Prose Translation Research Articles

Unsichtbarer Kulturtransfer: M. Ju. Lermontovs „Maskarad“ (1835) englisch (1973)

Abstract M. Ju. Lermontov’s dramatic works, having been underestimated for a long time anyway, especially in the English speaking countries, are standing in the shadow of the prose writing and poetry. Even relevant bibliographies and encyclopediae do not offer an English translation of the canonic, 1835, version of „Maskarad“. For a number of years already, the „Theatre Communication Group“ in New York has been announcing a translation. Hardly noticed by academic research, in 1973 the journal Russian Literature Triquarterly (which has ceased publication in the meantime) published a prose translation of „Maskarad“ done by Roger W. Phillips. This – considering the specific conditions of the language pair Russian-English – rather precise tranlation envisages readers of the text, it could, however, easily be adapted for theatrical use. The hermeneutic gain of comparative translation analysis is considerable, it even calls the attention to certain deficiencies in research. One can only hope contributions to the Lermontov jubilee (2014) will take up further questions concerning Lermontov’s person and works, i.e. questions which have been neglected so far.

Sanctions, Censure and Punitive Censorship: Some Targeted Hebrew Translations of Arabic Literature from 1961-1992

Translations of Arabic literature into Hebrew have been marginally present in Israeli Jewish culture for the last 62 years. Their production and reception have been affected by the ongoing political Jewish-Arab conflict which depicts the Arab as a threatening enemy and inferior to the Jew. This depiction has often led to fear and apprehension of Arabic literary works. The present paper focuses on several cases where Hebrew translations of Arabic prose and poetry were publicly condemned as a potential threat to the stability of Israeli Jewish sociopolitical creeds and state security. The various sanctions imposed on the texts and their writers (though not on their translators!) by Israeli authorities, the Israeli Hebrew press and public opinion are described and explained. These sanctions were subsequently lifted after Israeli Jewish writers rose up against censure and censorship by raising their voices in protest.

The New American Bible

Cooper takes issue with the American Bible that was published in the early 1950s. He finds a lack of rhythm in the new prose translation and compares it with earlier English translations.

The Epic of the Cid, with Related Texts (review)

Reviewed by: The Epic of the Cid, with Related Texts Bobby D. Nixon Michael Harney, ed. and trans. The Epic of the Cid, with Related Texts. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co ., 2011. xxvii+219 pp.: maps. ISBN: 978-1-60384-316-4 (cloth); 978-1-60384-315-7 (paperback) A new English translation of the Cantar de mio Cid could not have arrived in my life at a more opportune moment. After teaching the Song of Roland in an undergraduate course of medieval European literature in English translation, I decided that for next year I would choose the Cid. The original-language edition that I have always used in Spanish courses is that of Juan Carlos Conde. It includes the text established by Ramón Menéndez Pidal exactly [End Page 338] one hundred years ago, along with necessary explicatory footnotes. Opposite the medieval text is a modern prose rendering by Alfonso Reyes from 1919 that is intended to assist readers with the difficult vocabulary of the original. Conde’s informative introduction is aimed at students and nonspecialists, and the appendix includes other medieval Castilian epic texts such as Roncesvalles, Mocedades de Rodrigo, and the Poema de Fernán González, along with various Cidian texts from the Estoria de España and the Spanish ballad tradition. Upon opening Harney’s English-language edition, I was very pleased to find many of the same features as Conde’s volume. He chose to translate the Cantar de mio Cid as the “Epic of the Cid”, as opposed to “Poem” or “Song” because, as he states in the introduction, it is part of the epic tradition of “The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Beowulf, or The Song of Roland” (xviii). The chansons de geste are part of an epic tradition that was either sung or recited, so either Song or Epic is certainly preferable to Poem, which implies a literary rather than an oral tradition. The prose translation is easily readable for an undergraduate in the United States, allowing the reader to focus on the plot rather than the difficult vocabulary or the rhyme scheme. On the other hand, the reader does not get the sense of enjoying a medieval text that was part of a Castilian oral tradition. Extensive footnotes are no longer necessary in order to explain the linguistic complexities, but there is still much background information that could have appropriately found its place in this section. Fortunately, the tripartite division into cantares is maintained, but the division by tiradas or laisses is no longer present. Many scholars, such as Matthew Bailey, have stated that we should question the division by laisses and eliminate the caesura in each line, since these characteristics are not present in the medieval manuscript. Most editors have accepted this division based on shifts in assonance. The caesura represents a pause that is also present in the Spanish ballad tradition, an undeniable descendent of the medieval epic tradition. While a verse translation from a Romance language into modern English is always difficult to achieve, a noteworthy recent attempt has been made by Burton Raffel (Penguin, 2009) in a verse translation that maintains the tiradas without Menéndez Pidal’s headings and includes the original text on the opposite page. For this edition Raffel chose the title Song of the Cid. It is based on Colin Smith’s Spanish edition (1985), and includes endnotes instead of footnotes, which are likely to be overlooked since they are not indicated [End Page 339] within the text by superscript. This new translation has replaced the earlier prose translation by Rita Hamilton and Janet Perry. They also included the original epic on the opposite page using Menéndez Pidal’s text, maintaining the division by laisses, and eliminating the headings for each of these. Paul Blackburn’s 1966 edition is a much more literal verse translation that does not include the original text or other useful information for students or scholars. Although undergraduates will certainly find Harney’s text quite readable, it is a shame that they cannot see it in its original language with the division in tiradas. When we transform a text in such a way it is essential to...

Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader (review)

Reviewed by: Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader Thomas R. Schneider Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader, ed. Brett Edward Whalen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2011) xiv + 385 pp. Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, the sixteenth volume of the University of Toronto Press’s “Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures” series, provides an impressively comprehensive collection of medieval pilgrimage narratives. In the words of its editor, Brett Edward Whalen, “This Reader offers students an opportunity to take a journey of their own across approximately fifteen centuries of history organized around the theme of pilgrimage, defined in the widest possible sense as any sort of travel, both local and long-distance, made at least in part for the purpose of religious devotion” (xi). From the beginning, he asks his readers, defined first as “students” and later as “students and historians,” to understand the act of reading as a pilgrimage—experiencing new places, seeing familiar places (especially Jerusalem) in new ways, and meeting new people: “men and women who left their homes and routines to seek out God’s grace as mediated through their ‘liminal’ experience of travel, an intermediary or transitional time outside the strictures and norms of daily life” (xii). In doing so, he successfully evokes in his short introduction the sense of excitement felt at the outset of a long journey, at least to readers who come to the book with an interest in the subject matter. By defining pilgrimage in this way, Whalen breathes life into medieval pilgrims for students, revealing the dynamism and excitement of their act of walking away, at least for a time, from the familiar. And yet, he does not allow this image of the wide-eyed, devoutly idealistic medieval pilgrim to hold the stage alone for long as he reminds [End Page 256] us of the not-so-devout motivations of many and the blood spilled in Jerusalem and elsewhere by the crusaders and other military pilgrims. The historical scope of this reader is broad, including pilgrimage accounts and writings about pilgrimage in a wider sense from the fall of the western Roman Empire to a staged debate between Sir Thomas More and Martin Luther. The organization of the book is chronological. Jerusalem provides a focal point from the beginning, and the first chapter, “The Origins of Christian Pilgrimage,” traces its development as a pilgrimage site as well as providing a few accounts of pre-Christian devotional travel. Whalen seamlessly places biblical material next to the historical writings of Josephus and other travel narratives. His second chapter explores the creation of “Europe’s Christian landscape” from the fifth to the tenth centuries, while the focus of the third is the effect of the Muslim conquest upon Jerusalem itself. Chapter 4 is centered around the millennium in Europe, and chapter 5, “Pilgrimage and Holy War,” shifts to military pilgrimage in the form of the crusades. The formation in the High Middle Ages of the well-known great pilgrimage routes of Europe, such as Canterbury and Santiago de Compostela, is the subject of the sixth chapter, while chapter 7 moves away from the European focus of the book to include African and Asian pilgrimage narratives such as those of Ibn Battuta and Mansa Musa. The final chapter, “Pilgrimage and Piety in the Late Middle Ages,” provides accounts of critics as well as defenders of pilgrimage at the end of the Middle Ages. Included in this final chapter are also selections from the Middle English works of Chaucer and Margery Kempe. The inclusion of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, in prose translation and alongside chronicles and other historical works, feels slightly strange and runs the risk of eliding its formal, poetic elements, but this is consistent with the approach of this volume which compiles a vast variety of texts in disparate forms and languages. The fact that this book groups together works such as the Canterbury Tales and Pope Boniface’s declaration of plenary indulgences also brings me to what is perhaps the work’s greatest strength: it makes this impressive variety of texts accessible to a reader of English—linguistically as well as conceptually, for Whalen has translated a number of...

