Machiavelli's friend
Sir: Mr Alexander (Letters, 14 March) still misunderstands me. My principal objection to his version of Guicciardini lay not in his 'philosophy of translation' but in his fre- quent failure to comprehend the meaning of the Italian text. I gave some examples: it would be easy for me, though wearisome-for your readers, to give very many more. As to the question of nuance, I accept Mr Alex- ander's assurance that words like 'minimal' and 'evaluate' are found in Elizabethan and Jacobean prose (though the Oxford Diction- ary dates these two to 1666 and 1842 respec- tively). My point was that these carry strong overtones of jargon in modern English and were therefore out of place in a translation designed to be 'redolent of its period'.
I cannot understand Mr Alexander when he accuses me of perversion of truth and `effrontery' for saying that I amended his text in the second citation of my review. In his letter he details my amendment at some length and explains that it was made neces- sary `by typographical error'. That being so, he would do better to vent his feelings, if he must, on his proof reader rather than on me.
John Larner Department of History, The University, Glasgow, w2 This correspondence is now closed—Editor, SPECTATOR
Previous page
