Medieval Texts Research Articles

Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion

Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion

Sir John Prise and His Books: Manuscript Culture in the March of Wales

Sir John Prise (1501/2–55) was a Welsh lawyer and book collector who was one of the royal commissioners responsible for closing down the monasteries at the Dissolution of the 1530s. Operating mainly in the March of Wales, Prise was able to save around 100 medieval manuscripts which would otherwise have been destroyed. As a Welsh speaker, Prise was keenly interested in medieval Welsh writing and some of the most famous medieval Welsh manuscripts passed through his hands. He was particularly interested in the British history of Geoffrey of Monmouth and in his Latin prose treatise, Historiae Britannicae Defensio, published in 1573 after his death, Prise put forward a spirited defence of the 'British history' related by Geoffrey, based almost entirely on his reading of manuscripts that he owned. This article examines the significance of Sir John Prise, his writing and his book collection in relation to the transmission of medieval texts into the Tudor age.

Анализ дискурса позднеантичных и раннесредневековых источников: методы и перспективы

Анализ дискурса позднеантичных и раннесредневековых источников: методы и перспективы

Notes on the papyri of Plato and the constitution of the text†

Abstract In addition to other sources, Plato's dialogues are transmitted via 130 papyri that contribute to the constitution of the text. Starting from the Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini volumes, about 1070 readings preserved by the Platonic papyri have been collected in a database, where they have been classified in different lists. For instance, the papyri may preserve new correct readings or, since in principle they represent half of the tradition, they can be seen as contributing to the choice between adiaphora. In addition, papyri belie conjectures much more than they confirm them, thus rehabilitating the mistrusted medieval text.

Argument Distinctive Context Functioning of 被 bei (Based on the Material of the Late Classical Chinese Text – “Lunheng”).

The paper deals with some features of Late Classical Chinese based on material from «Lunheng» (1st century AD), specifically, the process of 被 bèi grammaticalization and its possibility to be a distinctive context for noun lexemes. In modern Chinese, 被 bèi is a passive marker in sentences such as O 被 bèi SV. There is also a short form like O 被 bèi V, which is the initial stage in the formation of a passive construction, while the full form appears in late medieval texts. However, it is necessary to understand when exactly the process of grammaticalization of 被 bèi began, and whether this process affected the language of Late Classical Chinese. The main questions this paper addresses are: (1) when did the process of 被 bèi grammaticalization begin; (2) is 被 bèi still a verb in the Late Classical Chinese language and can we syntactically distinguish an argument of a clause in the context of 被 bèi. Not only are verb functions of 被 bèi (which can be found in 5th century BC texts) analyzed, but also supposedly its original nominal functions in earlier texts. The study shows that the passive-like 被 bèi begins to appear even in BC texts, but the verbal lexeme functions remain a major. It can be assumed that in Late Classical Chinese, particularly in the language of the «Lunheng» text, the lexeme 被 bèi doesn’t have passive marker qualities and 被 bèi can and should be analyzed from the point of view of lexical categories, as a transitive verb specifically. Such conclusions make it possible to analyze 被 bèi in an argument distinctive context, that is, the position of 被 bèi in a sentence next to any lexeme can help to identify the syntactic function of this lexeme within the specified context. This means it is possible to determine the position of the argument of any clause, which can later be used for PoS parsing of Late Classical Chinese texts.