Zur Übersetzung des Romans Die größere Hoffnung von Ilse Aichinger ins Russische

AbstractIlse Aichinger’s novel Die größere Hoffnung was published in Russian in 1998 in the framework of the project Austrian library in St. Petersburg. The translator Elena Baevskaja is famous for her translations of French and German prose. The focus here is on the following topics: 1) the Jewish theme of the novel and its relevance for the Russian reader; 2) the rendering of recurring words and images (leitmotifs) in the novel; 3) the translation of images and lexemes concerning culturally and historically bound notions; 4) word play and other complicated cases; 5) examples of text explanation through translation.

I Resources for the study of Horace

The internet now provides many prime resources for the study of Horace which make life considerably easier for the student and scholar of the poet, such as reliable and searchable online Latin texts, bibliographies, and prose and verse translations of all kinds, as well as access to a wide range of modern and classic Horatian scholarship via digital versions of older works, Google Books, and journal databases such as JSTOR and Project MUSE (for subscribing institutions), not to mention increasing numbers of monographs available via subscription to publishers' own websites. These resources are growing continually and repay regular monitoring. But most Horatian scholarship is still to be found in printed form: here I give a brief survey of the most useful books for effective orientation in the modern study of Horace.

Lawrence of Arabia and the Shaws (T. E. Lawrence, Correspondence with Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Shaw, Volume 4, 1929–35, edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson)

Lawrence of Arabia and the Shaws (T. E. Lawrence, <i>Correspondence with Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Shaw</i>, Volume 4, 1929–35, edited by Jeremy and Nicole Wilson)

Ælfric’s Linguistic and Stylistic Alterations in his Adaptations from the Old English Boethius

AElfric’s Nativitas Domini and De Auguriis, which are included in his Lives of Saints collection, are partly adapted from the Old English prose translation of Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae. This article examines linguistic features and stylistic qualities of AElfric’s adaptations with special reference to his modification and improvements of the Old English Boethius. AElfric transposes prose written in early Old English into prose of the Late West Saxon standard in terms of lexicon, morphology and syntax. He also makes alterations in order to fit his original to his alliterative style. Furthermore, he effectively exploits formal stylistic devices, creating parallelism and introducing chiasmus and simile. On the other hand, he deletes redundancy found in the Old English Boethius. It is concluded that AElfric produced prose in highly sophisticated style, which surpasses the precedent.

A Study on Features of Zhu Ziqing‟s Prose and Its Translation—With Special Reference to His Hetang Yuese

As a prominent prose writer in modern Chinese literature, Zhu Ziqing is known for his touching and thought-provoking language. The words and expressions he chooses are both vivid and succinct, bringing readers aesthetic feelings. In order to successfully represent the aesthetic values in the English version, a translator needs to do a deep-going research into the artistic features in his prose works and tries to reproduce them in the version so as to realize the ultimate goal of prose translation—similarity in spirit.

