SAT Reading Passage question level 5

jasonjackson789
Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:13:00 +0000

Here are the paired passages:

The following passages address the issue of accuracy in the translation of poetiy. Passage 1 discusses epic poems composed in ancient Greek and attributed to Homer. Passage 2 considers a tenth-century poem written in Anglo-Saxon, an early form of English.

Passage 1

In the mid-nineteenth century, a scholar named Francis William Newman attempted a literal translation of the works of Homer. His purpose was to publish a translation that would contrast with the
5 elegance of Alexander Pope’s eighteenth-century translation. Newman’s book would be forgotten today had it not been reviewed by Matthew Arnold, one of the nineteenth century’s most famous essayists and poets.-
1O Newman supposed that a literal translation must be the most faithful translation. Arnold, however, argued that in Homer’s works, several qualities were to be found —clarity, nobility, simplicity, and so on. He thought that a translator should always convey the impression of those
15 qualities, eyen in cases where the original text did not bear them out. Arnold pointed out that a literal translation made for oddity and for uncouthness.
For example, in the Romance languages we do not say “It is cold” to describe a winter’s day—we say “It makes
20 cold”: Il fait froid in French, Fa freddo in Italian, and so on. Yet I don’t think anybody should translate “II fait froid” as “It makes cold.”
Matthew Arnold pointed out that if a text is translated literally, then false emphases are created. I do not know
25 whether he came across Captain Burton’s translations of a classic Arabic language book during the same time period. Perhaps he did, but too late to’ refer to it in his remarks about translation. Burton translates the title Quitah aliflaila wa laila as Book of the Thousand
30 Nights and a Night, instead of Book of the Thousand and One Nights. This translation is a literal one. Yet it is false in the sense that the words “book of the thousand nights and a night” are a common form in Arabic, while in English we have a slight shock of surprise. And this,
35 'of course, had not been intended by the original.
Nowadays, a hundred years after Matthew Arnold, we are fond of literal translation; in fact, many of us accept only literal translations because we want to give the original authors their due. That attitude would have seemed
40 a crime to European translators in ages past. They were
thinking of something far worthier than the individual person. They wanted to prove that the vernacular, the language of their contemporaries, was as capable of a great poem as the ancient language in which the original
45 poem was composed. I don’t think any contemporary of Alexander Pope thought about Homer and Pope. I suppose that the readers, the best readers anyhow, thought of the poem itself. They were interested in Homer’s two great epic poems, and they had no care for verbal trifles.
50 All throughout the Middle Ages in Europe, people thought of translation not in terms of a literal rendering but in terms of something being re-created. They thought of translators as having read a work and then somehow evolving that work from themselves, from their own might, from the
55 known possibilities of their own languages.

Passage 2

“The Seafarer,” translated in 1911 by Ezra Pound, shows Pound’s method of translating which, when he is so inclined, produces not so much a translation as a new poem in the spirit of the original. In translating “The
60 Seafarer” Pound aims to reproduce the “feel” of the \ original by reproducing Anglo-Saxon sounds, whether or not the modern words correspond literally to the meaning of the original words.
This way of translating offended scholars who believed
65 that translation must be literal to be accurate. Pound provoked their wrath by stating in print that his version of “The Seafarer” was “as nearly literal” as any translation could be. Obviously it is not. Where the Anglo-Saxon has wrecan (“to make, compose”), Pound has “reckon.”
70 Where the Anglo-Saxon has sumeres weard (“guardian of summer”), Pound has “summerward.” And so on. Moreover, there are unfortunately some mistakes, as When Pound misreads purh (“through”) Bspruh (“coffin”). Nevertheless, Pound’s translation conveys the important
75 meaning of the Anglo-Saxon poem and does something that a literal translation fails to do—renders it into poetic English, finding new equivalents for old emotions. This was Pound’s contribution as a translator—he showed that to translate accurately you must do more than find words
80 that have the same meaning as words in another language. Literal translation sounds like no language at all. The aim of translation is to find words that bring over the sense and spirit of the original so that they are understood. Therefore the translator must aim at making an “equation” rather than
85 a literal translation.

Here is the question:


For which of the following qualities would the “European translators” (line 40) most likely praise Pound’s version of “The Seafarer" (Passage 2)?
(A) Its skillful display of the beauties of modern English
(B) Its sensitive demonstration of the original poet’s genius
(C) Its faithful reproduction of Anglo-Saxon sounds
(D) Its subtle presentation of human emotions
(E) Its imaginative interpretation of individual words



I did it (E) but the correct answer is (A), which sounds better than (E) after looking at it. However, I still can’t figure out why is (E) particularly wrong. Could someone elucidate on this please? Thanks in advance!