‘Aminta, Thou art translated !’ : Deux versions anglaises de l’Aminta du Tasse aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles
Italian literature of the 15th and 16th centuries played an important role in England’s search for a distinctive national literature. In the second half of the 16th century, the decision to translate an Italian work into English was often due to larger literary and cultural motivations. These foreig...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institut du Monde Anglophone
2004-12-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/3865 |
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| Summary: | Italian literature of the 15th and 16th centuries played an important role in England’s search for a distinctive national literature. In the second half of the 16th century, the decision to translate an Italian work into English was often due to larger literary and cultural motivations. These foreign literatures were translated in such a manner as to become themselves English works. The Amyntas of Abraham Fraunce is a case in point. The English writer transforms his Italian model into a thoroughly English text by using Anglo-Saxon words and writing in alliterative verse. Fraunce does not hesitate to deviate from his model by adding whole passages not found in the original, such as those referring to his patron, the Countess of Pembroke. One such passage remains obscure in which Fraunce describes how the Countess (the nymph « Pembrokiana ») kills a « forrein bear » , who, at the point of death, gives birth to her cubs, begging the nymph to give them « free passage » since she has already given them their « passport ». One can see in this passage an allegory of translation as immigration. The desire to « English » the « forreine » text was part of a project to enrich the English language by making the Other a denizen of England. |
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| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |