Abstract
Popular romance literature has long been neglected and underestimated in the global literary context and little research on the translation of this genre has been carried out so far. Even taking into account its connotation, romantic fiction seems to occupy the lower shelf in the literary polysystem compared with other popular genres. The discrepancy between the importance of this genre in the publishing industry and the scarce attention given to it by traditional scholars means that little is known about the textual practices and processes that accompany its production and circulation, including translation. In this paper, we deal with the issue of translating romantic fiction, focusing on the specific translation of historical romances, one of its most popular subgenres. In particular, through the analysis of a specific case study, the novel Outlander by American author Diana Gabaldon, we suggest that the double filiation of historical romances, i.e. their connection to both popular and canonical traditions, may have consequences at the textual level as when such books are translated, their ambiguous generic labelling tends to be resolved, favouring either the romantic or the historical component, thus resulting in a stronger generic identity. 1
Highlights
The production and consumption of romantic fiction is a global phenomenon, a key element of both international and national publishing industries
The few studies on the translation of popular romance either focus on the specific subgenre of category romances or concern themselves with pre-industrial texts whose form and function was different from the texts under examination in this article, as, for example, the translation of popular medieval romances discussed in Weiss et al [4]
Definitions of “popular romances” have been provided within the academic environment 5, it is of particular interest to see the definition given by the Association of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), as, for the purposes of this article, it is essential to see which elements are to be considered fundamental in order to gain the interest of the market, to generate trends in terms of sales and in relation to the readers’ favourite elements: in short, it is important to see what makes these books popular as a market product
Summary
The production and consumption of romantic fiction is a global phenomenon, a key element of both international and national publishing industries. The few studies on the translation of popular romance either focus on the specific subgenre of category romances (see for example George Paizis [3]) or concern themselves with pre-industrial texts whose form and function was different from the texts under examination in this article, as, for example, the translation of popular medieval romances discussed in Weiss et al [4]. The result of this neglect is that little is known of the they have been used to refer to different types of narratives in different times Before presenting the results of our analysis we will provide a brief overview of the main generic features of romantic fiction and, in particular, of historical romances, as the way in which these genres are defined and understood by the operators in the field is important to get insights into the practices that characterize their consumption and circulation
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