Nott and Lamb

To exemplify his theory further, Venuti compares two English translations of Catullus – one by Dr. John Nott in 1795 and another by Honourable George Lamb in 1821. Comparing these two translations, Venuti is pointing to the differences between the two and the prevalent socio-cultural factors that influenced them. Nott’s translation was not smooth as he decided to retain the awkward syntax and coarse expressions used by Catullus in the original. Lamb, on the other hand, Anglicised the source text and edited out all the terms and references that his contemporaries would have thought obscene. Lamb’s Catullus therefore was more decorous and pleasant to read than Nott’s. What makes for this difference?

The reasons will be found in the backgrounds of the two translators. We cannot attribute the differences to the different time periods of composition, as there is not a significant time lag between the two. The difference is between the social circumstances of the two translators. Nott who was a physician was a member of aristocratic elite circles whose sense of morality was different from that of the middle class. He saw no reason to cater to the middle class—in fact, he might have wanted to stress the difference by his complete and unedited translation of Catullus. It was a gesture of defiance against middle class bourgeois morality while Lamb’s domestication was an attempt at strengthening exactly those values. Unsurprisingly Nott’s translation was criticized by contemporary literary journals for being too explicit and offensive. Lamb was also an aristocrat by birth, but English conservatism of the times encouraged moral hypocrisy. The movement towards moral reform also resulted in the censorship of so-called obscenities in authors like Shakespeare. Lamb’s decision to omit the obscenities from Catullus and ensure a smooth translation was appreciated by critics and readers alike. Venuti attributes Lamb’s translational gesture as one of “social superiority by a member of the hegemonic class” (97).  Translation becomes another factor that goes into the making of dominant culture, at any given point of time. This is why Venuti argues that “Fluent, domesticating translation was valorized in accordance with bourgeois moral and literary values…” (98).