道格拉斯·鲁宾逊(Douglas Robinson)是一位多产的翻译理论家，他的学术观点新颖，文字犀利，在译学问题上常有别出心裁的论述。本书为其*具代表性的作品之一，也是西方翻译史研究乃至整个西方翻译研究领域迄今引用*频繁的作品之一。可以说，在涉及20世纪之前的西方翻译理论文献研究方面，无论从书的篇幅和内容覆盖面，还是从历史跨度和所涉人物范围，这部作品都称得上是相关领域里迄今*为完整、*有参考价值的英语读本。

Editor's Preface
Herodotus
The Twittering of Birds
From Istoria, Book Two (mid-5th century B.C.E.)
The Origin of the Class of Egyptian Interpreters
From lstoria, Book Two (mid-5th century B.C.E.)
Anonymous ('Aristeas')
The Work of the SevenS-Two
From Aristeas to Philocrates (around 130 B.C.E.)
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Translating Greek Orations into Latin
From De oratore (55 B.C.E.)
The Best Kind of Orator (46 B.C.E.)
Translating Greek Philosophy into Latin
From De finibus bonorum et malorum (45-44 B.C.E.)
Philo Judaeus
The Creation of the Septuagint
From De vita Mosis (20 B.C.E.?)
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Imitating in Your Own Words
From Ars Poetica (20 B.C.E.?)
Paul of Tarsus
Rather Five Words with the Mind Than Ten Thousand in a Tongue
1 Corinthians 14 (55 C.E.?)
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What Is
From Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, letter 58 (63-65 C.E.)
Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus)
mitation of the Best Models
Letter to Fuscus Salinator (85 C.E.?)
Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus)
On What We Should Employ Ourselves When We Write
From lnstitutio oratoria (96 C.E.?)
Aulus Gellius
On the Importance of Avoiding Strict Literalness
From Noctes Atticae (100 C.E.?)
Epiphanius of Constantia (Salamis)
Producing an Unadulterated Translation
From De mensuris et ponderibus (392)
Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus)
The Best Kind of Translator
Letter to Pammachius (395)
Who Was The First Lying Author?
From Praefatio in Pentateuchem (401 )
Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus)
The Use of Translations
From De doctrina Christiana (428)
C. Chirius Fortunatianus
Translation as 'Exercitatio'
From the Artis rhetoricae scholicae (5th century)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
Committing the Fault of the True Interpreter
From In Isagoge Porphyrii Commenta (510?)
Gregory the Great
Giving the Sense
From Letter to Aristobulus (590/91)
Mangling the Sense
From Letter to Narses (597/98)
John Scotus Eriugena
Translator, Not Expositor
From Prologue to Translation of De caelesti hierarchia by
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (mid-9th century)
King Alfred
Translating Plainly and Clearly
Preface to Translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy (887?)
Translating Books Which Are Most Necessary For All Men to Know
Letter to Bishop Waerferth (890/97)
Aelfric
Translating into Our Ordinary Speech
From Preface to Book I of Catholic Homilies (989)
Pure and Plain Words
Preface to Book II of Catholic Homilies (992)
Translating into Idiomatic English
Preface to Genesis (997?)
Notker the German
Letter to Bishop Hugo yon Sitten (1015)
Burgundio of Pisa
The Risk of Altering So Great an Original
Preface to Latin Translation of St. John Chrysostom,
Homilies on the Gospel of John (early 1170s)
Anonymous
The Three Kinds of Translating
From Commentary on Boethius' De arithmetica (12th century)
Thomas Aquinas
Proem
From Contra errores Graecorum (1263?)
Roger Bacon
On the Usefulness of Grammar
From Opus Maius (1268?)
Jean de Meun
Translating for Lay People
From Prologue to Roman de la Rose (c. 1280)
Plainly Rendering the Sense
From Dedication to .Translation of Boethius' Li Livres de Confort de Philosophie
(between 1285 and 1305)
Dante Alighieri
Translation Destroys the Sweetness of the Original
From II convivio (1304-7)
Anonymous
Another Meaning
From Ovide moralise(early 14th century)
Richard Rolle
Following the Letter
Prologue to English Translation of the Psalter (1330s)
John of Trevisa
Dialogue Between a Lord and a Clerk upon Translation (1387)
Coluccio Salutati
Letter to Antonio Loschi (1392)
Anonymous (John Purvey?)
On Translating the Bible (1395/97)
Leonardo Bruni
On the Correct Way to Translate (1424/26)
Duarte (Edward, King of Portugal)
The Art of Translating from Latin
From O Leal Conselheiro (1430s)
William Caxton
Prologue to Aeneid (1490)
Desiderius Erasmus
Letter to Nicholas Ruistre (1503)
Letter to William Warham (1506)
Letter to William Warham (1507)
Letter to Maarten Lips (1518)
Thomas More
Whether the Clergy of This Realm Have Forbidden All the People to Have
Any Scripture Translated into Our Tongue
From A Dialogue Concerning Heresies and Matters of Religion (1529)
Martin Luther
Circular Letter on Translation (1530)
William Tyndale
How Happeneth That Ye Defenders Translate Not One Yourselves?
From An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (1531 )
Juan Luis Vives
Practice in Writing
From De Tradendis Disciplinis ( 1531 )
Translation and Interpretation
From De ratione dicendi (1533)
Etienne Dolet
The Way to Translate Well from One Language into Another (1540)
Elizabeth Tudor
Letter to Catherine Parr
Preface to Her Translation of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, 'The Glasse of the
Synnefull Soule' (1544)
The Study of a Woman
From Preface to Her Translation of Queen Marguerite of Navarre, A godly
Medytacyon of the christen Sowle (1548)
Mikael Agricola
Preface to the New Testament (1548)
Joachim du Bellay
The Defense and Illustration of the French Language (1549)
Anna Cooke
The Study of Italian Justified
From Preface to Her Translation of Bernadine Ochine, Fouretene sermons (1550?)
Jacques Peletier du Mans
Of Translation
From L'art poetique (1555)
Roger Ascham
The Ready Way to the Latin Tongue
From The Schoolmaster (1570)
Etienne Pasquier
Letter to Jacques Cujas (1576)
Letter to Odet de Tournebus (1576)
Margaret Tyler
M.T. to the Reader
Preface to Her Translation of Diego Ortunez de Calahorra, A Mirrour
of Princely Deedes and Knighthood (1578)
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
We Call Barbarous Anything That is Contrary to Our Own Habits
From 'Des cannibales' (1580)
Gregory Martin
Five Sundry Abuses or Corruptions of Holy Scripture
From the Preface to A Discovery of the Manifold Corruptions of the
Holy Scriptures... (1582)
The Holy Scriptures Ought Not be Read Indifferently of All
From 'The Preface to the Reader', The New Testament of Jesus Christ (1582)
William Fulke
That None of These Five Abuses are Committed by Us
From the Preface to A Defence of the Sincere and True Translations
of the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue, Against the Cavils
of Gregory Martin (1583)
The Holy Scriptures Should Always Be in Our Mother Tongue
From 'Confutation of the Rhemists' Preface', Confutation of the Rhemist
Testament (1589)
John Florio
The Epistle Dedicatory
Preface to Translation of Montaigne's Essays (1603)
To the Courteous Reader
Preface to Translation of Montaigne's Essays (1603)
George Chapman
The Preface to the Reader
From His Translation of the Iliad (1611)
Miles Smith
The Translators to the Reader
Preface to the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611)
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Viewing Flemish Tapestries from the Wrong Side
From Don Quixote, Part II (1615)
Jean Chapelain
To the Reader
Preface to Le Gueux, ou la vie de Guzmdn d'Alfarache (1619-20)
Joseph Webbe
Perceiving the Custom of the Ancients
From An Appeal to Truth, Concerning Art and Use (1622)
Suzanne du Vegerre
The Author's Epistle to the READER
Preface to Her Translation of John Peter Camus, Admirable Events (1639)
John Denham
"To Sir Richard Fanshaw upon His Translation of Pastor Fido" (1648)
Preface to The Destruction of Troy (1656)
Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt
To Monsieur Conrart
Dedication of French Translation of Lucian (1654)
Adjusting Things to Accommodate the Subject
From Preface to French Translation of Thucydides (1662)
Abraham Cowley
Preface to Pindarique Odes (1656)
Pierre Daniel Huet
Concerning the Best Kind of Translation
From De optimo genere interpretandi (1661)
