Any literary translation is a compromise between two goals that cannot be entirely reconciled: faithfulness to the me...

Ben on December 12, 2019

Hi Tomgbean, thanks for the question!

This argument can be broken down as follows:

Translations must compromise between faithfulness to the author's meaning and faithfulness to the author's style. It is impossible to have both. Therefore, even the best translation is a flawed representation of an original work.

We need to supply a principle that strengthens this. The idea is that our reasoning is we cannot have both faithfulness to meaning and to style. And due to this, even the best translation is flawed.

Answer choice D provides exactly that by making explicit the rule that if we cannot have both faithfulness to meaning and to style, then even the best translation must be flawed.

Answer choice B reverses this. Telling us what must be the case if a translation is flawed. But we are trying to justify what makes a translation flawed.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

on December 14, 2019

Thanks Ben!

Ravi on January 14, 2020

@tomgbean, let us know if you have any other questions!