Maria Edgeworth’s Arrival in Galician Literature: O castelo Rackrent (2022)

Abstract

Since its publication in 1800, Castle Rackrent became Maria Edgeworth’s best and most cherished work. It inaugurated the Big House Novel and turned into a reference for many European authors that came later. Nevertheless, and despite being translated into several languages during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was not until the 2020s that Edgeworth’s narratives were rendered into Galician. This paper analyzes the recent translation of Castle Rackrent as O castelo Rackrent using Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory and Gerard Genette’s approach to paratexts as the theoretical framework. After a brief contextualization of Edgeworth and Castle Rackrent, I examine the main features of the target text and its impact in Galician literature.