Five poems by Wang Jiaxin

Wang Jiaxin emerged in the 1980s as one of the most prominent post-Misty poets while serving as editor of Shikan (Poetry Monthly) from 1985 to 1990. In addition to publishing his own collections of poetry and literary criticism as well as editing major anthologies of modern and contemporary Chinese poetry, he has worked extensively to introduce readers of Chinese to the work of Paul Celan and William Butler Yeats. His own poems have been translated into a number of European and Asian languages. His translation of Paul Celan's poetry and prose, done in collaboration with Rui Hu was published in 2002. Xuede kuandai (The Cordiality of Snow), his most recent collection of prose and criticism, appeared in 2010. He is currently a professor at Renmin University's School of Literary Studies.

Alternative Saints: Eucherius, Paulinus of Nola, and Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans

(2011). Alternative Saints: Eucherius, Paulinus of Nola, and Henry Vaughan's Silex Scintillans. The Seventeenth Century: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 264-278.

Translating Beowulf: modern versions in English verse

'A senior scholar writing here at the height of his powers and bringing experience and insight to an important topic... the second chapter is one of the best short, general introductions to the artistry of the poem I have read... A dizzying and engaging narrative.' Dr Chris Jones, Senior Lecturer in English Poetry, Department of English, University of St Andrews. Translations of the Old English poem 'Beowulf' proliferate, and their number continues to grow. Focusing on the particularly rich period since 1950, this book presents a critical account of translations in English verse, setting them in the contexts both of the larger story of the recovery and reception of the poem and of perceptions of it over the past two hundred years, and of key issues in translation theory. Attention is also paid to prose translation and to the creative adaptations of the poem that have been produced in a variety of media, not least film. The author looks in particular at four translations of arguably the most literary and historical importance: those by Edwin Morgan [1952], Burton Raffel [1963], Michael Alexander [1973] and Seamus Heaney [1999]. But, from an earlier period, he also gives a full account of William Morris's strange 1898 version. Hugh Magennis is Professor of Old English Literature at Queen's University Belfast.

The Beowulf manuscript: complete texts and The fight at Finnsburg

is one of the finest works of vernacular literature from the European Middle Ages and as such is a fitting title to head the Old English family of texts published in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. But this volume offers something unique. For the first time in the history of scholarship, the poem appears alongside the other four texts from its sole surviving manuscript: the prose Passion of Saint Christopher, Wonders of the East, Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, and (following Beowulf) the poem Judith. First-time readers as well as established scholars can now gain new insights into - and the four other texts - by approaching each in its original context. Could a fascination with the monstrous have motivated the compiler of this manuscript, working over a thousand years ago, to pull together this diverse grouping into a single volume? The prose translation by R.D. Fulk, based on the most recent editorial understanding, allows readers to rediscover Beowulf's brilliant mastery along with otherworldly delights in the four companion texts in Beowulf Manuscript.

Alexander Barclay's Translation of Sallust's Jugurtha: A Note on Sources

AROUND 1522, Richard Pynson published Alexander Barclay's prose translation of Sallust's Bellum Iugurthinum under the head: Here begynneth the famous cronycle of the warre/ which the romayns had against Iugurth vsurper of the kyngdome of Numidy.1 This publication is noteworthy as one of the earliest major translations of a classical author into English, and as a departure by Barclay himself from literary composition in verse, for which he is best known.2 The work appears to mark the close of Barclay's literary career, an ending possibly accompanied by his withdrawal from the Benedictine monastery of Ely, and his entry into the reformed or Observant branch of the Franciscan order between 1522 and 1528. Barclay's Jugurtha came at the end of a thirteen-year period of writing and publication, beginning with The Shyp of Folys in 1509.3 Thus, his public literary career began and ended with works of translation, published by Richard Pynson in bilingual editions: the Jugurtha has Sallust's Latin text printed in columns parallel with the English, while The Shyp of Folys provides each section of Jacob Locher's 1497 Latin translation of Sebastian Brant's original German Narrenschiff (1494), followed ‘alternatim’ (as Barclay puts it) by the English.4 These were not the only works arising out of this productive collaboration of writer and printer, nor the only ones involving elaborately formatted bilingual texts.5 It is likely that the first editions of Barclay's Eclogues, of which only later reprints survive, were also published by Pynson in bilingual format with their Latin source, as is the single edition of the Life of St George, which survives in one imperfect copy.6

Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature (review)