Bounds of diversity: queer zoology in Europe from Aristotle to John Hunter

AbstractZoological narratives of intersexualities (‘hermaphroditism’), transformations of sex and same-sex sexual behaviours have long played significant roles in shaping ideas about sex more generally, for good and for bad. Eclectic references to sex-variant animals in classical and medieval texts traverse nebulous boundaries between fact and fantasy. Only slowly through the early modern era did observation supersede superstition. The discovery by English naturalist John Ray in 1660, that all slugs and snails were dual-sexed, situated hermaphroditism as an integral concern of naturalists as never before. Through the 1770s and 1780s, Scottish anatomist John Hunter inaugurated a new era in the medico-scientific study of sex, establishing intersexualities and transformations of sex as primary means of theorizing sex differences more broadly but delineating an overly sharp division between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ hermaphrodites. He even suggested, albeit briefly, how the division of sexes from hermaphrodite origins might have happened biologically, a question that was subsequently pursued by evolutionists including Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin. In contrast, zoological descriptions of same-sex sexual behaviours were published only rarely prior to the 19th century, a prevailing misunderstanding that animals did not engage in such behaviours playing important roles in shaping ‘natural law’ and Christian theology.

A critical study of the Ayurveda Medical manuscript ‘Chikitsasara’

Ayurveda being a practical science is codified through centuries in written documents called Manuscripts. A manuscript is any document written by hand or typewritten as opposed to being mechanically printed or reproduced in some automated way. A very few of these manuscripts have been published during the past decades. As such, several treatment methods contained in these texts are being lost by decaying. As part of a humble step towards this, Chikitsasara authored by Gopaladasa, a paper manuscript in the Sanskrit language documented in Devanagari script preserved at Unmesha Research Institute of Indology, Mysore was taken. The objectives of the study are critical edition of the manuscript and its English translation which is not available. It is a unique book belonging to the kayachikitsa parampara. The time period of the text by considering the internal and external evidence, influence of the text on other medieval texts can be placed as the late seventeenth century.The text was translated to Telugu and Marathi languages in 1877 and 1881 respectively, which are not widely available today. Chikitsasara is a treatise arranged in three sections. Some rare diseases like sparsavata, seethavata, takraprameha, and ghrtaprameha have found a place in this text. Prognosis of disease based on astrology is a unique feature of this text. After the critical edition, a maximum number of accepted readings was obtained from the manuscript from Oriental research institute & manuscript library, Kariavattom. The content of the text is also very much similar to the seventeenth century work Yogaratnakara.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter…High School? Dante's Commedia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The article studies Dante’s Commedia and its influence on American televisual culture. In addition to exploring how the poem has shaped the audience’s perception of the afterlife, it observes how the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) interweaves, appropriates, and adapts the medieval text into its series arc. Throughout its production, Buffy the Vampire Slayer received critical praise and recognition, including a 1999 Emmy Awards nomination and, in 2014, was included in Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All Time.” In addition, the series has amassed a place in academia, in part due to the publication of Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association. Although the program is worthy of further intellectual exploration, often it is snubbed because of its content and medium, television. Throughout its seven-year span, the show has appropriated Sophocles, Shakespeare, the Brothers Grimm, T. S. Eliot, and E. M. Forster throughout each season’s main story arc. However, what is striking about the series is that it playfully hides one of its primary sources from view: Dante. The article explores how Dante’s adaptation and appropriation raise the show’s status of low, domestic culture to a higher level of art and transtextuality.

Scholastic Humor

Abstract Scholastic philosophers can be quite funny. What's more, they have good reason to be: Aristotle himself lists ready wit (eutrapelia) among the virtues, as a mean between excessive humor and its defect. Here, I assess Scholastic discussions of humor in theory, before turning to examples of it in practice. The last and finest of these is a joke, hitherto unacknowledged, which Aquinas makes in his famous Five Ways. Along the way, we'll see (i) that the history of philosophy is not so hostile to humor as is commonly supposed; and (ii) that the competing theories of humor like the Incongruity Theory and the Release Theory are not altogether incompatible. We'll also see at least one example of an apparent attempt by modern translators to excise humor from a medieval text. Our considerations will open a window into what oral discussion and debate at medieval universities was actually like, and how we should understand the relationship between the texts we have now and the exchanges that actually occurred then.

Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change

Icelandic Folklore and the Cultural Memory of Religious Change

A Jumble of Writings: Commentaries on Aristotle’s De Longitudine et Brevitate Vitae Attributed to Adam of Buckfield

Abstract The translatio vetus of Aristotle’s De longitudine et brevitate vitae – a medieval text also known under the title of De morte et vita – was commented upon by the Oxford Master Adam of Buckfield in the thirteenth century. Inventories record two commentaries, which are either anonymous or unclearly ascribed. These writings are usually attributed by modern scholarship to Buckfield, though not always on convincing grounds. In the present article, I offer a more accurate, expanded overview of some so-called Buckfield commentaries on the translatio vetus, distinguishing between four individual texts. In order to characterize these writings, and to have a solid basis for addressing the authenticity problem, one passage from each commentary is scrutinized within the scope of a case study.

Slow Teaching with Gawain

This essay describes my pedagogical shift while teaching online during the Covid 19 pandemic. I switched to classes structured by slow, careful translation of medieval texts, with positive effects on student attention and participation.

A Precious Heritage. The Contribution of Hans Rothe to Slavic Studies

The authors present some of the most important writings of the well-known professor emeritus of Bonn University, Hans Rothe (1928-2021), offering an overview of the main ideas he developed and the methods he applied in his research. Due attention is given to his indefatigable activity as an editor of important, mostly unduly forgotten medieval and early modern texts. His commentary to the first translations of the Bible for many Slavic peoples remains a milestone of Slavic studies. He was a pioneer in fostering research about Slavo-Byzantine liturgical and religious texts, devotional songs, and baroque literature in Russia and Ukraine. No less remarkable are his articles about the Enlightenment and such giants of literature as Lesja Ukrajinka, Deržavin, Puškin and Tolstoj.

