Talk:Stephen Mitchell

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Contents 1 Not translated 2 Autobiographical editing 3 Puff removed 4 De-educated? 5 To Mr. Mitchell

[edit] Not translated

Stephen Mitchell did not translate Epic of Gilgamesh. By his own admission, he's cobbled it together from existing translations, taking liberties with text where he saw fit (removing long, repetitive passages from some places, keeping them in others). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.236.30.20 (talk • contribs) 09:13, May 9, 2006

And at the front of the Bhagavad Gita he says something like 'I admit my knowledge of Sanskrit is rudimentary...' Njál 19:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Languages that Stephen Mitchell has translated from: German, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Danish. Languages that he has not translated from, but rather put together interpretive versions from existing translations into Western languages: Chinese (Tao Te Ching), Sanskrit (Bhagavad Gita), Akkadian or ancient Babylonian (Gilgamesh). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephenmitchell (talk • contribs) 16:49, February 23, 2007

[edit] Autobiographical editing

Wikipedia strives to uphold high standards for editing, particulary in the case of biographies of living persons. By the same token, Wikipedia strongly discourages people from writing biographies about themselves. Their efforts are best limited to correcting or removing inaccurate information, and making suggestions to other editors. There are many reasons for this, not the least being the temptation to include unpublished information, which would violate Wikipedia's dictum against using original research. To quote from the Wiki guideline on Autobiography, It is difficult to write neutrally about yourself. Therefore, it is considered proper on Wikipedia to let others do the writing. Instead, contribute material or make suggestions on the article's talk page and let independent editors write it into the article itself. --Blainster 23:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Puff removed

i've removed most of this article which was publisher's puff and written by 'stephenmitchell' - presumably the author. Stephen - i'm assuming you're new to Wikipedia, so using the "don't bite the newbies policy": there is a strict 'neutral point of view' policy here and authors should refrain from promoting themselves... see Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons -- rgds, ben Gladstone 17:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] De-educated?

"Mitchell was educated at Amherst College, the University of Paris, and Yale University, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice." De-educated? CES (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] To Mr. Mitchell

I know you've edited this page and, personally, I adore your work. I often quote your translations of Rilke to people who don't speak German and I've given away copies of your translation of the Book of Job as presents. Yet it would be much better to cite the praise of actual published reviews. Wikipedia endeavors to be an encyclopedia, not a press release. And many editors here would be delighted if you used your expertise to improve our coverage of the subjects you work on. With respect, Durova^Charge! 22:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)