Rethinking Medieval Translation. Ethics, Politics, Theory ed. by Emma Campbell and Robert Mills (review)

The editors of this volume have gathered twelve contributions on medieval translation with the overall aim of taking the current ideas on medieval translation theory and practice a step further, especially with respect to ethical and political dimensions. In their introduction, they discuss the objectives of the collection, and show the important and necessary interaction between medieval studies and translation studies. As they state, ‘[given] the centrality of ethical and political issues both to the medieval notion of translatio and to recent discussions of translations in contemporary translation studies, this is one area where the interface between modern theory and research on medieval translation is—and might continue to be—enormously productive’ (2). Especially, the editors draw attention to the importance of the emergence of postcolonial criticism as a specific field of literary and cultural analysis, inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, Lawrence Venuti and Antoine Berman, and exploring the translator’s role with respect to cultural dominance.

In other words, the volume wants to examine the ability of translation ‘to negotiate cultural and linguistic difference’ (4) and to give a more nuanced perspective on the limits but also the possibilities of approaches to medieval translation that explore these issues. The question of difference is tackled in several ways: how must contemporary reflections on ethical and political issues of translation be adapted when applied to medieval translation? How does the concept of relevance in translation work in the light of the medieval translatio as non-textual, non-linguistic transfer? Related to that are the themes of (in)hospitality, the attitude of the translator toward his sources, and possible conflict situations.

After the introduction, which also provides an interesting and useful overview of today’s knowledge on medieval translation, making suggestions with respect to possible mutual interests of medieval and modern translation studies, the first four essays all deal with the ethics and politics of translatio studii. Marilynn Desmond studies the encounters of Leonzio Pilatus (14^th c.), who translated Homeric epics from Greek to Latin, with Petrarch and Boccaccio, leading to discussions on issues of language, identity, and difference. Miranda Griffin analyzes the way in which the Ovide moralisé translates, but also transforms, Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Drawing on Derrida’s theory on the limits of translation, the author shows how the translator of the Ovide moralisé is ‘treading a fine line’ (60) with respect to Christian faith and figures of sacred bodies. Translations of Latin histories into Middle French prose, and more specifically ethical aspects in the translation and interpretation of the episode on Lucretia’s rape and suicide in Simon de Hesdin’s translation of Valerius Maximus, are at the center of Catherine Léglu’s essay. Noah Guynn investigates the festive drama in the transmission of Aristotle during medieval religious holidays, exploring translational, aesthetic, and performance issues with respect to katharsis.

Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is the subject of Emma Campbell’s essay, that investigates ethical issues in Rutebeuf’s translatio, and more specifically the ways in which it is implicated in divine and diabolical relations, but also the relations between the audience and the divine. The sacred is also at stake in Robert Mills’ contribution on ‘invisible’ translation and language difference in translations of the legend of Thomas Becket’s parents, and above all his ‘heathen’ mother, taking into account postmedieval versions and visual representations. Zrinka Stahuljak turns to historiography in her essay on medieval ‘fixers,’ i.e. ‘mediators, go-betweens endowed with multiple linguistic, social, cultural, topographic, etc., skills’ (147), like Pierre Dubois, Jean Froissart, Guillaume de Machaut, and their fidelity. Jane Gilbert analyzes the task of the Dérimeur, who translates into prose older French verse; the author proposes a comparison between Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Task of the Translator’ (1921) and fifteenth-century prosifications, which leads to interesting views on both Benjamin’s political theology and on the late medieval perception...