Reviewed by: Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature Michelle Hamilton Alexander E. Elinson . Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature. Brill Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2009. 190 pp. ISBN: 978-90-04-16680-6 In this monograph, Alexander Elinson examines al-Andalus as a literary construction through poems and prose works dedicated to Andalusi urban centers written over the course of several centuries, from the height of the Umayyad caliphate to the end of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula. It adds to a body of similar studies, including Ross Brann's Power in the Portrayal, Jonathan Decter's Iberian Jewish Literature, and Esperanza Alfonso's Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes. Elinson's study is a comparison of Hebrew and Arabic literature written in al-Andalus, and he focuses on the cultural similarities that mark both as Andalusi. He examines "how different authors evoke the memory of their lost Andalus and how these expressions are affected by genre, language, and historical and personal contexts" (9). The work contains four chapters, an appendix that includes the Arabic and Hebrew originals of the works he cites, and a glossary. In the first chapter, Elinson analyzes how the eastern form of the poetic genre of ritha' al-mudun (city elegy) was adapted by Andalusi poets to reflect the historical vicissitudes that ravaged Andalusi urban centers. He explores a corpus of poems elegizing the Umayyad cities that fell into different hands as the caliphate dissolved. These poems conform to an eastern model but also provide us with a "literary geography of al-Andalus" (15). The desert landscapes of the early nasib section of the classical qasida are transformed into the palaces and gardens of the city. This is the type of ritha' al-mudun we find in the work of eleventh-century Andalusi poets, who, as Elinson points out, combine the familiar eastern urban landscapes (Zamzam, Mecca, Najd) with distinctively Andalusi ones (Valencia, Cordoba, Sevilla). Elinson gives a detailed analysis of Ibn Shuhayd's ritha' for Cordoba and provides an English translation of the entire poem. His close reading points to how the poet makes use of the typical nasib and images of Arabian and Syrian landscapes to underscore the fate of the Andalusi places that are the real focus of the poet's lament. [End Page 205] In ch. 2, Elinson examines how the use of poetry and poetic motifs (particularly those of loss and nostalgia) in the Andalusi prose of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in and of itself conveys a sense of loss. Building on the studies of Abdelfattah Kilito and James Monroe, Elinson argues that the prose of the maqamat underscores poetry's displacement as the genre par excellence in the Muslim world and simultaneously reflects the fracturing of central authority in al-Andalus. Elinson examines al-Saraqusti's Qayrawan maqama as an expression of "what it meant to be an Andalusi in the twelfth century" (60). The city of Qayrawan was sacked by Banu Hilal Arabs in the mid-eleventh century; Elinson posits that for al-Saraqusti it symbolized the subsequent fall of a string of Andalusi urban centers, including Toledo (1085), Barbastro (1064), Valencia (1094), and al-Saraqusti's hometown, Zaragoza, in 1118. By rendering what seems to be a traditional nasib over the ruins of Qayrawan and then interrupting it with a dialogue in which a trickster who recites a qasida that, although deploying several of the expected conventions, nevertheless encourages the main character to avoid the type of nostalgic ritha' he has undertaken in Qayrawan, al-Saraqusti subverts the tradition of the ritha' al-mudun and the Bedouin traditions from which it is derived. In Elinson's opinion the work underscores how the traditional Bedouin poet's position has been replaced by that of the urban elite, just as the maqama and prose have replaced poetry in society as the privileged form of Andalusi expression. Elinson compares this maqama and its use of the ritha' al-mudun to another roughly contemporary prose translation of the poetic genre of the mourning...

