What is a perfect translation?

incl. ref.

Perfection in translation was simply out of the question in the old days. The old saying on the dichotomy between the faithful and the beautiful, facetious as it might sound, actually hit the nail on the head. With the concept of loyalty hitched to a word-for-word equivalence, there was a tyranny of words. No translation could possibly be both stylisticly desirable and "faithful." The principle of equivalent effect has broken that tyranny and made it possible to pursue perfection in translation. The ultimate criterion of loyalty proper, as it is understood now, does not rely on the equivalence of words, but on the equivalence of effect. The TL text has to be stylisticly as desirable to the TL reader as the SL text to its reader, while carrying the spirit and contents as closely as possible. That which was impossible when the words were immutable has become a meaningful objective, though still very hard to achieve. The establishment of a hard-to-achieve objective may sound exacting and "prescriptive," but in fact the essence of the new approach is an emancipation of the shackled talents of the translator. One is now free to utilize all the rich potential of one's own language (the TL, usually). It is indeed a challenge to one's talent and command of linguistic resources. In order to come to a relatively satisfactory result, a fine personal taste is essential. But in all cases it takes an intensive exertion of one's capabilities, with a rigorous demand on oneself, before one can produce a work which appears effortless enough to be appreciated by one's readers, usually with an element of lenient "openmindedness."