Virgil and his Translators

by Susanna Braund (Editor), Zara Martirosova Torlone (Editor)

Overview

This is the first volume to offer a critical overview of the long and complicated history of translations of Virgil from the early modern period to the present day, transcending traditional studies of single translations or particular national traditions in isolation to offer an insightful comparative perspective. The twenty-nine essays in the collection cover numerous European languages - from English, French, and German, to Greek, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Slovenian, and Spanish - but also look well beyond Europe to include discussion of Brazilian, Chinese, Esperanto, Russian, and Turkish translations of Virgil. While the opening two contributions lay down a broad theoretical and comparative framework, the majority conduct comparisons within a particular language and combine detailed case studies with in-depth contextualization and theoretical background, showing how the translations discussed are embedded in their own cultures and historical moments. The final two essays are written from the perspective of contemporary translators, closing out the volume with a profound assessment not only of the influence exerted by the major Roman poet on later literature, but also why translation of a canonical author such as Virgil matters, not only as a national and transnational cultural phenomenon, but as a personal engagement with a literature of enduring power and relevance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198810810
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Series:	Classical Presences
Pages:	532
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Susanna Braund, Professor of Latin Poetry and its Reception, University of British Columbia,Zara Martirosova Torlone, Professor of Classics, Miami University, Ohio

Susanna Braund moved to the University of British Columbia in 2007 to take up a Canada Research Chair in Latin Poetry and its Reception after teaching previously at Stanford, Yale, London, Bristol, and Exeter. She received her BA and PhD from the University of Cambridge. She has published extensively on Roman satire, Latin epic poetry, and the passions in Roman thought, and has translated Lucan for the Oxford World's Classics series, Persius and Juvenal for the Loeb Classical Library, and also three of Seneca's tragedies. She was a Visiting Scholar at the College de France in 2014 and won a Killam Research Fellowship in the 2016 national competition for her project 'Virgil Translated'.

Zara Martirosova Torlone is a Professor in the Department of Classics at Miami University, Ohio. She received her BA in Classical Philology from Moscow University and her PhD in Classics from Columbia University. She is the author of Russia and the Classics: Poetry's Foreign Muse (Duckworth, 2009), Latin Love Poetry (co-authored with Denise McCoskey; I.B. Tauris, 2014), and Vergil in Russia: National Identity and Classical Reception (OUP, 2015), as well as articles on Roman poetry and the novel, the Russian reception of antiquity, Roman games, and textual criticism. Her most recent publication is the co-edited volume A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe (with Dana LaCourse Munteanu and Dorota Dutsch; Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), to which she also contributed.

