The Time of the Translator in the Ovide moralisé

Abstract

With reference to Derrida and Benjamin, this article scrutinizes the complex time frame proposed by the processes of translatio in the fourteenth-century Ovide moralisé. From the point of view of a divine timelessness, the Christian truths and doctrine articulated by the moralizing readings of the Ovide moralisé were always already awaiting revelation by the prudent work of a pious translator. The Ovide moralisé understands itself as having been summoned by the injunction to understand all creation, including pagan literature, from a learned, Christian standpoint.