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The Task of the Translator
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12 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1923
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About the author
Walter Benjamin
846 books2,086 followersWalter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
June 1, 2023
Gorgeous, difficult and rewarding essay. I’ve read it probably 5 times in total in three different translations which made my experience a meta fictional journey - reading in translation about translation- in its true sense.
There are so much layers in this essay. It would require a proper essay on its own to touch upon its insights. Even more interestingly, to talk a bit how Benjamin uses the language in conversation about the language. In one word - beautifully if a little cryptic. I wish I had time to expand on this. But for now, maybe as a preparation, I just leave the excepts here which I liked the most. Also I leave a separate quote from Nabokov that I find relevant:
Nabokov:
I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”
And Benjamin about the same: “The language is not only the communication of the communicable. It is at the same time a symbol of what is impossible to communicate.”
Excepts:
“Certainly not in the similarity between works of literature or words. Rather, all suprahistorical kinship of languages rests in the intention underlying each language as a whole – an intention, however, which no single language can attain by itself but which is realized only by the totality of their intentions supplementing each other: pure language.
these languages supplement one another in their intentions.
The words Brot and pain ‘intend’ the same object, but the modes of this intention are not the same. It is owing to these modes that the word Brot means something different to a German than the word pain to a Frenchman, that these words are not interchangeable for them, that, in fact, they strive to exclude each other. As to the intended object, however, the two words mean the very same thing.
Translation keeps putting the hallowed growth of languages to the test: How far removed is their hidden meaning from revelation, how close can it be brought by the knowledge of this remoteness?
The task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect [Intention] upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original.
Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the centre of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one.
For the great motif of integrating many tongues into one true language is at work. This language is one in which the independent sentences, works of literature, critical judgments, will never communicate – for they remain dependent on translation; but in it the languages themselves, supplemented and reconciled in their mode of signification, harmonize. If there is such a thing as a language of truth, the tensionless and even silent depository of the ultimate truth which all thought strives for, then this language of truth is – the true language….. concealed in concentrated fashion in translations.
Meaning is served far better – and literature and language far worse – by the unrestrained licence of bad translators. Of necessity, therefore, the demand for literalness, whose justification is obvious, whose legitimate ground is quite obscure, must be understood in a more meaningful context. Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details, although they need not be like one another.
In the same way a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel. For this very reason translation must in large measure refrain from wanting to communicate something, from rendering the sense, and in this the original is important to it only insofar as it has already relieved the translator and his translation of the effort of assembling and expressing what is to be conveyed.
Therefore it is not the highest praise of a translation, particularly in the age of its origin, to say that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language.
real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.
It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
And what of the sense in its importance for the relationship between translation and original? A simile may help here. Just as a tangent touches a circle lightly and at but one point, with this touch rather than with the point setting the law according to which it is to continue on its straight path to infinity, a translation touches the original lightly and only at the infinitely small point of the sense, thereupon pursuing its own course according to the laws of fidelity in the freedom of linguistic flux.
He must expand and deepen his language by means of the foreign language.
Pannwitz writes: ‘Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for the spirit of the foreign works. … The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue. Particularly when translating from a language very remote from his own he must go back to the primal elements of language itself and penetrate to the point where work, image, and tone converge.
The higher the level of a work, the more does it remain translatable even if its meaning is touched upon only fleetingly.
For this very reason Hölderlin’s translations in particular are subject to the enormous danger inherent in all translations: the gates of a language thus expanded and modified may slam shut and enclose the translator with silence. Hölderlin’s translations from Sophocles were his last work;
For to some degree all great texts contain their potential translation between the lines.”
There are so much layers in this essay. It would require a proper essay on its own to touch upon its insights. Even more interestingly, to talk a bit how Benjamin uses the language in conversation about the language. In one word - beautifully if a little cryptic. I wish I had time to expand on this. But for now, maybe as a preparation, I just leave the excepts here which I liked the most. Also I leave a separate quote from Nabokov that I find relevant:
Nabokov:
I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.”
And Benjamin about the same: “The language is not only the communication of the communicable. It is at the same time a symbol of what is impossible to communicate.”
Excepts:
“Certainly not in the similarity between works of literature or words. Rather, all suprahistorical kinship of languages rests in the intention underlying each language as a whole – an intention, however, which no single language can attain by itself but which is realized only by the totality of their intentions supplementing each other: pure language.
these languages supplement one another in their intentions.
