“It may come to us as something of a shock to realise that many of the texts that we treat as English originals are in fact translations, some from other languages, some from older forms of English, some from both. The Bible, The Iliad, Beowulf, the works of Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hugo, Goethe, Neruda are just a few examples.” Thus writes Lynne Long in her “History and Translation.”
What is there to say here? I can just about swallow things like “the average person regards the act of translation as a mechanical rather than a creative act” but do Translation Studies experts really think people interested enough in literature to read Tolstoy are unaware that he is Russian? I mean, come on!
Long’s articlce can be found in: A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Piotr Kuhiwczak and Karin Littau.