Renæssanceforum 12 • 2017
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Karen Skovgaard-Petersen
En vejviser for unge oversættere – om Holbergs oversættelse af Herodian

A Guideline for Young Translators: On Holberg's Translation of Herodian (1746)
The Danish-Norwegian writer Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) was not only a prolific author of a wide variety of texts, historical, fictional, essayistic. In the last part of his life he also stressed the need for translations of Greek-Roman classics into Danish. With his own translation (1746) of the Greek author Herodian's Roman history (written in the 230s AD), he hoped to pave the way and inspire young Danish students to take upon them the task of translating valuable classical texts instead of inferior modern novels. The article outlines Holberg's principles of translation as he presents them both in his introduction to Herodian and, a few years later, in his Epistles. It also draws attention to the fact that Holberg's call was heard: As a result of his encouragement a number of Danish translations of classical texts saw the light in the early 1750s.