1
For a response to this article see «To the editor» by James A. Parr, Cervantes, 13.2 (1993), 135-37. The discussion continued with «Raffel Replys to Parr», Cervantes, 14.1 (1994): 107-09. -F. J. (N. from the E.)
2
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Don Quixote (N. Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), p. 10. (N. from the A.)
3
As it will be abundantly clear, in a moment, I am one of the «many others». (N. from the A.)
4
Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory (N. Y.: Grosset and Dunlop, 1951), p. 216. (N. from the A.)
5
Nabokov,
Lectures, pp. 27-28. As Edmund
Wilson, a very great and almost awesomely responsible critic, wrote to Nabokov,
in late 1946,
«You and I... differ completely, not only about
Malraux [N. had criticized him for being, among other things, humorless], but
also about Dostoevsky, Greek drama, Lenin, Freud, and a lot of other
things».
Edmund Wilson,
Letters on Literature and Politics,
1912-1972, ed. Elena Wilson (N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), p.
444. (N. from the A.)
6
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, trans. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1950), p. 508. Although Don Quixote is the original spelling of the novel's title, the early 17th-century pronunciation, «kee shot-ey», is closer to the sound of the modern Spanish Quijote, «kee-xot-ey», than is the sound of the modern English Quixote, «kwiks-ot». (I am indebted to Professor Michael McGaha for clarification of these matters.) And since the novel is and has been for years passionately read and adored by millions as Don Quijote, that is the title given it by my translation. (N. from the A.)
7
Penguin English Dictionary, ed. G. N. Garmonsway (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), p. 430a. (N. from the A.)
8
See my forthcoming The Art of Translating Prose, chap. 5. (N. from the A.)
9
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote, trans. Samuel Putnam (N. Y: Viking, 1949; reprint ed., The Portable Cervantes, N. Y.: Viking, 1951), p. 428. (N. from the A.)
10
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, trans. Walter Starkie, Don Quixote (London: Macmillan, 1957; reprint ed., N. Y: Signet, 1964), p. 570. Professor Jones, one of the revisers of the Ormsby translation (see below, n. 9), indicates that Starkie's translation too is a revision of Ormsby, rather than, as claimed, a new translation. Infra, p. ix, n. (N. from the A.)