Translation has played a vital part in the history of literature throughout the English-speaking world. Offering for the first time a comprehensive view of this phenomenon, this pioneering five-volume work casts a vivid new light on the history of English literature. Incorporating critical discussion of translations, it explores the changing nature and function of translation and the social and intellectual milieu of the translators.
Volume 2 explores the period when a drive, unprecedented in its energy and scope, to bring foreign writing of all kinds into English emerged, and when translation became a key part of the English writer's career. Translation was also fundamental in the evolution of the still unfixed English language and its still unfixed literary styles.
"The editors and contributors are to be warmly congratulated for assembling, consolidating and making available so much useful knowledge' William St Clair, Times Literary Supplement.
This book, written by a team of experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which translation has brought the major literature of the world into English-speaking culture. Part I discusses theoretical issues and gives an overview of the history of translation into English. Part II, the bulk of the work, arranged by language of origin, offers critical discussions, with bibliographies, of the translation history of specific texts (e.g. the Koran, the Kalevala), authors (e.g. Lucretius, Dostoevsky), genres (e.g. Chinese poetry, twentieth-century Italian prose) and national literatures (e.g. Hungarian, Afrikaans).
Translation is everywhere, and matters to everybody. Translation doesn't only give us foreign news, dubbed films and instructions for using the microwave: without it, there would be no world religions, and our literatures, our cultures, and our languages would be unrecognisable. In this Very Short Introduction, Matthew Reynolds gives an authoritative and thought-provoking account of the field, from ancient Akkadian to World English, from St Jerome to Google Translate. He shows how translation determines meaning, how it matters in commerce, empire, conflict and resistance, and why it is fundamental to literature and the arts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Translation has played a vital part in the culture of the English-speaking world. The first comprehensive historical treatment of the subject, these five volumes not only explore the changing nature and function of translation in society, but place in a vivid new light the whole history of English literature. The many contributors critical discussions of the major translations in each period, from Chaucer and Wyatt to Ezra Pound and Seamus Heaney, also revealtheir far-reaching effects. The vigorous debates that have surrounded translation, the social and intellectual milieu of the translators, and modes of publication and reception, also form part of the story. Extensive bibliographical and biographical reference material makes this an authoritativereference source.
English Translation and Classical Reception is the first genuine cross-disciplinary study bringing English literary history to bear on questions about the reception of classical literary texts, and vice versa. The text draws on the author’s exhaustive knowledge of the subject from the early Renaissance to the present. The first book-length study of English translation as a topic in classical reception Draws on the author’s exhaustive knowledge of English literary translation from the early Renaissance to the present Argues for a remapping of English literary history which would take proper account of the currently neglected history of classical translation, from Chaucer to the present Offers a widely ranging chronological analysis of English translation from ancient literatures Previously little-known, unknown, and sometimes suppressed translated texts are recovered from manuscripts and explored in terms of their implications for English literary history and for the interpretation of classical literature
Translation: Theory and Practice: A Historical Reader responds to the need for a collection of primary texts on translation, in the English tradition, from the earliest times to the present day. Based on an exhaustive survey of the wealth of available materials, the Reader demonstrates throughout the link between theory and practice, with excerpts not only of significant theoretical writings but of actual translations, as well as excerpts on translation from letters, interviews, autobiographies, and fiction. The collection is intended as a teaching tool, but also as an encyclopaedia for the use of translators and writers on translation. It presents the full panoply of approaches to translation, without necessarily judging between them, but showing clearly what is to be gained or lost in each case. Translations of key texts, such as the Bible and the Homeric epic, are traced through the ages, with the same passages excerpted, making it possible for readers to construct their own map of the evolution of translation and to evaluate, in their historical contexts, the variety of approaches. The passages in question are also accompanied by ad verbum versions, to facilitate comparison. The bibliographies are likewise comprehensive. The editors have drawn on the expertise of leading scholars in the field, including the late James S. Holmes, Louis Kelly, Jonathan Wilcox, Jane Stevenson, David Hopkins, and many others. In addition, significant non-English texts, such as Martin Luther's "Circular Letter on Translation," which may be said to have inaugurated the Reformation, are included, helping to set the English tradition in a wider context. Related items, such as the introductions to their work by Tudor and Jacobean translators or the work of women translators from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries have been brought together in "collages," marking particularly important moments or developments in the history of translation. This comprehensive reader provides an invaluable and illuminating resource for scholars and students of translation and English literature, as well as poets, cultural historians, and professional translators.
Poetry is supposed to be untranslatable. But many poems in English are also translations: Pope's Iliad, Pound's Cathay, and Dryden's Aeneis are only the most obvious examples. The Poetry of Translation explodes this paradox, launching a new theoretical approach to translation, and developing it through readings of English poem-translations, both major and neglected, from Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue. The word 'translation' includes within itself a picture: of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire, or succumbing to passion; of taking a view, or zooming in; of dying, metamorphosing, or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion. Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's Aeneid because he thinks Virgil's Aeneid opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way, translation can continue the creativity of its originals. The Poetry of Translation puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature, allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.
This book covers the history of the theory and practice of translation from Cicero to the digital age. It examines all major processes of translation, offers critical accounts of current research, and compares theoretical perspectives on the problems of translation ranging from sacred texts and drama to science and diplomatic interpretation.
