Arthur Waley seems to be a champion, practitioner, and repeat offender of domesticating translation. This Q&A tells us his translation of Journey to the West significantly abridges the original work and alters the moral of the story. My own answer to this question here also demonstrates how conspicuously his translation of The Tale of Genji strays from the original text. It is clear that he would as soon add stuff, sometimes based on figments of his imagination rather than the original text, in order to ensure the flow of the translation and its intelligibility and readability to the Western reader, often at the expense of accuracy, reliability, and original flavor.
But interestingly his translation of The Tale of Genji uses transcriptions as some chapter titles as opposed to translations. Later translators all chose a different path, having the chapter titles translated into proper English. So the Waley Genji's titles seem to be of a different style than its content. Why this discrepancy?
From Wikipedia:
| Chapter | Japanese | Waley | Seidensticker | Tyler | Washburn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Kiritsubo (桐壺) | "Kiritsubo" | "The Paulownia Court" | "The Paulownia Pavilion" | "The Lady of the Paulownia-Courtyard Chambers" |
| 02 | Hahakigi (帚木) | "The Broom-Tree" | "The Broom-Tree" | "The Broom-Tree" | "Broom Cypress" |
| 03 | Utsusemi (空蝉) | "Utsusemi" | "The Shell of the Locust" | "The Cicada Shell" | "A Molted Cicada Shell" |
| 04 | Yūgao (夕顔) | "Yugao" | "Evening Faces" | "The Twilight Beauty" | "The Lady of the Evening Faces" |
| 05 | Wakamurasaki (若紫) | "Murasaki" | "Lavender" | "Young Murasaki" | "Little Purple Gromwell" |
| ... |