Table of Contents

0. Introduction. The Translation History of Virgil: The Elevator Version, Susanna Braund and Zara Martirosova TorlonePart 1: Virgil Translation as Cultural and Ideological Capital1. Successes and Failures in Virgilian Translation, Craig Kallendorf2. Dante's Influence on Virgil: Italian Volgarizzamenti and Enrique de Villena's Eneida of 1428, Richard Armstrong3. Epic and the Lexicon of Violence: Gregorio Hernandez de Velasco's Translation of Aeneid 2 and Cervantes's Numancia, Stephen Rupp4. Love and War: Translations of Aeneid 7 into English (From Caxton to Today), Alison Keith5. The Passion of Dido: Aeneid 4 in English Translation to 1700, Gordon Braden6. An Amazon in the Renaissance: Marie de Gournay's Translation of Aeneid 2, Fiona Cox7. Virgil after Vietnam, Susanna Braund8. Translations of Virgil into Esperanto, Geoffrey Greatrex9. Translations of Virgil into Ancient Greek, Michael Paschalis10. Sing it Like Homer: Evgenios Voulgaris' Translation of the Aeneid, Sophia Papaioannou11. Farming for the Few: Jozef Subic's Georgics and the Early Slovenian Reception of Virgil, Marko Marincic12. Reviving Virgil in Turkish, Cigdem Durusken and Ekin Oyken13. Finding a Pastoral Idiom: Norwegian Translations of Virgil's Eclogues and the Politics of Language, Mathilde Skoie14. The Aeneid and 'Les Belles Lettres': Virgil's Epic in French between Fiction and Philology, from Veyne back to Perret, Severine Clement-Tarantino15. Virgil in China, Jinyu LiuPart 2: Poets as Translators of Virgil: Cultural Competition, Appropriation, and Identification16. Domesticating Aesthetic Effects: Virgilian Case Studies, Richard F. Thomas17. The Translation of Books Four and Six of Du Bellay's Aeneid: Rewriting as Poetic Reinvention?, Helene Gautier18. Aesthetic and Political Concerns in Dryden's Aeneis, Stephen Scully19. Translation Theory into Practice: Jacques Delille's Georgiques de Virgile, Marco Romani Mistretta20. 'Only a poet can translate true poetry': The Translation of Aeneid 2 by Giacomo Leopardi, Giampiero Scafoglio21. Wordsworth's Translation of Aeneid 1 3 and the Earlier Tradition of English Translations of Virgil, Philip Hardie22. Epic Failures: Vasilii Zhukovskii's 'Destruction of Troy' and Russian Translations of the Aeneid, Zara Martirosova Torlone23. Virgilio Brasileiro: A Brazilian Virgil in the Nineteenth Century, Paulo Sergio de Vasconcellos24. Between Voss and Schroder: German Translations of Virgil's Aeneid, Ulrich Eigler25. Reflections on Two Verse Translations of the Eclogues in the Twentieth Century: Paul Valery and Marcel Pagnol, Jacqueline Fabre-Serris26. 'Come tradurre?': Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Tradition of Italian Translations of Virgil's Aeneid, Ulrich Eigler27. Irish Versions of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, Cillian O'Hogan28. Cutting our Losses: A Translator's Journey through the Aeneid, Alessandro Fo29. Afterword. Let Go Fear: Future Virgils, Josephine BalmerEndmatterBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex

Editorial Reviews

"this lucid and entertaining collection will serve as a helpful introduction to the complex ideological phenomena which motivate the translation of classical texts." — George Brocklehurst, International Journal of the Classical Tradition

"This lively and thoughtful collection, a long overdue contribution to Virgilian studies, applies the ideological hermeneutics pioneered by Theodore Ziolkowski in Virgil and the Moderns (1993), emphasizing the complex aesthetic, moral and political concerns involved in translating the 'classic of all Europe'." — George Brocklehurst, International Journal of the Classical Tradition

"This substantial volume will appeal to all Virgilians and reception studies scholars, evidencing as it does the many and varied permutations of three ancient source texts, and setting a new standard for breadth and depth in comparative surveys. The volume is also of use to students or those unfamiliar with any of the many languages treated: all quotations are translated, and a comprehensive bibliography is appended to the essays." — Holly Rangers, Institute of Classical Studies, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Every chapter of the book contains data and observations that will doubtless be of interest to specialist scholars of particular European and Asian languages." — David Hopkins, University of Bristol, Translation and Literature

"Braund and Torlone have produced an international tribute to Virgil, a polyglot paean for the considerable effort expended through the ages on the transmission of the poet's limpid hexameters into a dizzying array of vernaculars. A testament to the success of the arduous endeavor is the urge the individual chapters engender both to search out familiar chestnuts of Virgilian translation for reexamination, and to explore unknown versions (and indeed unfamiliar languages). If Virgil is the premiere Roman poet, this book ably illustrates the widespread influence and enduring power and charm of his works." — Lee Fratantuo, CJOnline

"Braund and Torlone have produced an international tribute to Virgil, a polyglot paean for the considerable effort expended through the ages on the transmission of the poet's limpid hexameters into a dizzying array of vernaculars. A testament to the success of the arduous endeavor is the urge the individual chapters engender both to search out familiar chestnuts of Virgilian translation for reexamination, and to explore unknown versions (and indeed unfamiliar languages) ... This is one of the most valuable Virgilian titles of its year. It deserves to be on the shelves of all libraries that service a classics curriculum, and in the personal collections of Virgilians and devotees of classical verse." — Lee Fratantuono, Classical Journal Online

"Virgil and his Translators needs no conceptual justification. It is a hugely rewarding collection of essays, full of analysis, perception and insights into the translation of Virgil over the ages." — Stuart Lyons, Classics for all

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