Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Which Translation of Don Quixote is the Best? (Ranking 9 Translations of Cervantes) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-07-02 14:28:01
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
haven't archived this post yet. have a subscription? use the importer!

Content

Don Quixote by Cervantes is one of the most translated books in literary history.

There are currently 25 translations into English, which begs the question:

Which translation is best?

It is important to choose a good translation of this endlessly influential work. It's the difference between abandoning it forever and falling deeply in love with the knight errant and his squire.

The first translation I ever read of Don Quixote was by Motteux (1700), easily one of the worst, and it almost destroyed my favourite book, one I lovingly and frequently reread.

Luckily I attempted to read Don Quixote again with the John Rutherford (2000) translation and I was smitten. 

I rarely laugh when reading books, but Rutherford rendered the humour so exquisitely that I belly-laughed every couple of pages. 

My next translation was by Edith Grossman (2003), who I’m told is the closest to the original and whom I can attest to rendering the humour well. 

I am personally torn between these two by find myself leaning more towards the Grossman translation, slightly, than the Rutherford.

Today we’re going to look at 9 different translations so you can see just how varied they are. 

We will compare the same scene in each instance - the scene in which Don Quixote is titling, or jousting, at windmills early on in the novel, apparently believing them to be giants.

Translations for this Cervantes Taste-Test: 

We have a wonderful mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly here.

Make yourself a nice drink.

Relax with a pen and paper.

And get ready to create your own personal rankings of the different translations of Don Quixote.

Video Timestamps:

  • 0:00 the influence of Cervantes
  • 1:00 does translation matter?
  • 2:00 the worst translation I ever read
  • 2:18 my personal favourite translations
  • 3:00 the titling at windmills scene 
  • 3:00 the nine translations on offer today
  • 4:20 relax, make a drink, grab a pen and paper
  • 5:00 Motteux translation
  • 8:40 Rutherford translation
  • 11:30 Edith Grossman translation
  • 14:00 John Ormsby translation
  • 15:50 Tobias Smollett translation
  • 17:30 Thomas Shelton translation
  • 18:20 Samuel Putnam translation
  • 19:00 John Phillips translation 
  • 22:00 mystery translation 
  • 25:00 share your personal ranking 

Happy jousting, ladies, knights, and squires!

Files

Previews only

Which Translation of Don Quixote is the Best? (Ranking 9 Translations of Cervantes)

📚 Read Don Quixote with Hardcore Literature: https://www.patreon.com/hardcoreliterature/about ———————————— 🎙️ https://open.spotify.com/show/70IZA24... (Subscribe to the Hardcore Literature Podcast on iTunes & Spotify) 🏫 https://hardcore-university.teachable... (Hardcore University, Exam Preparation Courses) ✍🏼 https://benjaminmcevoy.com My Personal Website ———————————— Hardcore Literature Lecture Series ———————————— 📔Contents Page: https://cutt.ly/CmNhRY3 🎖️ War and Peace: https://cutt.ly/U3nzGma 🎭 Shakespeare Project: https://cutt.ly/B3nxHH7 🐳 Moby Dick: https://cutt.ly/K3nzVKf ☄️ Blood Meridian: https://cutt.ly/P3nz6Qp 🍂 Wuthering Heights: https://cutt.ly/N3nxxYt 🇮🇪 Ulysses: https://cutt.ly/x3nxQmN 🚂 Anna Karenina: https://cutt.ly/vmNhAWv 💀 Crime and Punishment: https://cutt.ly/rmNhFt5 ⚓ Persuasion: https://cutt.ly/amNhX7b ☕ In Search of Lost Time: https://cutt.ly/5mNh8oD ⚔️ The Hero’s Journey: https://cutt.ly/UmNjrE3 🌸 Siddharta: https://cutt.ly/YmNjuzi 🎠 Don Quixote: https://cutt.ly/cmNjoK4 ❤️Shakespeare’s Sonnets: https://cutt.ly/nmNlW7V 🇫🇷 Les Misérables: https://cutt.ly/J3YixoA 🕯️ The Turn of the Screw: https://cutt.ly/nToAQQ3 🖋️ Dickens Seasonal Read: https://cutt.ly/9ToAybt 📖 Middlemarch Serial Reading: https://tinyurl.com/45rv965c ———————————— Happy reading! 0:00 the influence of Cervantes 1:00 does translation matter? 2:00 the worst translation I ever read 2:18 my personal favourite translations 3:00 the titling at windmills scene 3:00 the nine translations on offer today 4:20 relax, make a drink, grab a pen and paper 5:00 Motteux translation 8:40 Rutherford translation 11:30 Edith Grossman translation 14:00 John Ormsby translation 15:50 Tobias Smollett translation 17:30 Thomas Shelton translation 18:20 Samuel Putnam translation 19:00 John Phillips translation 22:00 mystery translation 25:00 share your personal ranking

