1st Edition

Complicating the History of Western Translation The Ancient Mediterranean in Perspective

By Siobhán McElduff, Enrica Sciarrino Copyright 2011
    236 Pages
    by Routledge

    236 Pages
    by Routledge

    As long as there has been a need for language, there has been a need for translation; yet there is remarkably little scholarship available on pre-modern translation and translators. This exciting and innovative volume opens a window onto the complex world of translation in the multilingual and multicultural milieu of the ancient Mediterranean. From the biographies of emperors to Hittites scribes in the second millennium BCE to a Greek speaking Syrian slyly resisting translation under the Roman empire, the papers in this volume – fresh and innovative contributions by new and established scholars from a variety of disciplines including Classics, Near Eastern Studies, Biblical Studies, and Egyptology – show that translation has always been a phenomenon to be reckoned with.

    Accessible and of interest to scholars of translation studies and of the ancient Mediterranean, the contributions in Complicating the History of Western Translation argue that the ancient Mediterranean was a ‘translational’ society even when, paradoxically, cultures resisted or avoided translation. Indeed, this volume envisions an expansion of the understanding of what translation is, how it works, and how it should be seen as a major cultural force. Chronologically, the papers cover a period that ranges from around the third millennium BCE to the late second century CE; geographically they extend from Egypt to Rome to Britain and beyond. Each paper prompts us to reflect about the problematic nature of translation in the ancient world and challenges monolithic accounts of translation in the West.

    Introduction A Sea of Languages, Siobhán McElduff, Enrica Sciarrino; Part 1 The Translator as Agent; Chapter 1 A Handbook for the Translation of Greek Myth into Latin, Kristopher Fletcher; Chapter 2 Sappho Under My Skin, Elizabeth Marie Young; Chapter 3 Cicero’s Translation of Greek Philosophy, Han Baltussen; Part 2 Translation as Monument; Chapter 4 Bilingual Inscriptions and Translation in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Jennifer Larson; Chapter 5 The Translation Politics of a Political Translation, Sophia Papaioannou; Part 3 Translation and the Co-circulation of the Source Text; Chapter 6 Translation and Directionality in the Hebrew-Greek Tradition, Dries De Crom; Chapter 7 The Political Aims of Lucretius’ Translation of Thucydides, Edith Foster; Chapter 8 Horace and the Con/straints of Translation, Diana Spencer; Part 4 Translating Cultures, Cultural Responses, and Resistance to Translation; Chapter 9 Herodotus and Ctesias, Jan P. Stronk; Chapter 10 How Not to Translate, Daniel Richter; Chapter 11 Translating Rome, Bradley Buszard; Part 5 Translation before Translation Theory/Translation after Translation Theory; Chapter 12 Translation Among the Hittites, Dennis R.M. Campbell; Chapter 13 Three Histories of Translation, Thomas Schneider;

    Biography

    Siobhán McElduff, Enrica Sciarrino