The words Brot and pain ‘intend’ the same object, but the modes of this intention are not the same. It is owing to these modes that the word Brot means something different to a German than the word pain to a Frenchman, that these words are not interchangeable for them, that, in fact, they strive to exclude each other. As to the intended object, however, the two words mean the very same thing.
Translation keeps putting the hallowed growth of languages to the test: How far removed is their hidden meaning from revelation, how close can it be brought by the knowledge of this remoteness?
The task of the translator consists in finding that intended effect [Intention] upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original.
Unlike a work of literature, translation does not find itself in the centre of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one.
For the great motif of integrating many tongues into one true language is at work. This language is one in which the independent sentences, works of literature, critical judgments, will never communicate – for they remain dependent on translation; but in it the languages themselves, supplemented and reconciled in their mode of signification, harmonize. If there is such a thing as a language of truth, the tensionless and even silent depository of the ultimate truth which all thought strives for, then this language of truth is – the true language….. concealed in concentrated fashion in translations.
Meaning is served far better – and literature and language far worse – by the unrestrained licence of bad translators. Of necessity, therefore, the demand for literalness, whose justification is obvious, whose legitimate ground is quite obscure, must be understood in a more meaningful context. Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details, although they need not be like one another.
In the same way a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel. For this very reason translation must in large measure refrain from wanting to communicate something, from rendering the sense, and in this the original is important to it only insofar as it has already relieved the translator and his translation of the effort of assembling and expressing what is to be conveyed.
Therefore it is not the highest praise of a translation, particularly in the age of its origin, to say that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language.
real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.
It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.
And what of the sense in its importance for the relationship between translation and original? A simile may help here. Just as a tangent touches a circle lightly and at but one point, with this touch rather than with the point setting the law according to which it is to continue on its straight path to infinity, a translation touches the original lightly and only at the infinitely small point of the sense, thereupon pursuing its own course according to the laws of fidelity in the freedom of linguistic flux.
He must expand and deepen his language by means of the foreign language.
Pannwitz writes: ‘Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for the spirit of the foreign works. … The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue. Particularly when translating from a language very remote from his own he must go back to the primal elements of language itself and penetrate to the point where work, image, and tone converge.
The higher the level of a work, the more does it remain translatable even if its meaning is touched upon only fleetingly.
For this very reason Hölderlin’s translations in particular are subject to the enormous danger inherent in all translations: the gates of a language thus expanded and modified may slam shut and enclose the translator with silence. Hölderlin’s translations from Sophocles were his last work;
For to some degree all great texts contain their potential translation between the lines.”
July 22, 2023
Being both a philosopher and a translator, in this essay Benjamin presents his philosophy of translation which is an extremely complex, almost sacred process. The author discusses the conditions under which the translator is able to reach his goal. i.e., produce a faithful translation.
'Translations that are more than transmissions of subject matter come into being when a work, in the course of its survival, has reached the age of its fame. Contrary, therefore, to the claims of bad translators, such translations do not so much serve the works as owe their existence to it. In them the life of the originals attains its latest, continually renewed, and most complete unfolding.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'While a poet's words endure in his own language, even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to perish with its renewal. Translation is so far removed from being the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all
literary forms it is the one charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'(...) This, to be sure, is to admit that all translation is only a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages. An instant and final rather than a temporary and provisional solution to this foreignness remains out of the reach of mankind; at any rate, it eludes any direct attempt.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Although translation, unlike art, cannot claim permanence for its products, its goal is undeniably a final, conclusive, decisive stage of all linguistic creation. In translation the original rises into a higher and purer linguistic air, as it were. It cannot live there permanently, to be sure; neither can it reach that level in every aspect of the work. Yet in a singularly impressive manner, it at least points the way to this region: the predestined, hitherto inaccessible realm of reconciliation and
fulfillment of languages. The original cannot enter there in its entirety, but what does appear in this region is that element in a translation which goes beyond transmittal of subject matter.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Whereas content and language form a certain unity in the original, like a fruit and its skin, the language of the translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds. For it signifies a
more exalted language than its own and thus remains unsuited to its content, overpowering and alien. This disjunction prevents translation and at the same time makes it superfluous.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'The task of the translator consists in finding the particular intention toward the target language which produces in that language the echo of the original.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Unlike a work of literature, translation finds itself not in the center of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot
where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'The intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, manifest; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'(...)a translation, instead of imitating the sense of the original, must lovingly and in detail
incorporate the original's way of meaning, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.'