НОВИ ИСТОРИЧЕСКИ И ДИАЛЕКТОЛОЖКИ ИЗСЛЕДВАНИЯ НА БЪЛГАРСКИЯ ЕЗИК / NEW HISTORICAL AND DIALECTAL STUDIES OF BULGARIAN

The first three papers featured in Issue 4/2021 of Balgarski ezik present results of the work on a project titled Everyday Life in the Middle Ages according to Lexical Data from Bulgarian and Romanian – a bilateral effort between the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Romanian Academy. Mariyana Tsibranska-Kostova’s paper Magic and its Faces (the 61st Canon of Trullo in Slavic Translations) proposes an analysis of several representatives of the lexical-semantic group of performers of magical practices according to three translations of the canon. The author discusses the word-formation structure of the lexical group as well as the semantic adaptation of Greek names for unknown realia. The text of the 61st Canon of Trullo is published as an appendix. Elka Mircheva provides a discussion on the topic of Bad Thoughts are Worse than Illness (to the Analysis of Medieval Texts) by analysing examples of illness in Pope Gregory the Great’s Dialogues which have been interpreted by earlier studies as cases of psychological conditions. The author’s analysis points to the fact that some of these occurrences are evidence of the influence of bad thoughts resulting in unacceptable reprehen-sible behaviour. Vanya Micheva’s paper Names for Living Places in the Bulgarian Language Picture of the World in the Middle Ages deals with the linguistic and semantic realisations of the concept of living places in the Old Bulgarian classical and original works from the 9th – 11th centuries and in the works of Patriarch Euthymius. The author traces the process of enrichment of the names for living places and the changes in the conceptual content of the studied lexemes. Tatyana Braga’s paper A Little-known Damaskin from the Karlovo-Adzhar School of Calligraphy and Art: Odessa Damascus № 36 (62) – Palaeography, Codicology, Dating offers a meticulous palaeographic and codicological description of a Bulgarian written monument, the Odessa Damaskin № 36 (62) from the manuscript collection of V.I. Grigorovich. Nadka Nikolova’s paper Общ язик с виражение народно. The Language Norms in the Translation of A. Granitski’s За Тръговско писмописанїе (On Commercial Letter Writing), 1858 presents the results of a study on Anastas Granitski’s contribution to the establishment of the structural basis and spelling and language norms of the Bulgarian literary language of the Revival period. On the basis of her observations on adjectives, numerals, pronouns and verbs, the author comes to the conclusion that the text reveals significant convergence of written and spoken language. Maria Mitskova addresses some Issues in the Verb Morphology of Bulgarian Dialects in the Studies of Three European Slavicists from the First Half of the 19th Century – Vuk Karadžić, Victor Grigorovich, Stefan Verković. The paper emphasises the contribution of the first Slavicists whose work marks the origination of the scientific interest in one of the most characteristic features of Bulgarian verbs. Elena Kanevska-Nikolova and Simeon Marinov present a study on the Names for Women’s Outerwear in the Rhodope Folk Clothing based on ma-terial excerpted from various ethnographic, regional historical and dialectological studies. The authors examine ambiguous and synonymous terms, main word-formation patterns, as well as the etymology of some of the names under study. They go on to analyse the terminological unity of many names for women’s outerwear characteristic of both confessional groups to which the Bulgarian population in the Rhodopes belong. Georgi Mitrinov’s paper Is there a Pomak Dialect in Bulgaria? is a critical look at a study by Emel Balakchi dealing with the Bulgarian Rhodope dialects. The author addresses Balakchi’s attempt at presenting the Rhodope dialects as Pomak dialects, while ignoring the presence of a native Bulgarian Christian population in the Rhodopes. Using numerous examples, Georgi Mitrinov reveals the study’s lack of scientific competence and objectivity in presenting the characteristic features of the Bulgarian Rhodope dialects. The issue concludes with a paper that remains outside its thematic scope. Stative Predicates in Contemporary Linguistic Theories by Svetlozara Leseva, Hristina Kukova and Ivelina Stoyanova offers a critical overview of the thematic classes of stative verbs based on a contrastive study of several thematic classifications. The authors analyse the different views of the properties of stative predicates from an aspectual and semantic perspective.

Simon Gaunt (1959–2021)

Professor Simon Gaunt, a pre-eminent scholar of medieval French and Occitan, died on 4 December 2021 following complications with treatment he was receiving for myeloma. He was sixty-two. Simon completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in the French Department at Warwick University (BA, 1982; PhD, 1986), where he distinguished himself as an outstanding student in an exceptionally bright cohort. Conducted under the supervision of Linda Paterson, his PhD, on irony in troubadour lyric, developed an approach to medieval texts that would persist into his later career, combining careful close reading with an interest in theoretical methodologies. After leaving Warwick, Simon went on to hold positions at Cambridge University, first as a research fellow at Downing College (1986–88), then as a lecturer and fellow at St Catharine’s College (1986–98), and lecturer in French at Faculty level (1989–98). He subsequently moved to King’s College London (1998–2021), where he served as Head of French (1998–2004) and as Head of the School of Arts and Humanities (2013), a role equivalent to Dean of Faculty.

,,Heilsgeschichte“ im Mittelalter: was meinen Petrus Damiani und Rupert von Deutz mit historia salutis?1

Abstract Referring to medieval conceptions of history modern medievalists currently employ the terms ,,Heilsgeschichte,“ ,,salvation history,“ ,,history of salvation,“ ,,histoire du Salut”, or similar ones, whereas the seemingly corresponding term historia salutis is extremely rare in the medieval texts: among the Latin Christian authors up to 1200 only two, Petrus Damiani and Rupert of Deutz use it – not often ‐ in their writings. My contribution explores the meaning these authors attach to the term, and takes a look at its patristic precedents. Different from the modern concept, the medieval historia salutis does not associate salvation with history as a general process, but with the life and deeds – the history ‐ of Jesus Christ as a person.

