Friday 17th March 9:00—10:30, Session 3

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Overview of programme

Session:

Translating Genres 1

Place:

Seminarraum 3

Moderator:

Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa

Paper 1:

Die Rose and its 14th Century Readers in Brabant

Anne Reynders

Paper 2:

The Last Egyptian Desert Father: The Latin and Vernacular Lives of the Hermit Onuphrius

Manu Radhakrishnan

Paper 3:

Secretum Secretorum: The career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Germna-speaking Area

Christoph Staudinger

Die Rose and its 14th Century Readers in Brabant

Anne Reynders

Die Rose (Brabant, before 1325) of is one of the two Middle Dutch translations of the Old French Romance of the Rose (begun around 1230 a and completed in the 1270’s). Die Rose is generally considered as an abridged, but faithful translation. It has received less scholarly attention than the Flemish Rose, which presents a free adaptation. However, the manuscript tradition of Die Rose suggests that the Brabantine translation must have been quite appreciated: it survives in 3 complete versions, which are part of large miscellanies and in 7 fragments, which were probably part of 4 other versions. (The Flemish Rose survives only in fragments from no more than 2 manuscripts.)

This paper will focus on the version of Die Rose in the two oldest miscellanies: The Hague KB, KA XXIV and Brussels KBR, II, 1171. Both manuscripts were executed in the 14th century in Brabant. A previous analysis of the co-texts of Die Rose in these miscellanies (Reynders 2015) suggests that they addressed a lay public with an interest in didactic and (to a lesser extent) courtly texts.

In this paper, I will analyse the omissions in the translation of the sermon of La Vielle, an allegoric character who offers advice to women as to how they can seduce, manipulate and even abuse of men. (Edition Langlois, vs. 12740-14546) It has been figured out that this sermon underwent serious abridgment (Van der Poel 1989: 45-47), but the rationale underlying the omissions merits further attention. I want to investigate what the abridgments can tell us about the intended readers of Die Rose (in these manuscripts). The leading question will be to what extent the omissions can be explained by the values of the lay city culture, which was booming in the Low Countries at that time.

Reynders, A. (2015). Die Rose, de Brabantse vertaling van de Roman de la Rose. Queeste 22, 2: 139-164. Van der Poel, D. E. (1989). De Vlaamse Rose en Die Rose van Heinric. Onderzoekingen over twee Middelnederlandse bewerkingen van de Roman de la Rose. Hilversum: Verloren.

The Last Egyptian Desert Father: The Latin and Vernacular Lives of the Hermit Onuphrius

Manu Radhakrishnan

This paper will present an overview of the Latin and vernacular Vitae of Onuphrius, the last Egyptian Desert Father to be introduced to the Latin West from the Byzantine Mediterranean commonwealth and whose cult expanded unexpectedly in late medieval and early modern Europe. I will examine the geographical distribution of the Latin manuscript versions and relate these to the vernacular translations both in manuscripts and in incunables and early printed books.

Secretum Secretorum: The career of a pseudo-Aristotelian text in the Germna-speaking Area

Christoph Staudinger

TBD