SOURCE: "A Web in the Air," Monumenta Nipponica: Studies in Japanese Culture, Vol. 43, No.3, Autumn, 1988, pp. 332-52.

In the following excerpt, Cranston evaluates McCullough's translation of the Kokinshu and directly compares some of her versions of particular poems with those of other translators.

… People who have practiced translation, especially poetic translation, tend to have strong opinions on the subject; others couldn't care less. I belong to the former category. Miller, pp. 758-59, makes it clear that he regards literary scholarship and translation as sciences. I do not. Not at least in the sense 'science' has acquired since it came to be applied to the exact natural sciences, rather than to knowledge in general. 'The results of science,' Miller says, p. 758, 'whatever the field or discipline, are significant only to the extent that they prove themselves capable of being replicated.' I am sure that is true. But...