Official translations are generally documents that serve as legally valid instruments. They include anything from certificates of birth, death or marriage through to academic transcripts or legal contracts. This field of translation is now as important as it is fraught with difficulties, for it is only in a few areas that the cultural differences are so acute and the consequences of failure so palpable. In a globalizing world, our official institutions increasingly depend on translations of official documents, but little has been done to elaborate the skills and dilemmas involved.
Though best known for his plays--and for courting danger as a homosexual, a spy, and an outspoken atheist--Christopher Marlowe was also an accomplished and celebrated poet. This long-awaited updated and revised edition of his poems and translations contains his complete lyric works--from his translations of Ovidian elegies to his most famous poem, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," to the impressive epic mythological poem "Hero and Leander."
