Translation and the Poet's Life: The Ethics of Translating in English Culture, 1646–1726 by Paul Davis

Abstract

1114 Reviews Duet (1998) and Robert Lepage's Elsinore (1995-96). These Canadian adaptations are shown to be political productions rooted in contemporary social issues and problems. Shakespearian content allows these plays to address questions of identity and cultural history: 'Sears entered Canadian theatre history as the first black play wright to have her work performed at the prestigious Stratford Festival of Canada' (p. 71). Adapted from Shakespeare's Othello, Sears's Harlem Duet unsettles the strongwhite colonial history of Canadian drama, offering a chance formarginal ized voices to be heard on its stages and forCanadian theatre audiences towitness the dramatization ofmodern black feminist experiences. Lepage's adaptation of Hamlet, his one-man production Elsinore, leaves Shakespeare's text alone in order to allow one actor visually and verbally to shiftbetween all the characters. This highly technical, masterful vision of theatre, which played around the globe, 'is less about releasing or revealing the passion of Hamlet [but] about watching an actor grapple with amonolithic, yet unstable, cultural icon: Shakespeare's Hamlet' (p. 101). Kidnie tackles great examples from several points of origin, including Shakespea rian adaptation across media formats,while maintaining a focus of close reading on some key contemporary texts that have received little academic investigation. Her book concludes with a discussion of the textual origins of Shakespeare's plays and encourages amore widespread acquaintance with the editorial work required by printed versions of drama in order to assist with uncovering further levels of adaptation in practice. This book adds important ideas to the current debates on Shakespeare and adaptation, reminding Shakespearian purists that 'effortsto re cover "what happened" can only be pursued alongside effort to shape "what is happening" in terms of work recognition and the ever-shifting boundaries that separate work from adaptation' (p. 164). University of New Brunswick Peter Kuling Translation and thePoet's Life: The Ethics of Translating inEnglish Culture, 1646 1726. By Paul Davis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2008. xi+324 pp. ?50. ISBN 978-0-19-929783-2. Paul Davis explores the translation activity offivemen who were also acknowledged poets in their own right: JohnDenham, Henry Vaughan, Abraham Cowley, John Dryden, and Alexander Pope. His focus isnot on their translation techniques, but rather their particular understanding of the task and its significance within their society. Each of these poets turned to translation at a critical point in their per sonal and literarycareers, and fixed upon one of the conceptual metaphors for this process current in their culture in order tomake sense of theirpredicament. Davis provides a historical context for themetaphors by showing how each of the poets in this survey (with the possible exception of Pope, who represents a special case) lived at a time when all literary publication was seen as a political act, to be interpreted as either supporting the regime in power or opposing it, so MLR, 104.4, 2009 1115 that the poet's creative lifewas strongly constrained by his involvement in public affairs.During theCommonwealth, Denham and Cowley were under observation as known Royalists, while some three decades laterDryden, as a Catholic convert opposed to the rule ofWilliam ofOrange, was deprived of his office as Poet Lau reate. In such cases, thewidely despised task of translation provided a safer outlet for literaryexpression, since the poet had the excuse thathe was only representing theviews of another, usually long dead. It is against thisbackground thatquestions of loyalty* in translation and discussions of the status of the translator need to be seen. But it is also Davis's claim that in addition the choice ofmetaphor helped, consciously or subconsciously, todetermine the choice of relevant texts to translate. To take the example of Dryden, towhose evolving concept by far the longest chapter is devoted, Davis represents him as exploring the borderline between lib erty and slavery. Far from being the champion of free translation, which is the reputation thatmodern translation theorists have attached to him based on his preface to Ovid's 'Epistles', he first subjects himself to a phase of rigour, reacting against both Restoration libertinism and his own public disgrace, so thatby trans lating Lucretius he engages with the Epicurean philosophy of achieving stability through self-control. Then, since by...