are. Man is placed in the whole evolution of earth humanity in a way which becomes comprehensible only if one considers how different is the position of the head organization in this evolution from that of the rest of the human organization."
[p. 77, Rudolf Steiner Press 2003 printing]
"Man", "organization", "soul element", "spiritual-scientifically"... I've been reading Rudolf Steiner's work for over twenty years now, and I'm impatient with these words, these concepts. What do they mean?! Why isn't it "humanity" instead of "Man"? Why "organization"? Who talks about the soul anymore???
Half the time I'm reading Steiner, I'm wondering, "If this were translated differently, would it all make sense?"
I've probably mentioned the book Freud and Man's Soul before, written by Bruno Bettleheim. Bettleheim claims that English translations of Freud's work systematically and perniciously misinterpret the man's work. The book is well worth reading; it's effect on me was a more detached and skeptical reading of Freud's work in English, and a hopeful patience while I wait for new translations to retrieve some of the spirit and truth of the original German work.
I would like to read a similar review of translations of Steiner's work. I'm not necessarily expecting any pernicious motives on the translators' parts, but I wouldn't be surprised to find consistent - systematic - mistranslations or misinterpretations of Steiner's work. My sense is that there is a certain allegiance to early translations of key phrases and concepts, translations that simply don't make any sense today.
Yes, I know that with Freud - and even more so with Steiner - the subject matter is - was - itself full of new concepts, or re-worked old ones. That is no excuse. Steiner himself says routinely: we must use the language of material existence to describe spiritual realities. But that also means that we have to use the language of today, the language of material existence as that existence presents itself TODAY, not as it did at the turn of the twentieth century.
Comments
Also, I am confused how you could spend 20 years studying Steiner and have to ask what 'soul' means anymore.
Perhaps part of the matter stems from nature of the book "Self Transformation" -- which seems to be a compilation of what some editor thought to be related topics, as independent lectures garnered and chosen, out of context if you will, from numerous different original German GA's and lecture cycles. Myself, I usually don't like reading Steiner that way. But I could see the potential value in it, being more constrained to adapt to his concepts from different points of his life and development, etc. I don't even know if the same translator was in effect for all chapters in the volume.
Anyway, guess I wanted to say that for me, the differing and varied perspectives of a wide array of translators and translation styles have always been helpful to me to force me into a free state of thinking past the usual words to try to grasp ideas... something RS spoke about valuing intentionally himself even in the original German. Best Wishes.
~rob in Montreal, also a DB guy incidentally :)
First of all, I didn't say that I don't know what soul means. What I said was, "Who talks about the soul anymore?" That word is as meaningful as the title "Lord" in the Bible. Why not then render it in the Aramaic, if we're so concerned to preserve the original meaning? Does the word "soul" really best embody in English Steiner's meaning of 1912, speaking and thinking in German as he did?
The main point is that the word 'soul' isn't in common parlance, not that I see. Unless I'm reading a self-help book, in which soul is used seriously but vaguely and variously, I never encounter the word in ordinary conversations. So how am I to make sense of that word, since it isn't used to describe any feature of the collective representations?
I agree with you that in the end, it's about perceiving what Steiner was describing - the supersensible - and this goes beyond words. In fact, Steiner says this on at least one occasion (I don't remember where), that we must get beyond words, and thinking in concepts, to active, living thinking. Thinking posits those concepts - it can't be grasped by them.
I think my criticism is valid, and relevant, even if your experience doesn't agree with mine. Steiner did two things that I think are important aspects of his whole work: He made known to the public what previously was secret, or secretive; he suggested a training regimen for developing oneself to the point of being able to perceive the supersensible.
Regarding the secret: If the secret is revealed, but in a language no one speaks, then it's still a secret.
Regarding the training regimen: If I'm instructed to direct my attention "spiritual-scientifically" to the "tableau of my soul", then I'm not getting very far in this curriculum.
I don't speak or read any other language but English. There was a short time in graduate school when I could very, very slowly translate classical Latin, well enough to tackle a portion of St. Augustine's Confessions, and to tutor a couple of high school students. Other than that, I rely entirely on translations for everything I read. Often I'll read at least two translations of the same text. We don't have that luxury with much of Steiner's work. His core written works are the exception, but not even all of those are available in multiple translations.
Until there are more and better translations of Rudolf Steiner's work, it will remain still and mostly occult.
First of all, I didn't say that I don't know what soul means. What I said was, "Who talks about the soul anymore?" That word is as meaningful as the title "Lord" in the Bible. Why not then render it in the Aramaic, if we're so concerned to preserve the original meaning? Does the word "soul" really best embody in English Steiner's meaning of 1912, speaking and thinking in German as he did?
The main point is that the word 'soul' isn't in common parlance, not that I see. Unless I'm reading a self-help book, in which soul is used seriously but vaguely and variously, I never encounter the word in ordinary conversations. So how am I to make sense of that word, since it isn't used to describe any feature of the collective representations?
I agree with you that in the end, it's about perceiving what Steiner was describing - the supersensible - and this goes beyond words. In fact, Steiner says this on at least one occasion (I don't remember where), that we must get beyond words, and thinking in concepts, to active, living thinking. Thinking posits those concepts - it can't be grasped by them.
I think my criticism is valid, and relevant, even if your experience doesn't agree with mine. Steiner did two things that I think are important aspects of his whole work: He made known to the public what previously was secret, or secretive; he suggested a training regimen for developing oneself to the point of being able to perceive the supersensible.
Regarding the secret: If the secret is revealed, but in a language no one speaks, then it's still a secret.
Regarding the training regimen: If I'm instructed to direct my attention "spiritual-scientifically" to the "tableau of my soul", then I'm not getting very far in this curriculum.
I don't speak or read any other language but English. There was a short time in graduate school when I could very, very slowly translate classical Latin, well enough to tackle a portion of St. Augustine's Confessions, and to tutor a couple of high school students. Other than that, I rely entirely on translations for everything I read. Often I'll read at least two translations of the same text. We don't have that luxury with much of Steiner's work. His core written works are the exception, but not even all of those are available in multiple translations.
Until there are more and better translations of Rudolf Steiner's work, it will remain still and mostly occult.