Understanding the Myths about Translation

 Walter Benjamin: Myths About Translation 

Walter Benjamin, in “The Task of the Translator” (1923), challenges several traditional beliefs about translation. He argues that translation is not a mechanical reproduction but a creative and philosophical act that gives a text new life. Benjamin exposes the following myths:

1️⃣ Myth: Translation is “Word-for-Word” Transfer

•Misconception:

A translator should translate each word directly and literally into the target language.

•Benjamin’s Response:

Word-for-word translation destroys meaning, rhythm, and spirit.

Languages have different structures, idioms, and cultural contexts, so literal mapping is impossible.

Translation must focus on the intent, tone, and deeper meaning, not only words.

The translator should recreate the text with sensitivity to both languages.

Therefore, translation is interpretive, not mechanical.

2️⃣ Myth: A Good Translation is Always Literal

•Misconception:

Literalness = accuracy = good translation.

•Benjamin’s Response:

Literal correctness can still fail to express the inner truth of a text.

The goal is not strict accuracy but the revelation of what Benjamin calls “pure language”, a deeper essence or spiritual meaning shared by languages.

Literalness may remove poetry, emotional nuance, and cultural resonance.

Sometimes, breaking natural grammar of the target language is necessary to preserve foreignness — but this is not the same as literalism.

A good translation is faithful to spirit, not necessarily to form.

3️⃣ Myth: Translators Are Neutral, Invisible, and Without Agency

•Misconception:

The translator must be objective, invisible, and should not interfere.

•Benjamin’s Response:

A translator is an artist and interpreter, not a passive tool.

Their choices, voice, and creativity shape the translation.

Every translation reflects the translator’s cultural context, language knowledge, and worldview.

Thus, translators are co-creators, not neutral machines.

Translation is a participative act, not a neutral one.

4️⃣ Myth: Translation is Less Important than the Original

•Misconception:

Original texts are superior; translations are secondary, inferior copies.

•Benjamin’s Response:

Translations give the original “afterlife” by enabling it to survive across cultures and time.

Each translation opens new meanings that even the original may not reveal to its first readers.

Translation helps the original text evolve, thus achieving a status equal to the original.

Translation is not lower than the original — it is a continuation and renewal.

5️⃣ Myth: Translation Can Achieve Perfect Equivalence

•Misconception:

A perfect translation is possible if one tries hard enough.

•Benjamin’s Response:

No translation can fully capture all meanings of the source text — cultural, symbolic, emotional.

There is always some untranslatability — puns, metaphors, spiritual meanings, historical context.

The aim of translation is not perfection but approximation and connection between languages.

Translation seeks closeness, not perfection.

6️⃣ Myth: Translation is a One-Time Process

•Misconception:

Once translated, the work is finished forever.

•Benjamin’s Response:

A text can and should be translated again and again as languages, cultures, and time evolve.

Every era requires a new translation to match new readers.

Multiple translations create a richer understanding of the original.

Translation is a continuous, historical process — never final.

7️⃣ Myth: Translation Should Make the Text Completely Familiar

•Misconception:

A translation should feel natural, easy, and like it was originally written in the target language.

•Benjamin’s Response:

Over-simplifying the text removes its foreignness, which is an important part of its identity.

A good translation should preserve the strangeness and originality of the source culture.

Making everything domestic and familiar betrays the spirit of the original.

Translation should maintain a balance: understandable but not stripped of its cultural uniqueness.

•Conclusion 

Walter Benjamin rejects common myths of translation by arguing that translation is not a literal, neutral, or inferior activity. Instead, it is a creative, evolving, philosophical partnership between languages. Its goal is not to copy the original perfectly, but to extend its life, reveal its deeper essence, and bring the reader closer to the concept of pure language — the shared spiritual core of human expression.

✍ Inshort:

“Benjamin transforms translation from a mechanical act into a metaphysical journey, where meaning is not transferred but reborn.”