The Song of the Cid: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text (review)

Reviewed by: The Song of the Cid: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text Gregory B. Kaplan The Song of the Cid: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text. Trans. Burton Raffel. Intro, and notes María Rosa Menocal. New York: Penguin, 2009. xxv+254pp. ISBN: 978-0-14-310565-7 The publication of The Song of the Cid, a new translation by Burton Raffel (with an introduction and notes by María Rosa Menocal) of Spain's only surviving, nearly complete epic poem, invites a comparison with previous renditions, in particular The Poem of the Cid, its predecessor in the Penguin Classics series, which includes a translation by Rita Hamilton and Janet Perry and an introduction and notes by Ian Michael. This comparison raises the obvious question of whether a new translation is necessary. The answer to this question is affirmative inasmuch as there is a niche for such a translation in courses in areas other than medieval Spanish literature, for which instructors require an edition designed for nonspecialist readers with an English rendition that preserves the spirit of the original work. Michael's highly annotated introduction in The Poem of the Cid is intended for those who seek a thorough overview of the major features of the poem and issues related to its structure, versification, and theories regarding its composition; these readers are likely to consult the wide range of studies that Michael identifies in his notes. In The Song of the Cid Menocal offers a more concisely written introduction that makes the epic poem accessible to readers with limited background knowledge. Menocal does an excellent job covering the most important aspects of the work, in particular the historical facts concerning Rodrigo Díaz's life, and includes a concise description of suggested further readings. On several occasions, she centers her discussion on [End Page 208] concepts that the epic poem is purported to communicate and those that are actually expressed in the text; for example, she explains that the theme of Christian reconquest is much less important than the theme of exile and that the work itself is not "openly anti-Muslim". Without going into great detail, Menocal points out important facts related to the original manuscript, including the 1779 edition by Tomas Antonio S´anchez, the reference to Per Abbat in the explicit, and the lacuna at the beginning of the manuscript; she also mentions other medieval works that deal with the Cid. In addition, Menocal briefly touches upon the theories concerning the possible oral or learned composition of The Song of the Cid and discusses the modern critics that assessed it against the backdrop of Francisco Franco's regime. Like the original Penguin volume, the English translation in The Song of the Cid is accompanied by a parallel Old Spanish text that appears to be identical to the Spanish text in The Poem of the Cid. One unfortunate omission of the Spanish text in The Song of the Cid is that it does not, unlike the older Penguin edition, include verse numbers or folio numbers that correspond to the surviving manuscript, which are very helpful when comparing the text with paleographic or facsimile editions. Raffel's translation is based on Colin Smith's 1985 edition of the Poema de Mio Cid, although, as his "Note on the Translation", explains, "I have occasionally not followed Smith, particularly with regard to line sequence and the correct placement of the arabic numerals indicating a new section (laisse)". A major difference between the old and new Penguin editions is the form into which the translation has been rendered; whereas Hamilton and Perry provide a prose translation of the work, Raffel follows the original text with a verse translation. The process of completing a translation inevitably involves choices. In general Raffel's rendition is a pleasure to read, and he successfully preserves the lively tone of the original text, as is evident in the following passages: After three weeks, as the fourth began,My Cid thought it was best to confer with his men:"They've blocked our water supply; soon we'll be out of bread.We can't sneak out at night;They're terribly strong for us...

Роль эмпатем при переводе норвежской прозы на русский язык

This paper investigates the role of empathemes in transmitting implicit emotive components in Norwegian prose translations into Russian. The focus of the study is on lexical and syntactical means used by both professional and non-professional translators. According to the results of the study, Russian translations appear to abound in emotive lexics and emphatic syntactical constructions, whereas the original text may seem to be devoid of any explicitly manifested emotion. Thus, in the process of translation from Norwegian into Russian some additional connotative senses have been brought about (either purposefully, or unintentionally). This fact is due to the cultural language-specific differences, as in Slavic languages emotions are much more explicit. The tranlator perceiving empathemes present in emotive texts is obliged to retain the implicit emotionality and usully does this in the explicit form.

