Dreieinhalb Jahrhunderte Don Quijote deutsch

Die Eigennamen

Abstract

Three and a half centuries Don Quixote in German: the proper names. – The first German partial translation of Cervantes’ novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Part I 1605, Part II 1615) dates from 1648, the most recent one from 2008. As proper names play an important part in Don Quixote, this paper analyzes their rendering in four different translations, namely by Joachim Caesar (1648), Ludwig Tieck (1799-1801), Ludwig Braunfels (1883), and Susanne Lange (2008). Proper names are rooted deeply in the respective cultures of their users. Therefore the translator’s task is a difficult one: Shall he try to translate the names and thus activate for his readers as many as possible of the cultural connotations they possessed in the original language or shall he transmit them unchanged and thus contribute to the strengthening of local colour? It is shown that different times preferred different solutions, earlier times trying to translate the names of the novel. But even the most recent translation of Don Quixote does not, as might be supposed, abstain from translating part of the novel’s proper names.