'Translations that are more than transmissions of subject matter come into being when a work, in the course of its survival, has reached the age of its fame. Contrary, therefore, to the claims of bad translators, such translations do not so much serve the works as owe their existence to it. In them the life of the originals attains its latest, continually renewed, and most complete unfolding.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'While a poet's words endure in his own language, even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to perish with its renewal. Translation is so far removed from being the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all
literary forms it is the one charged with the special mission of watching over the maturing process of the original language and the birth pangs of its own.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'(...) This, to be sure, is to admit that all translation is only a somewhat provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages. An instant and final rather than a temporary and provisional solution to this foreignness remains out of the reach of mankind; at any rate, it eludes any direct attempt.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Although translation, unlike art, cannot claim permanence for its products, its goal is undeniably a final, conclusive, decisive stage of all linguistic creation. In translation the original rises into a higher and purer linguistic air, as it were. It cannot live there permanently, to be sure; neither can it reach that level in every aspect of the work. Yet in a singularly impressive manner, it at least points the way to this region: the predestined, hitherto inaccessible realm of reconciliation and
fulfillment of languages. The original cannot enter there in its entirety, but what does appear in this region is that element in a translation which goes beyond transmittal of subject matter.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Whereas content and language form a certain unity in the original, like a fruit and its skin, the language of the translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds. For it signifies a
more exalted language than its own and thus remains unsuited to its content, overpowering and alien. This disjunction prevents translation and at the same time makes it superfluous.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'The task of the translator consists in finding the particular intention toward the target language which produces in that language the echo of the original.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Unlike a work of literature, translation finds itself not in the center of the language forest but on the outside facing the wooded ridge; it calls into it without entering, aiming at that single spot
where the echo is able to give, in its own language, the reverberation of the work in the alien one.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'The intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, manifest; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'(...)a translation, instead of imitating the sense of the original, must lovingly and in detail
incorporate the original's way of meaning, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully.'
July 22, 2025
Este pequeño libro publicado por la excelente editorial independiente Buchwald posee dos ensayos a cargo del gran filósofo, teórico y ensayista Walter Benjamin.
El primero trata sobre la difícil tarea que llevan a cabo todos aquellos que se dedican a la traducción y en el que expone los distintos riesgos ante los que se exponen en cada trabajo.
El segnundo y más interesante es un lúcido ensayo sobre el insuperable Franz Kafka, de quien Benjamin idolatraba profundamnte (al igual que Canetti, Citati, Blanchot y tantos otros), escrito a diez años de la muerte del gigante checo, que se complementa y amplía en otra edición publicada anteriormente por Eterna Cadencia y que se llama “Sobre Kafka”. Este libro posee tan sólo 92 páginas, pero que sin dudas recomiendo leer.
El primero trata sobre la difícil tarea que llevan a cabo todos aquellos que se dedican a la traducción y en el que expone los distintos riesgos ante los que se exponen en cada trabajo.
El segnundo y más interesante es un lúcido ensayo sobre el insuperable Franz Kafka, de quien Benjamin idolatraba profundamnte (al igual que Canetti, Citati, Blanchot y tantos otros), escrito a diez años de la muerte del gigante checo, que se complementa y amplía en otra edición publicada anteriormente por Eterna Cadencia y que se llama “Sobre Kafka”. Este libro posee tan sólo 92 páginas, pero que sin dudas recomiendo leer.
October 4, 2025
I mean idk... Interesting ideas buttt I feel like Benjamin Walter was contradicting himself way too frequently for me to follow his "stream of consciousness".
December 10, 2023
Very cryptic, but ironic that the version I read was translated?
March 28, 2025
"No translation would be possible if in its ultimate essence it strove for likeness to the original"
Amazing, not life changing, but it was a whole experience for me.
I cannot agree more, and even if the style of writing was not of my liking, Benjamin's philosophy shines through beautifully. I might buy Illuminations: Essays and Reflections to gather more of his thinking, I think it might be one of the most creative approaches we can have nowadays, next to Marx.