Comments

Tamera Cameron

I think Rutherford is the translation I prefer. I'm so excited to start this read after a finish up with The Brothers Karamazov.

Kate Araya

I’m very late to this thread but I have to say that your translation guides are one of my favorite parts of HCBC. Exactly for the reason you’ve stated: I want to love the book and want to remove anything that would stand in the way of doing that. I love War & Peace and love and appreciate both Maude and Briggs, but Cervantes would be on a whole other level of first impressions as language is foundational to “getting the joke”.

Arianna

Nobody brought up Tom Lathrop’s translation … I hear good things about that one.

Jaime

I plan to read Don Quixote instead of Three Musketeers (between Iliad and Odyssey). I will return to the quartre amis at a later date. I will go with Grossman. Later, I must read it in Spanish. Is there a special edition for a modern take on Quixote in Spanish?

Dylan D. Erwin

Grossman was my go-to translation. My time with Madame Bovary showed me how much a bad translation can ruin a classic. My favorite thing about Grossman is how she’s somehow able to make it feel both classic and modern at the same time. As you suggested, it makes a 1,000 page behemoth feel like a novella—you never want it to end!

Daisy

I am hoping to read Don Quixote in serial form this year. I have the Edith Grossman translation ready and waiting.

Len Larsson

Outstanding work Ben. I choose Rutherford followed very closely by Grossman, tied with Smollett,& Putnam, then Ormsby. Motteux & Phillips last. I'm really looking forward to this big read. If you every think you're screaming into the void, fear not Sir Knight - for if we are quiet it is likely because we are in contemplation. No windmills here ...

Caroline P

Excellent… I have been waiting for this. I have the Grossman edition but I definitely liked the Rutherford one best. For example…I liked ‘wipe such a wicked breed from the face of the earth’ better than ‘so evil a breed….’. It doesn’t sound much but I think I could feel 1970/1980 sit com in the Rutherford one. The older translations didn’t charm me at all and I found it hard to rank them but I did have to giggle at the word ‘ninny’. That is a very funny word that used to be more commonly used..I can remember my mum saying it and I can see a slightly laughing, eye roll face saying it. I am hugely looking forward to reading this. I am however a little torn because I am reading Proust slowly and just can not manage two books on the go at once. Call me a ninny but it is because I lose my immersed feeling and feel a little guilty to book no. 1. I have lots of reading time and feel I might be able to get to Don Quixote in a timely manner. Thank you for such a thoughtful video, as always. I do appreciate the time it takes to make these. Ps I will now have to buy the Rutherford version…(it does have a very lovely cover)

Jetzabel Peniche

Thank you for this video. For me, I liked Grossman because the language and the scene were more clear and it flowed perfectly for me. Rutherford was also an excellent choice but I like Grossman better, The other versions were too difficult to follow and I am horrible when it comes to that type of writing,

John Starliper

Very interesting. I, too, found the Grossman translation the most pleasing to my ears, followed by Smollett. But I wonder if there is some recency bias at play. As the most recent translation, does it just naturally appeal more to our modern taste? Will it still hold the same allure in two hundred years? These are the questions that are percolating in my mind as I listen to the different translations…..

hardcoreliterature
>>63025232

Thank you, Len. Great ranking! And thanks for the hearty encouragement :) Don Quixote might just be the book I'm most excited about on the schedule - which says something because I've been excited for all of them!

