ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the merits of given translation through its variant readings-omissions, additions and mistranslation, and focuses on the parallels between the translation and the literary tastes and style in vogue at the time. The first half of the eighteenth century brought a shift in literary trends and literary awareness. It also marked the first great age of English literary criticism. Three names stand out among the translators of Miguel de Cervantes's Exemplary Novels during this period: John Ozell, Samuel Croxall and Robert Goadby. The Elizabethan translators did not pride themselves on making meticulous imitations of the original, their aim being to dress them in English garb. The eighteenth-century translators made them conform to their own aristocratic standards, pruning away former digressions. The Romantics, believing that literary art, like any other art, had to speak directly to the emotional side of man's nature, sacrificed fidelity to the original to achieve this response.
