The King's English , livre ebook

234

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English

Ebooks

2012

Écrit par
Nicole Guenther Discenza

Publié par
State University of New York Press

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234

pages

English

Ebook

2012

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

01 février 2012

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780791483237

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

In the late ninth century, while England was fighting off Viking incursions, Alfred the Great devoted time and resources not only to military campaigns but also to a campaign of translation and education unprecedented in early medieval Europe. The King's English explores how Alfred's translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy from Latin into Old English exposed Anglo-Saxon elites to classical literature, history, science, and Christian thought. More radically, the Boethius, as it became known, told its audiences how a leader should think and what he should be, providing models for leadership and wisdom that live on in England to this day. It also brought prestige to its kingly translator and enshrined his dialect, West Saxon, as the literary language of the English people.

Nicole Guenther Discenza looks at the sources Alfred used in his translation and demonstrates his selectivity in choosing what to retain, what to borrow, and how to represent it to his Anglo-Saxon audience. Alfred's appeals to Latin prestige, spiritual authority, Old English poetry, and everyday experience in England combine to make the Old English Boethius a powerful text and a rich source for our understanding of Anglo-Saxon literature, culture, and society.

Introduction

1. Treasures from the Latin Hoard

2. A Christian Art of Reading

3. The Making of an English Dialogue

4. The Translator's Cræft

Conclusion

Appendix: The Commentary Problem

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts

Index of Scriptural Citations

General Index

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Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

01 février 2012

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780791483237

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

The King’s English

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The King’s English

Strategies of Translation in the Old EnglishBoethius

Nicole Guenther Discenza

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise with out the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 122102365

Production by Judith Block Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Discenza, Nicole Guenther, 1969– The King’s English : strategies of translation in the Old English Boethius/ Nicole Discenza. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7914–6447–4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Alfred, King of England, 849–899. Old English version of Boethius De consolatione philosophiae. 2. Alfred, King of England, 849899—Knowledge— Language and languages. 3. Boethius, d 524—Translations into English— History and criticism. 4. Latin language—Translating into English—History— To 1500. 5. Translating and interpreting—England—History—To 1500. 6. English language—Old English, ca. 450–1100—Style. 7. Boethius, d 524. De consolatione philosophiae. I. Title.

PR1549.D57 2005 100—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2004054173

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Contents

1. Treasures from the Latin Hoard

2. A Christian Art of Reading

3. The Making of an English Dialogue

4. The Translator’sCræft

Conclusion

Appendix: The Commentary Problem

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts

Index of Scriptural Citations

General Index

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acknowledgments

his book would not have been possible without the encouragement t and support of many others. First among these must be Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, my dissertation director, mentor, and friend, who helped greatly with both dissertation and book. I also thank my disserta tion committee, Maureen Boulton, Stephen Gersh, John Van Engen, and Charles Wright, for all their comments and questions. Antonette diPaolo Healey aided my work oncræftand has always encouraged me. Paul Szarmach’s interest and advice were indispensable. My work with theFontes AngloSaxoniciproject led to additional material for the book, and I am grateful to Malcolm Godden and Rohini Jayatilaka for inviting me to con tribute toFontesand to two Boethius Project symposia, and especially for their specific questions, comments, and corrections. Joe Wittig answered many questions on the commentaries, provided me with a copy of a forth coming item, and has always been friendly and encouraging. Judith Bealls, Sally Bormann, and Jana Schulman helped me to focus my ideas while I was at the National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute, and Andrew Scheil made valuable comments then and after. James Peltz and Judith Block at the State University of New York Press have made my first experience with publishing a book a good one, and anonymous readers for the Press made many valuable suggestions. Francelia Clark at the University of Michigan first started me on a study of Alfred’sBoethiusas an undergraduate, and the University of Michigan’s Medieval and Renaissance program, and especially Cindy Sowers and Charles Witke, gave me a firm foundation for later work. I am very grateful for a Mellon Fellowship and dissertationyear grant from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, as well as support from the University of Notre Dame. The disser tation was reconceived as a book during the 1999 NEH Summer Institute on AngloSaxon England at Western Michigan University, and I thank the NEH for support to attend. A summer leave grant from Hillsdale College funded the bulk of the additional research needed to turn the dissertation into a book. I

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was also fortunate to have help from two excellent interlibrary loan services: the Hesburgh Library of the University of Notre Dame and Hillsdale College’s Mossey Library. The staffs at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Cambridge University Library, and Trinity College Library in Cambridge, England greatly facilitated my work with manuscripts. Part of chapter 4 is adapted with permission from Cambridge University Press from my “Power, Skill and Virtue in the Old EnglishBoethius,”ASE26 (1997): 81–108. Finally, I must thank my family and friends. My parents, Paul and Valerie Guenther, have always encouraged my love of both literature and history. Friends, especially John Somerville at Hillsdale College, and Laura Runge and John Fleming at the University of South Florida, lent moral sup port. My husband, Joe Discenza, provided an endless font of support and conversation about the book. He helped me talk through many of the ideas contained in these chapters (and many more that proved unworthy of inclu sion) despite being a mathematician by training and an AngloSaxonist only by marriage. Completing the manuscript through a pregnancy and our daugh ter Catherine’s earliest years would have been impossible without his great help. I thank Catherine too, although it will be some time before she knows why. Any remaining errors are, of course, my own.

introduction

n the late ninth century, while the Danes were attacking England and trainslation and education. The king himself translated Gregory the Great’s the AngloSaxons were struggling to fight them off and rebuild, Alfred, King of the West Saxons, embarked on a startling program of Regula pastoralis, Boethius’sDe consolatione philosophiae, Augustine’s 1 SoliloquiaHe sponsored, and the first fifty Psalms into Old English. Wærferth’s translation of Gregory’sDialoguesand perhaps also the anony mous translations of Orosius’sHistoriae aduersum paganosand Bede’s 2 Historia ecclesiasticafaced a more subtle threat than that of the. Alfred Danes. He confronted competition from a much more widely known and prestigious culture: Latin language and traditions were accessible through much of the Mediterranean and Western Europe if only to the most learned. Latin was the language of learning, religion, and, for the most part, writing. English, by contrast, was widely accessible in England, but England was a small island in a corner of the known world; written English was accessible to few indeed, both on and off the island. Recent work by French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu, and in the field of Translation Studies, offers frameworks for understanding how Alfred’s strategies mediated among the source text, the Latin traditions surrounding it, and the Anglo Saxon culture that received the translation. These strategies legitimated the translation, enabled it to convey cultural capital to its readers, and helped it to inculcate a specific set of values into its audience. Alfred had few models of how to render Latin into Old English and needed to authorize his own acts of translation. He had authority as king, but 3 political authority is not the same as moral and literary authority. Pierre Bourdieu would describe these as separate “fields”: the political field is not equivalent to the spiritual field, and different kinds of authority and capital 4 operate in each. Even as a warriorking, Alfred did not have absolute power; theAngloSaxon Chroniclerecords that in 893A.D. an army dispersed 5 because Alfred did not relieve it in time. How much more difficult would

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