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How do Papyrologists Read Ancient Texts?

Melissa M. Terras

in Image to Interpretation: An Intelligent System to Aid Historians in Reading the Vindolanda Texts

This chapter provides an overview of research that questions how papyrologists may read ancient documents, and presents the knowledge elicitation methodology used with the experts who read the ... More

This chapter provides an overview of research that questions how papyrologists may read ancient documents, and presents the knowledge elicitation methodology used with the experts who read the Vindolanda texts to ascertain their thought processes when approaching a text. The process of reading and making sense of an ancient text is resolved into defined units, with characteristics about each being documented. General procedural information about the ‘papyrology process’ is also presented. Particular issues regarding problems in reading the Vindolanda stylus texts are highlighted, indicating areas in which computational tools may be able to aid the papyrologists in reading such texts. This results in a proposed model of how experts read ancient documents, which is used in subsequent chapters as a basis for the development of a computer system.Less

The Taste of Music: Rasaning Gendhing

Marc Benamou

in RASA: Affect and Intuition in Javanese Musical Aesthetics

This chapter is a lexicographic exploration of the word rasa, which may (too) generally be translated as “affect” or “intuition.” In fact, rasa is much more than that. Its meanings are multiple and ... More

This chapter is a lexicographic exploration of the word rasa, which may (too) generally be translated as “affect” or “intuition.” In fact, rasa is much more than that. Its meanings are multiple and layered, as demonstrated by the many oral citations from musicians interviewed for the study. Some attention is given as well to how the word is used in a nonmusical context, which necessarily brings in Javanese psychological and philosophical theories of selfhood and perception (kebatinan), which in turn have a strong foundation in Buddhism and Sufism.Less

Introduction

Isobel Hurst

in Victorian Women Writers and the Classics: The Feminine of Homer

The extent to which Victorian women writers studied classical texts and made use of them in their writing, has been seriously underestimated. The gendering of 19th-century classical studies as ... More

The extent to which Victorian women writers studied classical texts and made use of them in their writing, has been seriously underestimated. The gendering of 19th-century classical studies as masculine is strongly reinforced by fictional accounts of girls who are denied the educational opportunities granted to their brothers, but the heroines' obvious inclination and potential for classical learning reflect those of their authors, who did learn Latin and Greek. Differing access to texts and tuition made women's responses to the classics distinctive: female classicists did not spend much time composing prose or verse in the classical languages or analysing grammar, but concentrated on translating and understanding Greek and Latin texts. The licensed acquisition of a kind of knowledge, which remained overwhelmingly associated with masculine freedom and authority was a uniquely empowering experience for intelligent girls: some degree of classical education often goes together with successful literary ambitions for women writers.Less

Translating within and between Languages

Matthew Reynolds

in The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue

The imaginative work of translating a distant language such as Burmese differs from that of translating a close language such as French. Equally, translation can happen within what we think of as a ... More

The imaginative work of translating a distant language such as Burmese differs from that of translating a close language such as French. Equally, translation can happen within what we think of as a single language because each language is internally divided into dialects and registers. So translation cannot be defined as a single operation that happens ‘between languages’: Umberto Eco is wrong to draw a strong distinction between ‘translation’ and ‘rewording’. Translation also affects how you define the linguistic material you are faced with: people can realize they need to translate what had at first not felt like a different language; I give examples from Oliver Twist. When this happens, a fissure opens up: this mattered to Dryden when he ‘translated’ Chaucer into the English of his own time; and to William Barnes when he ‘tranlsated’ his Dorset poems into ‘the dialect which is chosen as national speech’.Less

Conclusion

Wenqing Kang

in Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950

During the first half of the twentieth century, male same-sex relations manifested in five overlapping sites—the Peking opera field, translated sexological writings, tabloid newspapers, language, and ... More

During the first half of the twentieth century, male same-sex relations manifested in five overlapping sites—the Peking opera field, translated sexological writings, tabloid newspapers, language, and literary works. Analyzing these five venues reveals a usable, although fragmented, history. The nationalist cultural conservatives attempted to set China's masculine image internationally so that the old hierarchical gender order was to be retained. As some sexological writing translators also adopted a similar view, iconoclastic intellectuals utilized Western knowledge in efforts to strengthen the nation. As this chapter summarizes the study's main points, the book generally suggests that the meaning of male same-sex sexuality and masculinity were also determined by that of modernity and nationhood, and vice versa.Less

