Friday 17th March 11:15—12:45, Session 3
| ◀ | | | ▲ | | | ▼ | | | ▶ |
| Overview of programme | ||||||
|
Session: |
Translating Genres 2 |
|---|---|
|
Place: |
Seminarraum 3 |
|
Moderator: |
Robert Lerner |
|
Paper 1: |
The Manuscripts of Jean le Long's Translations and Their Readership |
|
Paper 2: |
From Devotion to Censure. Hans Tucher's and Bernard of Breydenbach’s Pilgrim Accounts and their Two Medieval Czech Translations |
|
Paper 3: |
Places and Itineraries of European Translation |
The Manuscripts of Jean le Long's Translations and Their Readership
Marco Robecchi
In 1351 Jean le Long d’Ypres translated six works concerning the East and the knowledge of the Asiatic continent, namely of the Mongol Empire. He translated Hayton’s Flos historiarum, Riccoldo da Monte di Croce’s Liber Peregrinationis, Odorico da Pordenone’s Relatio, Wilhelm von Boldensele’s Liber de quibusdam ultramarinis partibus, two *Lettres *exchanged between the Khan and Pope Benedict XII and the De statu, conditione ac regimine magnis Canis. Actually, we do not know for whom he translated these texts and to whom he addressed his work. The six translations are organically transmitted by six manuscripts. Two of them probably belonged to Northern-French bourgeois (the one has been written in 1368, the other at the end of the fifteenth century), while the other four belonged to French aristocrats: in particular, they probably circulated in the milieu of the Burgundian court.
Although almost all the translations have been critically edited, there is a lack of an accurate study of their manuscripts.
My aim is to consider Jean le Long’s macro- and microscopic alteration of the original Latin texts and his method of translation, in order to understand if those alterations conceal a sort of ‘editorial plan’ that encouraged his work. After that, I will compare the resulting hypothesis with the question of the production and the circulation of the six manuscripts. I seek to understand whether the circulation and the reception of these translations conditioned his choices. He probably tried to transform his sources into something marvellous and more adventurous in order to satisfy his publics’ desires for this kind of literature, as the manuscripts seem to suggest.
From Devotion to Censure. Hans Tucher's and Bernard of Breydenbach’s Pilgrim Accounts and their Two Medieval Czech Translations
Jaroslav Svátek
Two parts translated from the Bernard of Breydenbach’s travel account – Treatise on Holy Land (Traktát o zemi svaté) and Life of Mohamed (Život Mohamedův) – were printed in 1498 in Pilsen. While the Treatise presents the shorted narrative on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Life of Mohamed reproduces the chapter about the life of the Prophet, principles of Muslim religion but also information about other Christian religious movements in the East. In the scope of our contribution will be particularly treated the shifts between the original version (in Latin and German) and its Czech adaptations. In case of Treaty on Holy Land it concerns mainly the re-utilization of Breydenbach’s text to describe a different pilgrimage. For the second adaption, the translator, identified with the printer Mikuláš Bakalář, left out all passages concerning the communion under both species. Although the Breydenbach’s travel account was widely spread in Europe through other printed vernacular versions without any major differences, the problematic of its Czech translation refer probably to the specific social context in Bohemia in the end of 15th century.
Places and Itineraries of European Translation
David Wallace
Over the last eight years I have been editing the first literary history of Europe, 1348-1418. This project was published in 2 volumes and 82 chapters in April 2016 by Oxford University Press:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/europe-9780198735359?cc=us&lang=en&
This project is the end product not just of collaboration between over eighty contributors, but also of audiences at over forty locations across Europe and north America; the nine major itineraries were shaped and revised following extensive viva voce feedback. The aim from the beginning has been to avoid replicating nineteenth-century nation state models (‘French literature’; ‘German literature’, ‘Spanish literature’, etc) in favor of location-based chapters (‘Vienna’, ‘Prague’, Jerusalem’, etc.). The two volumes of 1,675 pages include extensive indices of manuscripts and of topics (extending to over 60,000 words). It is thus possible, by tracing out topics from the general index, to follow the movements of texts and motifs in a trans-European detail not seen before; the entries and sub-entries under ‘Translation’ are themselves extensive.
In my presentation at Vienna I would propose offering an overview of this project, with its nine constitutive itineraries, tracing out specific issues in translation that should be of interest to this conference, and to the history of this conference (I attended the very first such gathering at Gregynog in August 1987 when very young). I would be willing to tweak and adjust my presentation to suit the needs of the organizers.