Katherine Philips
Translating Pompey
From Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus (1705)
John Dryden
The Three Types of Translation
From 'Preface' to Ovid's Epistles (1680)
Steering Betwixt Two Extremes
From 'Dedication of the Aeneis' (1697)
Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon
An Essay on Translated Verse (1684)
Aphra Behn
Translating French into English
From 'An Essay on Translated Prose' (1688)
Recasting, Not Translating
From Fontenelle's 'Preface to the History of Oracles' (1688)
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Enriching the German Language
From Unvorgreifliche Gedanken, betreffend die Ausubung und Verbesserung
der deutschen Sprache (1697)
Anne Dacier
My Condemnation
From Preface to Translation of L'lliade d'Homere (1699)
Joseph Addison
National Accents
Spectator no. 29 (1711)
Alexander Pope
The Chief Characteristic of Translation
From Preface to the Iliad (1715)
Charles Batteux
Principles of Translation
From Principes de litt~rature (1747-48)
Elizabeth Carter
Translating Epictetus
From Her Correspondence with Catherine Talbot and Thomas Secker(1749-57)
Samuel Johnson
The Art of Translation
The Idler 68/69 (1759)
Translating Homer
From 'Life of Pope' (1779-81)
Johann Gottfried Herder
The Ideal Translator as Morning Star
From Uber die neuere Deutschen Litteratur: Fragmente, (1766-67)
Language as Maiden
From Uber die neuere Deutschen Litteratur: Fragmente, rev. ed. (1768)
Alexander Frazer Tytler
The Proper Task of a Translator
From Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791)
Novalis (Friedrich Leopold, Baron von Hardenberg)
Translating Out of Poetic Morality
From a Letter to A. W. Schlegel (1797)
Grammatical, Transformative, and Mythic Translations
From Blutenstaub (1798)
August Wilhelm von Schlegel
Noble Rust
From Dante - Uber die GOttliche Kom6die ( 1791)
At Once Faithful and Poetic
From 'Etwas tiber Wilhelm Shakespeare bei Gelegenheit Wilhelm
Meisters' (1796)
Poetic Translation an Imperfect Approximation
From 'Homers Werke von Johann Heinrich Voss' (1796)
Projecting Oneself into Foreign Mentalities
From Geschichte der klassischen Literatur (1802)
The Speaking Voice of the Civilized World
From Geschichte der romantischen Literatur (1803)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Prose Translations
From Dichtung und Wahrheit ( 1811 - 14)
The Two Maxims
From Rede zum Andenken des edlen Diehters, Bruders und Freundes
Wieland (1813)
Translations
From West-Ostlicher Divan (1819)
The Translator as Matchmaker
From Maximen und Reflexionen (1826)
On Carlyle's German Romance (1828)
Friedrich Schleiermacher
On the Different Methods of Translating (1813)
Wilhelm yon Humboldt
The More Faithful, The More Divergent
From the Introduction to His Translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (1816)
Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, baronne de Stael-Holstein
On the Spirit of Translations (1816)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Violet and the Crucible
From A Defenee of Poetry (1821 )
Arthur Schopenhauer
On Language and Words
From Parerga und Paralipomena ( 1851)
Edward FitzGerald
Letter to E. B. Cowell (1859)
Letter to J. R. Lowell (1878)
Matthew Arnold
The Translator's Tribunal
From On Translating Homer (1861)
Francis W. Newman
The Unlearned Public is the Rightful Judge of Taste
From Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice (1861)
Richard E Burton
Clothing the Skeleton
From Preface to Translation of Vikram and the Vampire (1870)
A Plain and Literal Translation
From Introduction to The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night (1885)
Robert Browning
Literal at Every Cost
From Preface to Translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon (1877)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation as Conquest
From Die frohliche Wissenschaft (1882)
Translating the Tempo of the Original
From Jenseits Gutes und Boses (1886)
Biographies
Further Reading
References
Name Index
Subject Index
Title Inde