Errant Readers: The Serialized Novel’s Modern Subject

Rebecca C. Johnson

in Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation

This chapter discusses serialized translated novels. The Arabic novel made its own proper entry into the Arabic print sphere at this moment as a part of the uncertain reform project of print culture. ... More

This chapter discusses serialized translated novels. The Arabic novel made its own proper entry into the Arabic print sphere at this moment as a part of the uncertain reform project of print culture. Novels were published after and alongside a larger body of serialized translated novels that in fact occupied the greater part of the new audience's leisure reading habits. Over the course of the first decades of commercial print from the late 1850s to the late 1870s, serialized translated novels appeared in almost every type of Arabic periodical; for many readers, the word “novel” itself probably referred to these works and not the few original ones produced to compete with them. It was not just news translation that was central to the development of Arabic print culture; the translated novel, which appeared first and most prominently in serialized form, was often identified as part of periodicals' reform projects. At the same time that editors embraced translated fiction as a vehicle for their messages, however, their claim that these works served serious moral purposes was by no means indisputable. These novels' excesses were not always containable by the moral intentions of journal editors, who sometimes resorted to qualifications and elaborate interpretations in order to justify their publication. Print's civilizing reform mission, as uncertain as it was, had a primary object: the modern reading subject. Transforming the public into a reading public, and one that read properly, was the goal of many magazine producers who outlined ideal reading practices and modeled them through novels. And it was likewise a goal with an uncertain outcome.Less

Minotauro and Confluências: Two Portuguese Series Dedicated to Literature from Spain in the Twenty-First Century

Isabel Araújo Branco

in Iberian and Translation Studies: Literary Contact Zones

This chapter focuses on two contemporary editorial projects promoting cultural relations between Spain and Portugal: Minotauro, published by Edições 70, and Confluências, published by Kalandraka. ... More

This chapter focuses on two contemporary editorial projects promoting cultural relations between Spain and Portugal: Minotauro, published by Edições 70, and Confluências, published by Kalandraka. These are the very first Portuguese book series purposefully dedicated to literature written in Spain. The chapter carries out an analysis of both series, taking into account the criteria for title selection as well as the mission statement of each editorial coordinator. By resorting to the polysystem theoretical framework, it argues that Minotauro and Confluências seek to offer an ‘alternative repertoire’ that ranges from more canonical and traditional literature to contemporary narrative. The investigation also stresses the role of cultural producers and mediators (publishers, editors, and critics) in making ‘new’ literary Iberian repertoires accepted in Portugal.Less

Humoring the Melancholic Reader of World Literature

Christi A. Merrill

in Riddles of Belonging: India in Translation and Other Tales of Possession

The discussion in this chapter is framed in a query of the displaced anxiety over originality that pervades much of modern literary discussions, focusing on texts that, like Gandhi's quip, defy easy ... More

The discussion in this chapter is framed in a query of the displaced anxiety over originality that pervades much of modern literary discussions, focusing on texts that, like Gandhi's quip, defy easy division into categories of oral and written, translated and original, literary and nonliterary, even academic and nonacademic.Less

Transmigration, Transmutation, and Exile

in Translation, Subjectivity, and Culture in France and England, 1600-1800

In the early seventeenth century, translations from the classics proliferated in England. Of particular interest were verse translations by a group of Royalist supporters who spent years of exile on ... More

In the early seventeenth century, translations from the classics proliferated in England. Of particular interest were verse translations by a group of Royalist supporters who spent years of exile on the Continent during the Civil War and Interregnum. This group was led by John Denham and also included Richard Fanshawe, Abraham Cowley, Edward Sherburne, and Edmund Waller. By looking at only a small sampling of English translators from the decades before the Civil War, it is clear that a number of the features identified with neoclassical translation are already present. This chapter explores the role of translation for the Carolinian exiles, the relationship between translation and politics, and conflicting efforts to shape collective memory in the aftermath of the Civil War in Britain. It analyzes the single most widely cited English commentary on the art of translation: the 1684 Essay on Translated Verse by Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon. It also discusses the progressive consolidation of the English neoclassical translation canon, which presumably attained its full form in John Dryden's preface to Ovid's Epistles (1680).Less

