Translators and Their Prologues in Medieval England

Description

The prologue to Laȝamon's "Brut" recounts its author's extensive travels "wide yond thas leode" (far and wide across the land) to gather the French, Latin and English books he used as source material. The first Middle English writer to discuss his methods of translating French into English, Laȝamon voices ideas about the creation of a new English tradition by translation that proved very durable. This book considers the practice of translation from French into English in medieval England, and how the translators themselves viewed their task. At its core is a corpus of French to English translations containing translator's prologues written between c. 1189 and c. 1450; this remarkable body of Middle English literary theory provides a useful map by which to chart the movement from a literary culture rooted in Anglo-Norman at the end of the thirteenth century to what, in the fifteenth, is regarded as an established "English" tradition. Considering earlier Romance and Germanic models of translation, wider historical evidence about translation practice, the acquisition of French, the possible role of women translators, and the manuscript tradition of prologues, in addition to offering a broader, pan-European perspective through an examination of Middle Dutch prologues, the book uses translators' prologues as a lens through which to view a period of critical growth and development for English as a literary language. List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1. The Translator's Prologue: Latin and French Antecedents 19 The Latin Prologue Tradition and the Growth of Translation-Consciousness 19 The Beginnings of the French Translator's Prologue 25 The 'Precocity' of Anglo-Norman and English > French Translation 30 From Vulgar Tongue to Prestige Vernacular 34 2. The Translator's Prologue: The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Background 39 Early Latin > German Translation: Otfrid and Notker Labeo 41 Translators' Prologues in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfred and Ælfric 43 The Conquest and Afterwards: Questions of Continuity in English-Language Writing 50 The Addition of French 55 3. The Development of the French > English Translator's Prologue 63 Laȝamon's 'Brut' and the Beginnings of the French > English Translator's Prologue 66 A Growing Translation-Consciousness: Developments to c. 1300 72 From Compilation to Translation: Developments in the Fourteenth Century 77 'Oral' Romance Prologues: A Separate Type of Translator's Prologue? 83 From Laȝamon to Caxton: The Fifteenth Century 90 4. The Figure of the Translator 97 'Feþeren he nom mid fingren': The Figure of the Translator in Literary Sources 100 The Figure of the Translator in Pictorial Sources 108 An Iconography of Translation? 120 'I was at Ertheldoun | With Tomas spak Y thare': 'Clerk' and 'Minstrel' Translators 128 5. The Acquisition of French 140 Literary Evidence: Prologues, Epilogues and Letters 144 'Du fraunceis ki chescun seit dire': Teaching Material 150 'ne illa lingua Gallica penitus sit omissa': Later Teaching of French 157 The Acquisition of French in the Cloister 158 6. The Case for Women Translators 162 Women's Education and the Use of French 165 'Se femme l’ad si transaté': The Evidence of the Twelfth-Century Women Translators 171 Continuity and Tradition? 180 'Crane' and Chaucer's Nun: Two Further Possibilities 182 7. The Presentation of Audience and the Later Life of the Prologue 189 'To laud and Inglis man I spell': Larger Audience Groups Named in Translations 192 'Gode men of Brunne': Specific Audiences and the Question of Patronage 195 The Prologue in Context: Manuscript Evidence 197 'The Knowing of Woman's Kind' and Women Audiences 201 'Mouvance', Prologues and 'Mouvance' within Prologues 210 8. Middle Dutch Translators' Prologues as a Sidelight on English Practice 218 'ick de historie vele valsch | Gevonden hebbe in dat walsch': Attitudes towards French in the Prologues of Jacob van Maerlant 226 'Sonder rime also ic sach': Translating 'Le Livre de Sidrac' 233 'menighe avonture | Die nemmer mee ne wert bescreven': 'Walewein's' Anti-Translator's Prologue 238 Conclusion 244 Appendices 249 Appendix 1: Breakdown of Corpus Motifs (as given in Chapter 3) 249 Appendix 2: Table of Verbs Used to Represent Translation in the Corpus 260 Appendix 3: Brief Biographical Information on the Translators 261 Bibliography 264 Index 289