Of Bawns and Bros: Beowulf Translations and a Modernist Medievalism

Of Bawns and Bros:Beowulf Translations and a Modernist Medievalism Mikaela Renshaw On the surface, the Old English Beowulf seems neither modern nor modernist, given that Beowulf is one of the oldest works in the English language. Yet, the connection is far less paradoxical than it seems, not only because of the fascination that high modernists, such as Ezra Pound, had for the medieval era engaging with it frequently through their own translations, but also because medievalism is itself modernist.1 Medievalism is born out of the desire to remake or recreate the medieval, both in how it truly was, as well as how we like to imagine it.2 However, due to the impossibility of true recovery, medievalism is not centered solely in the past, but is instead created by the collision and combination of the medieval and the modern, the exact sort of amalgamation that stands at the heart of the modernist genre. As such, engaging with a medieval texts and its translations through a kind of modernist medievalism helps us to understand how the text also lies on this collision point, existing across multiple modernities as its own kind of amalgamation. To expand on that, I will be examining the translations of Seamus Heaney and Maria Dahvana Headley to consider and define modernist medievalism.3 While both works exemplify the translation of a medieval work into a modernist piece, they do so in rather different ways. Heaney translates Beowulf through a focused form of spatial modernity, in which his use of regionalisms and dialect allows him to ground the work in his native land of Northern Ireland. Whereas, Headley works within a more strictly temporal modernity with her use of diffuse contemporary dialect that calls upon not only poetic turns of phrase but slang terms as well. Finally, I will use these works to construct a kind of Beowulfian palimpsest, in order to examine how Beowulf is not just Beowulf, the original text, standing alone a singular static object anchored in the past. Beowulf, as an object of study, is also a [End Page 21] multiplicitous living text that evolves across the centuries, with its translations being a vital component of that evolution. Beowulfian Modernisms The exact definition of modernism is a question that has become increasingly problematized as academics seek to expand the canon outside of the mostly white male authors that make up high modernism. This expansion has pushed the definition of modernism not only across racial, gendered, and spatial boundaries but temporal ones as well, which brings us to the question of what, if anything, ties together modernism as a genre.4 Especially since working within this weaker/more nebulous theory of modernism means that we step away from strict periodization and thus we do not have to think of modernity as a singular object.5 Therefore, identifying what makes a "modernity" is no longer a matter of looking back retroactively and deciding upon a singular time period; and as Susan Friedman says, "modernity need no longer reside solely in a specific set of institutional, ideological, or aesthetic characteristics emergent in the post-Renaissance West . . . Instead a particularized modernity located in space and time could potentially emerge wherever and whenever the winds of radical disruption blew, the conditions of rapid change flared up, or the reflexive consciousness of newness spread."6 So, it becomes clear that modernity is not locked in a binary with the past, but instead shares a cyclical and symbiotic nature with it: modernity should only be understood in relation to the past it is reacting against and disrupting. Furthermore, as time and change settle, each modernity then becomes the past that shapes the next modernity, meaning that modernity does not imply the existence of an "archaic and stable past," as Bruno Latour puts it, but actually gestures towards the continuous movement and disruption within it.7 This understanding of multiple modernities helps us remember that our conception of modernism is not limited to a single century or even just the past few centuries. As explained by David Damrosch, in "literary studies of modernism and modernity, anywhere we find written texts we have a key precondition for the development of a...

