The Medieval Translator. Traduire au Moyen Age
Proceedings of the International Conference of Göttingen (22-25 July 1996). Actes du Colloque international de Göttingen (22-25 juillet 1996)
Abstract
Most of the papers in this volume consider translation in medieval England (in both Old and Middle English and Anglo-Norman), though translations into other medieval vernaculars are also represented (Icelandic, Dutch, German), as is translation of classical Greek into Latin. Most of the translations are anonymous, though major translators are also included: Cicero, King Alfred, Robert Grosseteste, Jean de Meun, Chaucer. Several papers consider the troubled times during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in England, when a number of major translation projects were undertaken; others explore the place of translation in daily life (pro forma letters, gynaecological treatises, forged documents in support of a local shrine, texts rewritten so as to update legal references in them); another considers the importance of paper for the rapid dissemination of translated texts. Also featured prominently is the translation of different sorts of religious texts, originally variously in monastic, eremitical and mendicant milieux, and including the 'translations' for their readers of divine messages received by female visionaries. The more generous understanding of the term indicated by the use of quotation marks for these latter is also reflected in a paper considering representations of heaven and hell in visual arts. All the contributions share an awareness of translation as culturally specific - as originating in and addressing specific contexts: of; for example; nationality, politics, class and gender. Above all, translation as a new thing; with a life of its own, may provide a fuller, as well as a different, realisation of what was only partly present in its original.