hardcoreliterature
>>63027894

Thank you, Caroline. I think I'm naturally drawn to the Rutherford first too, but that Grossman translation in Vintage is wonderful with its annotations and introduction. Ah, 1970/80s sitcom is a very nice comparison. I also found myself laughing at "ninny" and "fool", and can't help but think a little of Monty Python. I completely relate with wanting to immerse with one book at a time. I was deeply struck by something a great friend of mine said about books like In Search of Lost Time and Les Misérables - he said these are books one must be monogamous with. I couldn't agree more - give your whole self to these huge works and the rewards are there for the reaping :) And I do love the painting on the Rutherford cover too. I would like to get a print framed!

hardcoreliterature
>>63030390

Thank you, Jetzabel. And very nice choice :) I agree with you 100%. I gave up on the old translations myself, thinking they were basically unreadable!

hardcoreliterature
>>63050466

Thank you for weighing in, John. Wonderful to hear you enjoy Smollett too :) Very interesting idea about recency bias, and I think you're right. I'm sure some of the books we enjoy today will sound quite archaic, and may even be unreadable, in a few hundred years too!

Caroline P

I was listening to the audio podcast about translation today and you ask if anyone is interested in more about translation. I couldn’t answer there so I am adding it here…yes definitely would be interested. A french speaking friend put me off translated books for ages because she ranted about how inaccurately it is done usually. I am beginning to think though, that it isn’t word for word accuracy that is the issue. Having read lots of translated literature recently I have begin to appreciate the enormous job a translater takes on. One of my favourite translations lately has been The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson. Somehow that translation just worked for me and I have come to love that story, which I haven’t enjoyed before.

hardcoreliterature
>>63673380

Oh wonderful to hear you would be interested :) I will certainly do more of them! I've heard similar rants from French friends of mine. They're immensely proud of their literary tradition. As they should be - after all, Proust, Hugo, Balzac, Montaigne. But that results in some vehement protests against reading in translation. My cousin's partner is French and he was excited to read Les Misérables, but after she demanded he read it in the original French or not at all, he has ended up leaving the original version unread on his shelf. Which is a shame - I'm of the opinion that getting into the book by any means necessary is the most important thing, then pursuing the original if one has fallen in love with the world. I seem to recall Victor Hugo himself writing about how he didn't want his works translated because one wouldn't be able to render the effect well enough in another language. And he's right - but I think I'll have to keep upsetting my French friends until I can claim the time to learn French. Je suis désolé, Monsieur Hugo :) Oh, and I have the Emily Wilson translation too - it's lovely, and definitely adds something to the tradition.

Jane

Maybe an iffy translation is better than nothing at all. I am fluent in French and Spanish and could never read an English translation bar Cervantes of course, from either of these languages.

Scott W

Interesting video. Thanks, Ben. I've just ordered the Grossman translation and am looking forward to starting on this new adventure when it arrives. I may have to seek out the Rutherford aswell because it seems I rate it ever so slightly higher than the Grossman, based on the extract considered here. We will see! Incidentally, I found a copy of the Motteux in our old house when we moved in.. with a name and the date 1902 in the front cover. With Grossman and Rutherford on their way, it seems I'm a collector already. :p Rutherford - 9 - I started to break a smile here, there’s clearly a difference between this one and Motteux. Felt a bit Monty Python (I heard, ‘Pah! Thou art but a novice!’ in my head. :)). I also made a connection in my mind with Sir Didymus and Ambrosius from the movie, Labyrinth. Grossman - 8 - Good, but didn’t feel quite right in places, ‘and were very badly battered’.. I think Rutherford may just pip Grossman, and I wonder if the reason for that might be Grossman keeping closer to the original? I don’t know.. Shelton - 7 - Very good for 1611! Ormsby - 6 - Not very striking. Smollett - 6 - ‘meritorious’, ‘serviceable to both man and God’, a little clunky, but only because language has moved on, I think. Putnam - 6 - Not very striking. Philips - 6 - Slightly better than the Motteux. Motteux - 5 - Didn’t seem so bad, but I hadn’t heard any others yet.. might be worse in the long run over 1000 pages..

Patricksb

Walter Starkie did some abridged translations with illustrations by Gustave Dore in 1954 and for other mass market publishers around that time.