This essay focuses on translation, but there are many ideas that pop; pure language, for instance, is one of the terms that I found most interesting. The influence of the kabbalah is obvious. I cannot help but agree on the presence of such language, unattainable and incomprehensible for us, but that is meant to be god-like, or at least that's what I gather as a religious person from the quote:
"If the nature of such a life or moment required that it be unforgotten, that predicate would not imply a falsehood but merely a claim not fulfilled by men, and probably also a reference to a realm in which it is fulfilled: God's remembrance. Analogously, the translatability of linguistic creations ought to be considered even if men should prove unable to translate them."
After reading, my opinion is all over the place, and I need to re-read quite some times to be able to provide a clear opinion or review.
I recommend it a lot, but it's not an easy read and it is quite easy to misinterpret. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with people that have studied Walter Benjamin and his corpus.
Amazing, not life changing, but it was a whole experience for me.
I cannot agree more, and even if the style of writing was not of my liking, Benjamin's philosophy shines through beautifully. I might buy Illuminations: Essays and Reflections to gather more of his thinking, I think it might be one of the most creative approaches we can have nowadays, next to Marx.
This essay focuses on translation, but there are many ideas that pop; pure language, for instance, is one of the terms that I found most interesting. The influence of the kabbalah is obvious. I cannot help but agree on the presence of such language, unattainable and incomprehensible for us, but that is meant to be god-like, or at least that's what I gather as a religious person from the quote:
"If the nature of such a life or moment required that it be unforgotten, that predicate would not imply a falsehood but merely a claim not fulfilled by men, and probably also a reference to a realm in which it is fulfilled: God's remembrance. Analogously, the translatability of linguistic creations ought to be considered even if men should prove unable to translate them."
After reading, my opinion is all over the place, and I need to re-read quite some times to be able to provide a clear opinion or review.
I recommend it a lot, but it's not an easy read and it is quite easy to misinterpret. I was lucky enough to be able to talk with people that have studied Walter Benjamin and his corpus.
February 12, 2019
"Just as a tangent touches a circle lightly and at but one point, with this touch rather than with the point setting the law according to which it is to continue on its straight path to infinity, a translation touches the original lightly and only at the infinitely small point of the sense, thereupon pursuing its own course according to the laws of fidelity in the freedom of linguistic flux."
April 10, 2021
Interesting essay on the goal and balance that goes in creating a translation. I love some of the concepts Benjamin exposed here, like treating translations as an independent literary form, just like poetry or prose.
November 21, 2023
how can an essay contradict itself so many times within 10 pages
November 5, 2022
Una mica difícil de llegir, molt en el seu estil.
October 4, 2023
amazing!! need to reread
December 5, 2023
Més apropet de jung del que potser li agradaria
November 25, 2025
Que nunca se te olvide llevar en el bolsillo un ejemplar de "La tarea del traductor"
January 11, 2026
"The Task of the Translator" (Paperback) by Walter Benjamin
Review: This is one of the most profound and difficult essays ever written on the nature of language. Originally published as an introduction to his translations of Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin’s "The Task of the Translator" (Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers) completely upends the traditional view that a translation’s goal is to be "faithful" to the original. For Benjamin, translation is not about communication; it is about the "afterlife" of a text and the search for a "pure language."
Why it’s a 4/5: Philosophical Transcendence 🕊️
The Concept of "Afterlife" (Überleben): Benjamin argues that a great work of art reaches its "afterlife" through translation. It isn't just a copy; it is a transformation that allows the original text to continue growing and evolving. This perspective gives immense dignity to the act of translating.
The Search for "Pure Language" (Reine Sprache): This is the most mystical and fascinating part of the essay. Benjamin suggests that all languages are fragments of a single, greater language. Translation is the attempt to put these fragments together, like pieces of a broken vessel, to glimpse that totality.
Liberating the Translator: He famously argues that a translator should not try to make the foreign text sound like it was written in the target language. Instead, the target language should be "shaken" and changed by the foreignness of the original. He values "literalness" over "meaning," which is a radical and refreshing take.
Density of Thought: Every sentence is an aphorism. It’s a text that demands to be read slowly, forcing the reader to rethink their entire relationship with words and meaning.
Why not a 5/5? 📉
Notorious Difficulty: Benjamin is famously opaque. His prose is more poetic and theological than it is "linguistic." If you are looking for a practical guide on how to translate, you will be disappointed. This is a metaphysical inquiry, and it can be incredibly frustrating to pin down his exact meaning.
