Questions: Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'

Question 1

A translator renders Rilke's poetry into fluent, idiomatic English that reads as if Rilke had been a native English speaker. According to Benjamin, this translation:

• A. Succeeds because it serves the reader's comprehension and accessibility
• B. Fails because it erases the gap between languages rather than revealing what each language can and cannot say
• C. Achieves 'pure language' by synthesizing two linguistic traditions into one
• D. Is acceptable provided the factual content and narrative meaning are preserved

Answer: (B)

For Benjamin, a translation that naturalizes the foreign text — making German poetry read as if it were originally English — papers over the gap between languages instead of illuminating it. The goal is not to eliminate the foreignness but to allow the source language's way of meaning to press against and transform the target language. Options A and D represent the very criterion — reader comprehension and faithful meaning transfer — that Benjamin explicitly rejects as the measure of translation.

Question 2

For Benjamin, the 'translatability' of a great literary work implies that:

• A. The work has a universal message that can be stated equivalently in any language
• B. The work's meaning exceeds what any single language can fully contain, making translation a philosophical necessity
• C. The translator should prioritize the target-language reader's comprehension above all else
• D. Translation is possible only when the source and target languages share grammatical structures

Answer: (B)

Benjamin argues that translatability is an intrinsic quality of certain works — not because they have universal messages (option A, which would mean any translation that conveys the message succeeds), but because their meaning reaches beyond what any one language can fully express. This is why translation is not a service to readers but a mode of philosophical thought: it puts two languages in contact to reveal what each language can and cannot say, pointing toward the surplus that neither contains alone.

Question 3

According to Benjamin, the primary purpose of translation is to communicate the original work's meaning to a new audience.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Benjamin explicitly rejects this. He argues that a great work does not owe its existence to any particular audience, and neither does its translation. Translation's purpose is not to transfer meaning from one container to another — he calls this the 'matter' of the work — but to honor the 'mode of meaning': the particular way a language carries content. A translation aimed at reproducing meaning for readers is, for Benjamin, a lesser thing. Its true task is to reveal how languages relate to each other and to point toward 'pure language.'

Question 4

Benjamin views translation as a mode of philosophical thought about language rather than a technical service to readers.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is Benjamin's central claim. The translator is not a servant reproducing the original for a new audience; translation is the work's 'afterlife' — the means by which the original continues living and changing across time and culture. The translator must hear in the original what cannot be said within it and allow that surplus to touch and alter the target language. This makes translation an act of philosophical inquiry into what languages are and how they relate to each other and to 'pure language.'

Question 5

What does Benjamin mean by 'pure language' (reine Sprache), and what role does translation play in relation to it?

Model answer: Pure language is an ideal, unrealized language that no actual language speaks but that all languages together approximate. Each actual language captures a different facet of what can be said about reality — no single language contains all of it. Translation does not move content between containers; it puts two languages in contact, revealing what each can and cannot say. A translation that allows the source language's structure to press against the conventions of the target does not produce pure language, but it reveals the gap between existing languages that pure language would fill — pointing toward that surplus without being able to speak it.

Pure language is not a utopian universal language but a philosophical concept: the totality of meaning that all languages together approximate. Each translation is an event in the ongoing approach toward it. This is why Benjamin says the translator's task is philosophical: not to reproduce content but to illuminate the relationship between languages and the limits of each.