Revisiting Schleiermacher on Translation: Musings on a Hermeneutical Mandate

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine Friedrich Schleiermacher’s celebrated 1813 treatise “Ueber die verschiedenen Methoden des Uebersetzens,” first, within its own context and aims and, second, in light of its mandate and implications for the wider activity of cultural and historical transmission of meaning. His rationale for emphasizing the original meaning of texts is not entirely self-evident and appears to lead to the peril of archaizing or foreignizing, thus impeding, rather than enhancing, present-day understandings of the past. This paper defends Schleiermacher’s choice as reflecting his wider body of hermeneutical and historical understanding, including elements of his teaching about the non-eliminability of the individual subject.