This is not sarcasm believe me yours sincerely: James Kelman, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Amos Tutuola

Iain Lambert

in Scottish Literature and Postcolonial Literature: Comparative Texts and Critical Perspectives

This chapter describes the parallels between James Kelman's Translated Accounts and Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy in particular, although any reference to Saro-Wiwa's book also refers to Amos Tutuola's The ... More

This chapter describes the parallels between James Kelman's Translated Accounts and Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy in particular, although any reference to Saro-Wiwa's book also refers to Amos Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Translated Accounts foregrounds the question of how an author's words are rendered, by whom and why. Saro-Wiwa's use of a first-person narrator links the story to Tutuola's novels, and indeed with Translated Accounts. The language of Translated Accounts forces the reader to slow down and occupy the position of a non-native speaker functioning in a second language. As with the ‘Rotten English’ of Ken Saro-Wiwa, in Translated Accounts Kelman has succeeded in putting his readers in the position of someone far from the linguistic and political centre through the abrogation of a statist prestige variety of language.Less

Who is the third beside you? Authority in Mercier and Camier

Daniela Caselli

in Beckett’s Dantes: Intertextuality in the Fiction and Criticism

This chapter provides a reading of Mercier et Camier/Mercier and Camier that focuses on how Dante sometimes appears in the French and not in the English self-translated text, and vice versa. It ... More

This chapter provides a reading of Mercier et Camier/Mercier and Camier that focuses on how Dante sometimes appears in the French and not in the English self-translated text, and vice versa. It observes how the issues of authority, visibility and invisibility can help assess the role Dante played in Mercier and Camier in relation to both Mercier et Camier and other texts by Beckett. Finally, it considers P. J. Murphy's point that the true ‘pseudocouple’ is the author linked with his two creations, and not Mercier and Camier.Less

Invader Fictions: National Literature after Translation

Rebecca C. Johnson

in Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation

This chapter discusses how translation has affected literature. When we assess criticism of translated literature as part of the larger national conversation about the novel's purpose, the formation ... More

This chapter discusses how translation has affected literature. When we assess criticism of translated literature as part of the larger national conversation about the novel's purpose, the formation of the national literary canon comes to resemble a process of negotiating the foreignness that lies within it and not solely a process of casting the foreign out. In doing so, we ascribe historicity to the formation of national literary history itself, reformulating not just the position of Arabic in an imagined world literary canon but also the modern Arabic literary canon. Translation helped to shape a category of national literature that belonged in turn to a comparative process. Reading the history of the novel in translation forces us to recast national literary histories, to read the nation in translation. To locate foreign literature within national literary history at the moment of its formation is only possible if one uncovers the impact that translations had on “original” writing, discourses and institutions of modernity, and reading practices. Understanding that history challenges us to read novels' depiction of even national environments or characters in the comparative critical context in which they were written and to see “national realism” as a mode that was canonized through comparative and translational methodologies and as perhaps the culmination of a history of translation.Less

Cultural Diplomacy and the Arts

Philippe Lane

in French Scientific and Cultural Diplomacy

The Institut français promotes the performing and visual arts, and architecture, stressing the economic value of culture; circus arts and hip-hop now complement French ballet and theatre as training ... More

The Institut français promotes the performing and visual arts, and architecture, stressing the economic value of culture; circus arts and hip-hop now complement French ballet and theatre as training and talent-spotting are encouraged: music is in constant evolution, whether jazz, classical or contemporary, French orchestras being very active. Public-private partnerships bring together state sponsors with private donors: great contemporary art encounters staged in France maintain high visibility; aesthetic innovative industrial design embodies tradition; digital arts have their own characteristics, enriching other disciplines, including dance, theatre, the visual arts, stage performance and music. In promoting books abroad, French cultural diplomacy also encourages artistic and cultural production, scientific expertise and debate, while translation promotes awareness of France through Plan traduire: science is a growing area in the debate of ideas through interactive exhibitions, science weeks and scientific film festivals. In broadcasting, Canal France International attracts buyers from developing countries to French productions, affording greater exposure for French programmes: sales of French radio and television programmes remain buoyant thanks to drama; Unifrance promotes French cinema globally. Archaeology is historically a prime area of cultural diplomacy for France. The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs finances archaeological activities around the world including subsequent publicationLess