Theological Overtones: For some modern readers, his reliance on quasi-mystical and kabbalistic concepts may feel a bit detached from the reality of language. It can feel more like a religious meditation than a scholarly essay.
Briefness: It is very short. While it is packed with power, it leaves the reader wanting a more expanded application of these theories to actual literature.
Conclusion:
The Task of the Translator is a transformative read. It takes translation out of the realm of "service work" and places it in the realm of high art and philosophy. While it is a 4/5 because of its dense, sometimes impenetrable style, its influence on literary theory is immeasurable. It is a "shaking of the foundations" for anyone who works with words.
Review: This is one of the most profound and difficult essays ever written on the nature of language. Originally published as an introduction to his translations of Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin’s "The Task of the Translator" (Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers) completely upends the traditional view that a translation’s goal is to be "faithful" to the original. For Benjamin, translation is not about communication; it is about the "afterlife" of a text and the search for a "pure language."
Why it’s a 4/5: Philosophical Transcendence 🕊️
The Concept of "Afterlife" (Überleben): Benjamin argues that a great work of art reaches its "afterlife" through translation. It isn't just a copy; it is a transformation that allows the original text to continue growing and evolving. This perspective gives immense dignity to the act of translating.
The Search for "Pure Language" (Reine Sprache): This is the most mystical and fascinating part of the essay. Benjamin suggests that all languages are fragments of a single, greater language. Translation is the attempt to put these fragments together, like pieces of a broken vessel, to glimpse that totality.
Liberating the Translator: He famously argues that a translator should not try to make the foreign text sound like it was written in the target language. Instead, the target language should be "shaken" and changed by the foreignness of the original. He values "literalness" over "meaning," which is a radical and refreshing take.
Density of Thought: Every sentence is an aphorism. It’s a text that demands to be read slowly, forcing the reader to rethink their entire relationship with words and meaning.
Why not a 5/5? 📉
Notorious Difficulty: Benjamin is famously opaque. His prose is more poetic and theological than it is "linguistic." If you are looking for a practical guide on how to translate, you will be disappointed. This is a metaphysical inquiry, and it can be incredibly frustrating to pin down his exact meaning.
Theological Overtones: For some modern readers, his reliance on quasi-mystical and kabbalistic concepts may feel a bit detached from the reality of language. It can feel more like a religious meditation than a scholarly essay.
Briefness: It is very short. While it is packed with power, it leaves the reader wanting a more expanded application of these theories to actual literature.
Conclusion:
The Task of the Translator is a transformative read. It takes translation out of the realm of "service work" and places it in the realm of high art and philosophy. While it is a 4/5 because of its dense, sometimes impenetrable style, its influence on literary theory is immeasurable. It is a "shaking of the foundations" for anyone who works with words.
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December 22, 2020Translatability is an inherent quality of those works that deserve translation. The translation, by virtue of coming after the work of art, uncovers the untimeliness of art, its immortality. The translation expresses the secret kinship of languages. Not by superficial accuracy - what is poetic in poetry is precisely that which escapes communication and therefore cannot be translated - but by writing the work again: the original is never displaced by the new, the made-up, the false, but is only ever expressed again again again. Translation does not make Hindi, Greek or English into German, but German into Hindi, Greek and English [cf. Pound] - it expresses the secret kinship of languages, as fragments of Pure Language, expresses a universality that does not yet exist. This may be
achieved, above all, by a literal rending of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator.
achieved, above all, by a literal rending of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the primary element of the translator.
March 4, 2024
El autor presenta ideas muy interesantes sobre el oficio del traductor, cuando se le logra entender lo que quiere decir; el problema es que siento que él se intenta meter tanto en su papel de "filósofo" de la traducción que se le olvida que otras personas deben entender sus ideas para que puedan tener algún tipo de validez. Si bien hay cosas que son interesantes y que ayudan a todo traductor a mejorar, no es un libro que recomendaría a no ser que se cuente con horas libres a lo largo de la semana que se puedan dedicar exclusivamente a repetir la lectura de cada página para intentar entender lo más mínimo de lo que dice el autor. No fui capaz de terminarlo porque me cansé de tener que retomar desde dos o tres páginas atrás para poder entender.
December 5, 2023
I love you Walter Benjamin, you make my degree sound so interesting, hope you rest in peace legend!
