Translators and Their Tasks: On the Relationship Between Translation Theory and Practice in Franz Rosenzweig and Walter Benjamin

A year apart, Walter Benjamin and Franz Rosenzweig each published a
volume of translated poems and included short but pivotal essays on translation
theory. The first is Benjamin's »Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers« (The Task of the Translator,
1923), which appeared as a foreword to his translation of a selection of Charles
Baudelaire's poems. The second is Rosenzweig's afterword to his translation of 92
hymns and poems by Jehuda Halevi (1924). This article seeks to examine the ways
in which the theories presented in these two essays stand in relation to the translations
in the respective volumes. Through close readings of two translated poems -
Rosenzweig's »Die Liebenden« (The Lovers), and Benjamin's »Einer Dame« (For a
Lady) - this article traces how the translators reflected, neglected or modified their
concepts in their translations and what this in turn reveals about their respective
approaches to language.