Vernacular Translation In Dante's Italy: Illiterate Literature (cambridge Studies In Medieval Literature)
by Alison Cornish /
2011 / English / PDF
1.5 MB Download
Translation and commentary are often associated with institutions
and patronage; but in Italy around the time of Dante, widespread
vernacular translation was mostly on the spontaneous initiative of
individuals. While Dante is usually the starting point for
histories of vernacular translation in Europe, this book
demonstrates that The Divine Comedy places itself in opposition to
a vast vernacular literature already in circulation among its
readers. Alison Cornish explores the anxiety of vernacularization
as expressed by translators and contemporary authors, the
prevalence of translation in religious experience, the role of
scribal mediation, the influence of the Italian reception of French
literature on that literature, and how translating into the
vernacular became a project of nation-building only after its
virtual demise during the Humanist period. Vernacular translation
was a phenomenon with which all authors in thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century Europe - from Brunetto Latini to Giovanni
Boccaccio - had to contend.
Translation and commentary are often associated with institutions
and patronage; but in Italy around the time of Dante, widespread
vernacular translation was mostly on the spontaneous initiative of
individuals. While Dante is usually the starting point for
histories of vernacular translation in Europe, this book
demonstrates that The Divine Comedy places itself in opposition to
a vast vernacular literature already in circulation among its
readers. Alison Cornish explores the anxiety of vernacularization
as expressed by translators and contemporary authors, the
prevalence of translation in religious experience, the role of
scribal mediation, the influence of the Italian reception of French
literature on that literature, and how translating into the
vernacular became a project of nation-building only after its
virtual demise during the Humanist period. Vernacular translation
was a phenomenon with which all authors in thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century Europe - from Brunetto Latini to Giovanni
Boccaccio - had to contend.
