This is primarily a list of notable translators. Large sublists have been split off to separate articles.
Antoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights, which he called Les mille et une nuits. His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a significant influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Jorge Luis Borges has suggested that Romanticism began when his translation was first read.
Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich was a Ukrainian-born Russian poet and translator best known for his translation of the Iliad (1807–29), which is still the standard one. He also wrote Don Corrado de Gerrera (1803), which has been called the first Russian Gothic novel.
Latin translations of the 12th century were spurred by a major search by European scholars for new learning unavailable in western Europe at the time; their search led them to areas of southern Europe, particularly in central Spain and Sicily, which recently had come under Christian rule following their reconquest in the late 11th century. These areas had been under Muslim rule for a considerable time, and still had substantial Arabic-speaking populations to support their search. The combination of this accumulated knowledge and the substantial numbers of Arabic-speaking scholars there made these areas intellectually attractive, as well as culturally and politically accessible to Latin scholars. A typical story is that of Gerard of Cremona, who is said to have made his way to Toledo, well after its reconquest by Christians in 1085, because he:
arrived at a knowledge of each part of [philosophy] according to the study of the Latins, nevertheless, because of his love for the Almagest, which he did not find at all amongst the Latins, he made his way to Toledo, where seeing an abundance of books in Arabic on every subject, and pitying the poverty he had experienced among the Latins concerning these subjects, out of his desire to translate he thoroughly learnt the Arabic language.
The Toledo School of Translators is the group of scholars who worked together in the city of Toledo during the 12th and 13th centuries, to translate many of the Islamic philosophy and scientific works from Classical Arabic into Medieval Latin.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to poetry:
Links to nations or nationalities point to articles with information on that nation's poetry or literature. For example, United Kingdom links to English poetry and Indian links to Indian poetry.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Willis Barnstone is an American poet, religious scholar, and translator. He was born in Lewiston, Maine and lives in Oakland, California. He has translated works by Jorge Luis Borges, Antonio Machado, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pedro Salinas, Pablo Neruda, and Wang Wei, as well as the New Testament and fragments by Sappho and pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus (Ἡράκλειτος).
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction between translating and interpreting ; under this distinction, translation can begin only after the appearance of writing within a language community.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Hispanism is the study of the literature and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, principally that of Spain and Hispanic America. It may also entail studying Spanish language and cultural history in the United States and in other presently or formerly Spanish-speaking countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, such as Equatorial Guinea and the former Spanish East Indies.
Tirukkural, also known as the Kural, an ancient Indian treatise on the ethics and morality of the commoner, is one of the most widely translated non-religious works in the world. Authored by the ancient Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar, the work has been translated into 57 languages, with a total of 350 individual translations, including 143 different renderings in the English language alone.
William Henry Drew was a 19th-century Christian missionary to India who rendered the Tirukkural into English. However, he translated only the first 630 couplets of the Tirukkural.
Tirukkural remains one of the most widely translated non-religious works in the world. As of 2014, there were at least 57 versions available in the English language alone. English, thus, continues to remain the language with most number of translations available of the Kural text.
Latin is the first foreign language into which the Tirukkuṟaḷ was translated. There are three known translations of the Kural text available in Latin.
S. M. Michael was one of the early 20th-century translators of the Tirukkural into English.
A. Chakravarti, who served the Indian Educational Service (IES), was a professor of philosophy at the Presidency College in Chennai, India. He is known for translating the Tirukkural into English.
Nina Yakovlevna Dyakonova was a Russian researcher of 19th century English and European literature, full professor, Doctor of Philology, member of the Board of Directors of the International Byron Society, and member of the editorial board of the Russian academic book series Literaturniye pamyatniki. She was an authority in the history of English literature and links between European literatures with each other and with Russian literature, especially of the 19th century, following her professor Mikhail P. Alexeyev.
Maksym Rylsky prize is given annually recognizing outstanding literary works of translation into Ukrainian language and translation of classical or contemporary literary works from Ukrainian to other languages. Named after Maksym Rylsky, Ukrainian poet and translator.