Talk:Roger Ascham

Untitled

tagged for cleanup, needs headings/structure (clem 09:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC))

Double translation

The article says among other things that The Scholemaster "advocated 'the double translation of a model book', ...; the method itself was not new." I have seen this claim in a few places, but I have not seen any references to earlier descriptions or advocates of the method. I wonder if the claim could be supported with references.

References to places where Cicero (de Oratore), Pliny the Younger (letters), or Quintilian (Inst.) are supposed to have served as models for the idea of double translation all prove to be passages in which they recommend the translation of Greek works into Latin, or Latin works into Greek, as an exercise superior to paraphrasing a work in the same language, or turning verse into prose in the same language. None of them are talking about anything identifiable with Ascham's method of double translation.

So many people say that double translation did not begin with Ascham (the EB 11 article which forms the original source of this article, Ryan, others) that I would hesitate to contradict them. But if others advocated double translation or practiced it, in antiquity or in the Renaissance, who are they and where did they do so?

C.M.Sperberg-McQueen (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2019 (UTC)