Full Description
Given that the dissemination of enlightened thought in Europe was mostly effected through translations, the present collection of essays focuses on how its cultural adaptation took place in various national contexts. For the first time, the theoretical model of 'cultural transfer' (Espagne/Werner) is applied to the eighteenth century: The intercultural dynamics of the Enlightenment become manifest in the transformation process between the original and target cultures, be it by way of acculturation, creative enhancement, or misunderstanding. Resulting in shifts of meaning, translations offer a key not just to contemporary translation practice but to the discursive network of the European Enlightenment in general. The case studies united here explore both how translations contributed to the transnational standardisation of certain key concepts, values and texts, and how they reflect national specifications of enlightened discourses. Hence, the volume contributes to Enlightenment studies, at least as much as to historical translation studies.
Contents
Stefanie Stockhorst: Introduction. Cultural transfer through translation: a current perspective in Enlightenment studies
Translation and transfer in theoretical discourse
Avi S. Lifschitz: Translation in theory and practice: the case of Johann David Michaelis's prize essay on language and opinions (1759)
Christina Oberstebrink: Plagiarism and originality in painting: Joshua Reynolds's concept of imitation and Enlightenment translation theory
Individual texts and their cultural impact through translation
Monika Baár: From general history to national history: the transformations of William Guthrie's and John Gray's A General History of the World (1736-1765) in Continental Europe
Saskia S. Wiedner: Melchiorre Cesarotti Il Fanatismo ossia Maometto profeta: tragedia di Voltaire (1742) - la traduction italienne de la tragédie voltairienne Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le prophète (1741)
Astrid Krake: 'Translating to the moment' - marketing and Anglomania: the first German translation of Richardson's Clarissa (1747/1748)
Andreas Dittrich: Traduire la pensée utopique: le transfert des paradigmes de L'An 2440 et Der goldne Spiegel
Barry Murnane: Uncanny translations, uncanny productivity: Walpole, Schiller and Kahlert
John R. J. Eyck: Where Werther went: what happens when a 'minor' literature transposes a 'major' character
The dissemination of genres and ideas as cultural transfer
Pierre Degott: Early English translations of Italian opera (1711-1750)
Andreas Önnerfors: Translating discourses of the Enlightenment: transcultural language skills and cross-references in Swedish and German eighteenth-century learned journals
Huib J. Zuidervaart: Science for the public: the translation of popular texts on experimental philosophy into the Dutch language in mid-eighteenth century
John Stone: Translated sociabilities of print in eighteenth-century Spain
Mladen Kozul: D'Holbach et les déistes anglais: la construction des 'lumières radicales' à la fin des années 1760
Alison E. Martin: Paeans to progress: Arthur Young's travel accounts in German translation
Fania Oz-Salzberger: Did Adam Ferguson inspire Friedrich Schiller's philosophy of play? An exercise in tracking the itinerary of an idea
Biographical notes