‘And He, That Did it Out of French Translait’: Cleriadus in France, England and Scotland, c. 1440–1550

The Older Scots romance Clariodus survives uniquely in a manuscript written in the second half of the sixteenth century (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ MS 19.2.5). The romance itself was composed in the first half of the sixteenth century, most probably during the reign of King James V of Scotland. It is a remarkably close translation into decasyllabic couplets of the French prose romance, Cleriadus et Meliadice, estimated to have been composed between 1440 and 1444. Recent years have seen an increasing scholarly interest in the French Cleriadus, particularly concerning its focus on kingship, moral conduct and the presentation of Clariodus’ rise to power. By contrast, the Scottish romance has received regrettably little attention. This essay focuses on the poem’s authorship and sources. It interrogates a passage unique to the Scots translation in which Clariodus’ unknown author claims to have used two sources—the original French Cleriadus and a previous prose translation, commonly assumed to be in English. The plausibility of this assertion is tested via an examination of the fifteenth-century manuscripts and early reception of the original French romance at the court of Queen Marie d’Anjou. The predominantly female readers of Cleriadus are shown to provide both a ‘Scottish link’ which anticipates the sixteenth-century Scots translation and an ‘English link’ which provides a plausible context for an English prose translation.

Recent Translations of Latin Poetry

Recent Translations of Latin Poetry Aven McMaster Anne and Peter Wiseman. Ovid: Times and Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. xxxvii + 185. £61. ISBN 9780198149743. David R. Slavitt. The Gnat and Other Minor Poems of Virgil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 66. US $24.95. ISBN 9780520267657. Patricia A. Johnston. The Aeneid of Vergil. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 43. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. US $ 24.95. ISBN 9780806142050. There are many different approaches to translating a work from the ancient world, especially poetry. Each has its merits, but the utility of a translation for a particular purpose depends in large part on the goals of the translator, and how literal or free he or she intends the result to be. Sometimes this is not signalled clearly enough, and one of the jobs of the reviewer is to suggest how a translation can be best used. Under consideration here are three recent translations of Latin poetry, each presenting a different approach to the issue of balancing accuracy with faithfulness to metrical form and poetic merit. All are useful contributions to the field, and each basically achieves its stated purpose. Anne and Peter Wiseman’s translation of Ovid’s Fasti prioritizes a close translation of the Latin over poetic style: “The guiding principle of our work has been faithfulness to Ovid’s language and manner” (xxxiii). For this reason, they have chosen to render the elegiac metre into prose. They realize [End Page 223] that this in itself makes it hard to be completely faithful to Ovid’s manner, but write that “we have sacrificed the metre to gain precision: a prose translation allows us to focus on what Ovid says and how he says it” (xxxiii). The Wisemans have succeeded well in achieving their aim; the translation is accurate but also readable and lively, and as clear as it can be given the frequent obscurity of Ovid’s allusions and elliptical references. Ovid’s text is intentionally dense and filled with references that were meant to be obscure even to his contemporaries, and are sometimes quite simply opaque to us because of our distance from ordinary Roman life. This makes the text hard to read in places, in spite of the good translation. The authors do offer useful explanatory notes, but they are collected at the end of the text, which means that the reader spends a lot of time flipping back and forth. The prevalence of word-play and etymological aitiology in the work also makes translation difficult, and is perhaps another argument for having footnotes rather than end-notes, so that the original Latin pun or etymology would be immediately visible as one reads along. In Book 4, for example, on the 15th of April, there is an explanation of the term forda for a cow: “When the third light has dawned after Venus’s Ides, make a sacrifice, priests, with a forda cow. A forda cow is a cow that is carrying, and called fertile from that fact; they think the foetus too has its name from this” (78). The note explains: “the Latin for ‘to carry’ is ferre, whence ‘fertile’ and ‘foetus’ (fecunda, fetus)” (139). It is impossible to capture the word and sound play of the original: “forda ferens bos est fecundaque, dicta ferendo: / hinc etiam fetus nomen habere putant” (4.631–632), although the Wisemans make an effort with “cow that is carrying” and “fertile from that fact”. It would be easier to see the point of the etymology if the note about it were on the same page and could be compared to the English directly. As the Wisemans themselves note, the biggest distinction between their volume and two other fairly recent translations, by Boyle and Woodward (2000) and Nagle (1995), respectively, is that this new translation is in prose, and is the most faithful to the Latin. Their introduction is brief but gives appropriate background information; the glossary and index are useful and comparable to those of the earlier translations. The explanatory notes are more full than those of Nagle’s translation, but not as detailed as Boyle and Woodward’s, which give more cross...