Robin Hood: Legend and Reality by David Crook

Reviewed by: Robin Hood: Legend and Reality by David Crook Mark-Allan Donaldson David Crook, Robin Hood: Legend and Reality ( Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), 298 pp., 14 ills. Medieval studies is often a difficult place to inhabit. Whether it be a stray lacunae, singed page, or unfinished manuscript, there is an almost constant sense that the information being dealt with and studied comes secondhand or clouded in an esotericism that previous generations of scholars found romantic. This is accompanied by the general fictionalization of the Middle Ages by the periods that follow, with researchers having to simultaneously grapple with the task of getting at the truth of the matter while also figuring out what exactly truth may have meant to the people, objects, and literatures they are studying. It is into this quagmire that David Crook steps with his interrogation into the pseudo-historical/semi-mythical figure of Robin Hood. Crook, an archivist who has been building interest in his subject since incidentally encountering a reference to the thirteenth-century criminal William Robehod, sets out in this work to formulate a distinct approach to discussing the category of medieval personage into which Robin Hood fits. There is a tension throughout the book between previous literary and historical approaches. The former, in Crook's opinion, while giving the canon of Robin Hood texts apt attention, focuses too much on the text as an object removed from its historical contexts in the same way a physicist may ignore friction to make an equation work; while the latter, despite approaching the interrogation of Robin Hood's reality in a more familiar manner to an archivist, tends to write off the interrogation itself as illogical given the minimal hard evidence for the figure's historicity based on the surviving medieval material. This tension is somewhat resolved by the method Crook utilizes, which, while not explicitly labeled, is a type of synergistic approach to literary and historical criticism that utilizes the meticulous nature of archival work to build a supposition based on textual evidence and effect. The text is separated into two main parts, each with its own chapters. The first part, "The Legend and Its Interpreters," is split into chapters that first move chronologically through the significant texts that make up the canon of Robin Hood literature. In this part, Crook manages to create a wonderful and referenceable survey of major works that details when they are thought to have been produced, their significance in terms of what is contributed to the legend textually (characters, locations, plot points, etc.), and how each text aids the development of the literature metatextually. This literary survey is injected with moments of historical analysis wherein Crook discusses elements of various texts that could hint at an accurate dating for a story's composition, or for a possible historical Robin Hood. The only drawback to this part is that Crook does not spend much [End Page 243] time analyzing the nuance of the medieval perspective. For instance, when drawing attention to A Lyttel Gest of Robin Hood's assumption that Robin was a real figure, Crook does not aptly consider the tradition of false truth claims or fictions that begin medieval texts. He does not allow for the medieval text and reader to participate in creating/absorbing fiction; nor is there an acknowledgement of the medieval phenomena of truth as something separate from fact, nor of a text's ability to create and disseminate a truth that is outside of modernity's notion of "objective truth." Following the survey of primary medieval sources, Crook then moves into a similarly chronological overview of the academic interest surrounding Robin Hood and the relative increase or lack of interest in his historicity depending on the time and academic discipline. The final chapter of this part moves away from the predominantly textual foundation of Crook's discussion and into an analysis of place names connected to the Robin Hood legend. Functionally, this chapter explores the possible dissemination of information about Robin Hood and charts the rise of the popularity of his person and legend. More importantly to Crook's methodology, this discussion of places serves as a means of connecting Robin Hood to reality...

Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England by Mary Kate Hurley

Reviewed by: Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England by Mary Kate Hurley Georgina Pitt Hurley, Mary Kate, Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England (Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture), Columbus, The Ohio State University Press, 2021; hardcover; pp. 226; R.R.P. US$99.95 ISBN 9780814214718. ‘Translation effects’ is the term Mary Kate Hurley uses to characterize the observable traces of the translation process in medieval texts. Translation effects may lend authority to a translated work or imply cultural continuity across discrete peoples. The central premise of her argument is that the process of translation acts as a bridge between the original audience of the source text and the audience of the translated text, connecting old and new communities. The focus is not localized groups—but rather on communities anticipated within the translated text itself. The connections between these virtual or imagined communities could be deployed as powerful identity markers for the audience of the translated text. [End Page 248] Hurley argues that translation is inherently an act of interpretation. She suggests that: ‘if we approach translations as a negotiated series of interactions between humans and texts, we can better understand their temporal, textual, and community-oriented interests’ (p. 7). Hurley develops her argument in three stages. She examines literal translation in the Old English Orosius and Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints, demonstrating how these texts expanded their imagined communities temporally and spatially. She traces the manuscript tradition of texts straddling the Norman Conquest (Ælfric’s homilies and the ‘Life of Constance’ in works by Nicholas Trevet, Geoffrey Chaucer, and John Gower) to show how pre-Conquest texts were used post-Conquest to shape views of the past that facilitated emerging narratives of community in Middle English. In the final section, the focus returns to Old English: Hurley uses Beowulf to illuminate the role of narrative transmission in the construction of community within a text. Hurley’s work draws upon established scholarship on the complex nature of medieval translation by scholars such as Robert Stanton, Nicole Guenther Discenza, and Rebecca Stephenson. The analysis of Beowulf expands her argument beyond the traditional conception of translation as a movement between two texts, an identified source text and a version in a different (in this period, often vernacular) language. Hurley argues that Beowulf partakes of much of the same cultural logic as traditional translations. In Beowulf, metaphorical translation is used as a self-positioning device. The way that communities coalesce and disintegrate are demonstrated and explained through the telling and retelling of stories. In making her argument, Hurley explicitly departs from the position that medieval translators conceived of translations as a narrow form of linguistic transfer, essentially a paraphrase; or that their audiences expected the translator to remain invisible and neutral, a mere conduit. Elements of refashioning within a translated text may not be aberrations, attributable to scribal ineptitude. They may be deliberate and important expressions of the cultural values and aspirations of the community in which the translated text was intended to circulate. While Hurley’s case studies are of English texts, her argument has interesting implications for scholarly research into identity formation in a variety of communities and contexts across the medieval period. This is a well-written, easily absorbed text. It does not claim to be a comprehensive survey of medieval translations, nor to articulate a universal theory of translation applicable to the period. It offers a methodology for examining translations that is apt to bring into sharp focus the wider contemporary concerns of both translator and audience, to use the translated text itself to contextualize the circumstances of its production and reception. In particular, the study of translation effects may help scholars to better understand how a particular community understood their history and signalled their identity. [End Page 249] Georgina Pitt The University of Western Australia Copyright © 2022 Georgina Pitt

АНГЛІЙСЬКИЙ ПЕРЕКЛАД «СЛОВА О ПОЛКУ ІГОРЕВІМ» ВОЛОДИМИРА НАБОКОВА ЯК ПРЕЦЕДЕНТНА СИТУАЦІЯ В МІЖКУЛЬТУРНІЙ ВЗАЄМОДІЇ

The paper deals with the English translation of “The Song of Igor’s Campaign”, carried out by Vladimir Nabokov in the middle of the 20th century. The translation is considered in a linguocultural perspective as a precedent situation (a case) in intercultural communication. Such approach involves not only an analysis of the lexical and syntactical features of the translated medieval text, but also a study of the dynamics of translation activity, which advances in specific historical conditions, depends on certain factors that influence it, and corresponds to certain tasks. The purpose of the paper is to comprehensively analyze Nabokov’s translation of “The Song of Igor’s Campaign” as a dynamic, historically conditioned intellectual process. It aims to characterize its scientific and cultural context, explore the factors shaping the translation concept, and examine the peculiarities of the search for lexical and syntactical resources and the translator’s nominative solutions. The research methodology is based on descriptive and comparative linguistic methods. The author identifies the main factors of the academic and cultural context that influenced the creation of the translation: Nabokov’s pedagogical activity, the intensification of research on the “Song” after the publication of A. Mazon’s book (1940), Nabokov’s interest in translation and scientific work in his “American period”, acquaintance with historical and philological studies on the “Song” and their results. The influence of these factors on the formation of the final conception of translation is shown and the main results of Nabokov’s study of the poetics, the compositional structure of the medieval text and its lexical and syntactical features are characterized. Some of Nabokov’s nominative solutions, his innovative technique for reproducing relevant meanings (lexical, connotative, pragmatic) are discussed. It is concluded that in the process of working on translation, the necessary balance between the strategy of meaning and the strategy of form was achieved.