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A Comparative History of the Literary Draft in Europe
Edited by Olga Beloborodova and Dirk Van Hulle
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXV] 2024
► pp. 253–267

1.3.3
Translation archives

Ontologies of the translation draft over time

This chapter details how archives containing literary translation drafts from the early modern period to the present supply evidence that can challenge conventional views of both translatorship and authorship. Three cases are explored in depth. First, two of the oldest known translation drafts in English, Samuel Ward’s (1572–1643) recently discovered draft of apocryphal text 1 Esdras (Ezra) and his partial draft of Wisdom 3–4.6 for the King James Bible provoke a new understanding of the ontology of the translation draft in this period. Second, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s unpublished self-translations of his poems into Italian for the Florentine Contessina, Teresa (Emilia) Viviani della Robbia cast his long poem Epipsychidion (1821) in a different light, revealing Shelley’s cosmopolitan self-fashioning. Third, the archives of the German translator of French nouveau roman authors Elmar Tophoven form a node of significance connecting literary figures and networks across Europe.
Keywords: translation, translation history, archives, genetic criticism, critique génétique, genetic translation studies
Article outline
  • The ontology of an early-modern draft: The King James Bible
  • The author-translator in the Romantic period: Percy Bysshe Shelley
  • The translation archive as the hub (not a spoke) in the literary network: The case of Elmar Tophoven
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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References (33)
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