Sunday, August 24, 2008

Introduction

Back in the day, about two years ago, I decided to create (form? produce? invent? fashion) a translation of Rashi's commentary online, in which I would translate each comment of Rashi, focussing on its literary qualities, and I would open up the blog-comments to reactions and suggestions from readers.

I received the following "letter of reccomendation" (הסכמה) in a comment from Avi Shmidman:
I'd like to throw my full support behind [Gabriel Wasserman]'s current endeavor. As we all know, translation is not a mechanical process, but rather a process of understanding and recreation, both in terms of form and content. (For one the most introspective and entertaining treatments of this issue, see Le Ton Beau De Marot by D. Hofstadter).

The primary gain of this endeavor is, of course, for MG, who will be forced to personally grapple with every Rashi in the book of Isaiah. Just perusing or reading Rashi does not force one to commit to a full understanding of the text as does the formation of a translation; therefore, when [Gabriel] has finished, he will have achieved a remarkable understanding of the text of Rashi on Isaiah, something which will serve him in all his future writing.


Beyond this, however, we should also consider issue of form. Rashi's linguistic style has been famously analyzed for its precision, its concision, and its adherence to Rabbinic stylistic structures (see for instance Hazan's article in the Bar Ilan volume entitled 'Iyunei Rashi', or Fraenkel's doctorate regarding the stylistics of Rashi's commentary on Talmud). Yet, the existing translations tend to eschew those principles in favor of content-based analyses. Thus, what we have here is an opportunity for everybody's favority language maven to set to the task of translating Rashi not only for his content, but also for his form, applying the stylistic characteristics of the original in adaptation to English. (On the question of translation of form see Hofstadter at length, and also see Alter's translation of the Bible).

In fact, such a translation endeavor will naturally extend its breadth to the full readership of the blog, as we use the comments forum to debate the most ideal fashion in which Rashi's form can be adapted into the English language, finding the most concise way in which to present Rashi's precise point.

Finally, since [Gabriel] will be enhancing his own understanding of Rashi's methods and style as he moves along, I sincerely hope that he will soon begin appending editorial notes to his translations, commenting on Rashi's motivations for his phraseology and his conclusions, and for his midrashic selection. For this [Gabriel] can certainly apply the extensive published research of Rashi's methods, from Siftei Hachamim to Sara Kamin, and then he can move beyond to develop some methods of his own. And once again, I think that this will turn the blog from a purely informative translation into a den of dynamic discussion. This last stage may have to wait a few months, until MG builds up his momemtum. But I do hope that it will soon take off, propelling Rashi's commentary full-force into the blogosphere.

The project never got off the ground, because I abandoned it after a few days. However, I would like to resume the project now. I shall copy my old translations of the first few comments of Rashi, and then I shall proceed onward to the further comments.

Welcome to my blog, the virtual home of today's online Literary Rashi Project!