Rhetoric, Hermenteutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages (Rita Copeland)

Copeland's project is to situate the medieval approach to translation within the contested disciplinary territory between rhetoric and grammar. In Rome, translation was considered a rhetorical act: an appropriation that replaces the source through re-expression and re-contextualization. (She quotes Cicero, who claims to translate like an orator, not like an interpreter.) As oratorical Rome faded into textual post-Roman Europe, grammar (the textual discipline) embraced the more freewheeling approach of the rhetoric.

However, at the same time, this approach to translation is opposed by the theories of translation proposed by theologians for application to Holy Writ. I think she's mistaken to make much of Augustine -- he was sadly misguided, and Jerome took him to task about it -- but her points about Jerome are well put. First, Jerome seeks a "literal, word for word" translation of scripture, because he places a divine significance not only in the meaning of the words, but also in the particular diction and syntax of the text. Because a "loose" translation would disarray this divine organization, it is not appropriate. However, for secular texts, Jerome preferred a "loose, meaning for meaning" translation, since the importance lies in the ideas, not in the specific textual array conveying the ideas.

This latter view came to dominate medieval notions of translation. However, Copeland distinguishes between two medieval forms of translation: "primary" and "secondary". Primary translation's stated purpose is to provide a faithful rendition of the original into the vernacular; however, the translation in fact serves to displace the original, often by encoding contextualized interpretations of the text into the translation. Medieval translations of Boethius are often of this sort. Secondary translation takes the act of translation as an opportunity for art and "invention", relocating the authority in the text from the source to the translating poet (Chaucer's Legend of Good Women is her example).

Frankly, I found this book dull, dull, dull.