In the Beginning was Translation

Leevi Lehto

in The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound

The poetic sound in translation is being described in this chapter because it would not even make sense to speak about translating poetry without accounting for the sound. The specific sound of a ... More

The poetic sound in translation is being described in this chapter because it would not even make sense to speak about translating poetry without accounting for the sound. The specific sound of a poem or a poet usually represents a new material dimension inside a natural language. In the history of translating poetry, Benjamin's method has been in wider use than is usually recognized. The chapter cites the example of transferring English, German, and French metrical patterns into Finnish poetry during its so-called traditional period (1880–1950). Translation forms the basis of cultures, that is, meaning, among other things, that translation is always also (already) political. Focusing the primacy of translation does not rule out the possibility that “original works” may contribute to the realization of the pure (read impure) language.Less

Translating the Sound in Poetry: Six Propositions

Rosmarie Waldrop (ed.)

in The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound

Sound cannot be separated from the semantic dimension and sound in poetry is not a simple phonetic matter. Hence, it is impossible to translate the sound in poetry because the union of sound/sense ... More

Sound cannot be separated from the semantic dimension and sound in poetry is not a simple phonetic matter. Hence, it is impossible to translate the sound in poetry because the union of sound/sense will not be the same in any other language. It is not so delightful when the translator has a mechanical understanding of sound and form. An example of a poem given in this text helps to analyze how sound is used and, more generally, what goes on in the poem and how this relates to its language and tradition. The first step is to analyze what elements are dominant in a poem. There is no fixed rule as each poem requires its own approach and as such no translation is definitive.Less

Pollyanna: Transformation in the Japanese Context

Mio Bryce

in Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna: A Children's Classic at 100

This chapter's examination of Pollyanna within the context of Japanese children's literature notes similarities on early-twentieth-century American and Japanese desires to combine moral intent with ... More

This chapter's examination of Pollyanna within the context of Japanese children's literature notes similarities on early-twentieth-century American and Japanese desires to combine moral intent with idealized childhood innocence. A key difference between the two national literatures is the willingness to entertain their young readers rather than simply preaching moral values. Identifying a shift in attitudes toward the Japanese children's literature readers from the 1950s onward, the chapter argues that translated literature provided the main models for “entertaining” literature for children, especially stories for girls or stories featuring girls as the protagonist. Novels such as Pollyanna played a vital role in shaping the concept of girlhood during this era, and its impact is evident in romantic girls' love comedies and other popular fiction since the 1970s.Less

Finding the Jokes: Catullus: Poems of Love and Hate

Josephine Balmer

in Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry

This chapter explores the translation strategies required to translate Roman poet Catullus into English, exploring, in particular, the difficulties of translating long-dead jokes and humour from ... More

This chapter explores the translation strategies required to translate Roman poet Catullus into English, exploring, in particular, the difficulties of translating long-dead jokes and humour from ancient civilizations. It asks how women translators might approach Catullus’s often violent sexual imagery, examining in particular Josephine Balmer’s Catullus: Poems of Love and Hate (2004), comparing this with versions by male translators such as John Godwin, Peter Green, Guy Lee, and James Michie.Less

Symbolic Wisdom in an Age of Criticism

Daniel Stolzenberg

in Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity

This chapter first examines Kircher's method of translating hieroglyphs and then turns to his efforts to defend their reliability against philological criticism. In contrast to the many studies of ... More

This chapter first examines Kircher's method of translating hieroglyphs and then turns to his efforts to defend their reliability against philological criticism. In contrast to the many studies of Kircher's theory of hieroglyphic symbolism, little attention has been paid to the mechanics by which he produced the translations printed in Egyptian Oedipus and Obeliscus Pamphilius. These were based on the idea that symbolic images could only be understood in relationship to texts, combined with the Neoplatonic theory that the hieroglyphs were a “nondiscursive” language, which communicated without grammar or syntax. The hermeneutic practice that Kircher derived from these principles allowed him to produce translations that were not unmethodical, but which were inherently liable to charges of arbitrariness.Less