Excited to reference this essay in one of my essays for the semester about Korean Literature and World Literature - but Benjamin argues that translation is not a new beginning of text but a continuation which is just an eloquent way of putting it.
"A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully."
LOVE IT!
Excited to reference this essay in one of my essays for the semester about Korean Literature and World Literature - but Benjamin argues that translation is not a new beginning of text but a continuation which is just an eloquent way of putting it.
"A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully."
LOVE IT!
June 3, 2019
أصعب 9 صفحات قرأتها بحياتي. أخذت مني قراءتها ثلاث ساعات أو أكثر، أي بمعدل عشرين دقيقة للصفحة الواحدة. لن أزعم أني فهمتُها كلّها، فالكثير مما فيها قائمٌ على إشارات لتراث وأدب ماضٍ في نظرية الترجمة لم أطلع عليه ولا يمكنني فهمها بدونه. الهدف الأساسي للمقال بنظري، وهو مشهور جداً بين باحثي الترجمة، هو الترويج لمنافع الترجمة الحرفية وليس لمساوئها فقط. لا أظنّ أن من السهل نقل أي تفاصيل أخرى، فالمقالة هي عبارة عن تسلسلٍ طويل من الأفكار التجريدية صعبة الهضم التي لا تتخلّها أي أمثلة توضيحية.
August 1, 2024
Si compráis la edición de sequitur, contad con que pagáis por dos ensayos de Benjamin (bien) y dos artículos larguísimos que no aportan nada y que tuvieron que meter en el libro para que alguien los leyera.
Sobre Benjamin añadiré: muy idiosincrático. Si os interesan sus ideas mesiánicas aplicadas al lenguaje está bien y me parece una lectura que aporta mucho, pero estoy seguro de que no es lo que busca todo el mundo.
Sobre Benjamin añadiré: muy idiosincrático. Si os interesan sus ideas mesiánicas aplicadas al lenguaje está bien y me parece una lectura que aporta mucho, pero estoy seguro de que no es lo que busca todo el mundo.
September 4, 2024
translation is harmony w original, shards of "pure language"
translation is transparent, allows original + "pure language" to shine through
my favorite simile - "translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds"
translation teaches you about your own language, forces you to mess around in it
moved by the time scale of language changing so much - as it has - that translation is like philosophy, seeking truth or at least something bigger than people/authors
translation is transparent, allows original + "pure language" to shine through
my favorite simile - "translation envelops its content like a royal robe with ample folds"
translation teaches you about your own language, forces you to mess around in it
moved by the time scale of language changing so much - as it has - that translation is like philosophy, seeking truth or at least something bigger than people/authors
June 2, 2025
Si yo hubiese sido Walter Benjamin, hubiese vivido como él.
“To set free in his own language the pure language spellbound in the foreign language, to liberate the language imprisoned in the work by rewriting it, is the translator's task.”
“To set free in his own language the pure language spellbound in the foreign language, to liberate the language imprisoned in the work by rewriting it, is the translator's task.”
July 5, 2025
3.5
I appreciate the core idea of this short yet dense essay, as well as some of its explanations. However, Benjamin's treatment of languages as abstract, ungrounded entities adopts a Romantic view that weakens his analytic movements.
I appreciate the core idea of this short yet dense essay, as well as some of its explanations. However, Benjamin's treatment of languages as abstract, ungrounded entities adopts a Romantic view that weakens his analytic movements.
August 29, 2018
• from Walter Benjamin's Illuminations (1968)
• Writing the Essay II: Poetry of Resistance | Fall 2018 | The New School
• Writing the Essay II: Poetry of Resistance | Fall 2018 | The New School
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May 3, 2023una vez más empiezo sabiendo y luego no entiendo nada
June 7, 2023
I don't really know what to write here, but I enjoyed this read 😂
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June 11, 2023it’s so over
October 14, 2023
C'est une très belle réflexion sur la tâche du traducteur.
August 19, 2025
It makes excellent points.
Docked a star because I really disagree with one of the points. 🙈
Docked a star because I really disagree with one of the points. 🙈
August 16, 2022
El ensayo que da título a este libro es, en mi humilde opinión, lectura obligatoria para todo interesado en aquello que constituye el arte de traducir. Aunque pueda resultar algo complejo en un inicio absorber todo lo que presenta Benjamin, los demás ensayos contenidos en este tomo ayudarán al lector astuto a comprender la totalidad de la obra.
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