DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0017
PREFACE
IX
Mr. Symonds has pointed out that to reproduce
Cellini fairly taxes all the resources of the English lan-
guage. Since the writer's regard lor grammar is as
picturesquely reckless as are his deeds of valour, it is
well-nigh impossible to give the delicate force, even by
an entire sentence, that the writer conveys in a single
word: harder still is it to translate into another tongue
the rapid transition of thought, pictured by sudden
changes in grammatical construction, which frequently
occurs several times in the same sentence. Mr. Symonds,
therefore, took the liberty to paraphrase, in his own
inimitable style, where and how he thought fit: with
magnificent results as a piece of fine English writing.
To attempt therefore another version of Cellini's
Memoirs in the form of an essay in elegant, or even
English would seem mere waste
of time. Hence the object principally aimed at has
been to make the English text reproduce as far as
possible the Italian Nevertheless, as it would
be manifestly impossible to reproduce the worse-than-
slip-shod grammar, the mis-spelling and the peculiar
jargon characteristic of—shall we say?—a half-educated
cockney—one of those brilliantly witty geniuses, whose
rapid translation of ideas into picturesque and weirdly
expressive phrase is totally untrammelled by any tyran-
nical laws of orthography—into any language other
than his own, so it frequently baffles all one's ingenuity
to reproduce Cellini's style and mode of expression in
another tongue with anything but a very distant sem-
IX
Mr. Symonds has pointed out that to reproduce
Cellini fairly taxes all the resources of the English lan-
guage. Since the writer's regard lor grammar is as
picturesquely reckless as are his deeds of valour, it is
well-nigh impossible to give the delicate force, even by
an entire sentence, that the writer conveys in a single
word: harder still is it to translate into another tongue
the rapid transition of thought, pictured by sudden
changes in grammatical construction, which frequently
occurs several times in the same sentence. Mr. Symonds,
therefore, took the liberty to paraphrase, in his own
inimitable style, where and how he thought fit: with
magnificent results as a piece of fine English writing.
To attempt therefore another version of Cellini's
Memoirs in the form of an essay in elegant, or even
English would seem mere waste
of time. Hence the object principally aimed at has
been to make the English text reproduce as far as
possible the Italian Nevertheless, as it would
be manifestly impossible to reproduce the worse-than-
slip-shod grammar, the mis-spelling and the peculiar
jargon characteristic of—shall we say?—a half-educated
cockney—one of those brilliantly witty geniuses, whose
rapid translation of ideas into picturesque and weirdly
expressive phrase is totally untrammelled by any tyran-
nical laws of orthography—into any language other
than his own, so it frequently baffles all one's ingenuity
to reproduce Cellini's style and mode of expression in
another tongue with anything but a very distant sem-