Translation strategies in Katherine Philips's Pompey

Abstract

When Katherine Philips produced her translation of Pompey, she was unaware that she set in motion a trend for classical translations in Irish theatre. As J.-P. Short stresses, her translation was ‘the first real translation of the Restoration and it was put on for the first time in 1663 in the newly-opened Smock-Alley Theatre in Dublin’. This article will examine Katherine Philips's translation strategies in her play Pompey and it will examine her choice of subject for the Restoration stage. Pompey (1663) was translated by Katherine Philips in the early years of the Restoration. Véronique Desnain observes that Philips was aware of the need to offer a play which commented on the aftermath of the war and the need to achieve political stability and the wish to establish a cultured Protestant Anglo-Irish identity. Philips used translation in a competent manner to mediate the transitional events of the newly restored monarchy. Translation, as Kay Gilliland Stevenson has pointed out, performs an important function in drama in this turbulent period. ‘Translation is a phenomenon particularly interesting when considering self-consciousness about periods, or transitions.’