Translators and their Prologues in Medieval England (Bristol Studies in Medieval Cultures, 4)

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. Frontcover 1 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgements 12 Abbreviations 14 Introduction 16 1 The Translator’s Prologue: Latin and French Antecedents 34 The Latin Prologue Tradition and the Growth of Translation-Consciousness 34 The Beginnings of the French Translator’s Prologue 40 The ‘Precocity’ of Anglo-Norman and English > French Translation 45 From Vulgar Tongue to Prestige Vernacular 49 2 The Translator’s Prologue: The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon Background 54 Early Latin > German Translation: Otfrid and Notker Labeo 56 Translators’ Prologues in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfred and Ælfric 58 The Conquest and Afterwards: Questions of Continuity in English-Language Writing 65 The Addition of French 70 3 The Development of the French > English Translator’s Prologue 78 Laȝamon’s Brut and the Beginnings of the French > English Translator’s Prologue 81 A Growing Translation-Consciousness: Developments to c. 1300 87 From Compilation to Translation: Developments in the Fourteenth Century 92 ‘Oral’ Romance Prologues: A Separate Type of Translator’s Prologue? 98 From Laȝamon to Caxton: The Fifteenth Century 105 4 The Figure of the Translator 112 ‘Feþeren he nom mid fingren’: The Figure of the Translator in Literary Sources 115 The Figure of the Translator in Pictorial Sources 123 An Iconography of Translation? 135 ‘I was at Ertheldoun |With Tomas spak Y thare’: ‘Clerk’ and ‘Minstrel’ Translators 143 5 The Acquisition of French 155 Literary Evidence: Prologues, Epilogues and Letters 159 ‘Du fraunceis ki chescun seit dire’: Teaching Material 165 ‘ne illa lingua Gallica penitus sit omissa’: Later Teaching of French 172 The Acquisition of French in the Cloister 173 6 The Case for Women Translators 177 Women’s Education and the Use of French 180 ‘Se femme l’ad si transaté’: The Evidence of the Twelfth-Century Women Translators 186 Continuity and Tradition? 195 ‘Crane’ and Chaucer’s Nun: Two Further Possibilities 197 7 The Presentation of Audience and the Later life of the Prologue 204 ‘To laud and Inglis man I spell’: Larger Audience Groups Named in Translations 207 ‘Gode men of Brunne’: Specific Audiences and the Question of Patronage 210 The Prologue in Context: Manuscript Evidence 212 The Knowing of Woman’s Kind and Women Audiences 216 Mouvance, Prologues and Mouvance within Prologues 225 8 Middle Dutch Translators’ Prologues as a Sidelight on English Practice 233 ‘ick de historie vele valsch | Gevonden hebbe in dat walsch’: Attitudes towards French in the Prologues of Jacob van Maerlant 241 ‘Sonder rime also ic sach’: Translating Le Livre de Sidrac 248 ‘menighe avonture | Die nemmer mee ne wert bescreven’: Walewein’s Anti-Translator’s Prologue 253 Conclusion 259 Appendices 264 Appendix 1: Breakdown of Corpus Motifs (as given in Chapter 3) 264 Appendix 2: Table of Verbs Used to Represent Translation in the Corpus 275 Appendix 3: Brief Biographical Information on the Translators 276 Bibliography 279 Index 304 An examination of French to English translation in medieval England, through the genre of the prologue. The prologue to Layamon'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, Layamon 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. Elizabeth Dearnley gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge. La 4e de couverture indique : '"The prologue to Layamon'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, Layamon 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." "The prologue to Layamon'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, Layamon 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"--Página 4 de la cubierta