A Propósito del Prólogo de la Confesión Del Amante
- Author/Editor
- Balestrini, María Cristina
- Title
- A Propósito del Prólogo de la Confesión Del Amante
- Published
- Balestrini, María Cristina. "A Propósito del Prólogo de la Confesión Del Amante." Letras 40-41 (2000), pp. 100-106. ISSN 0378-4878
- Review
- Both the Spanish translation of CA and the newly rediscovered Portuguese translation on which it was based are marked, Balestrini points out, by a fidelity to the original that corresponds better to modern expectations of a translator than it is characteristic of the practices of most medieval authors who reworked texts from other languages. The comparison of the translators' work with Gower's has nonetheless allowed earlier scholars to note a number of adjustments and alterations made for the benefit of the readers of a culture different from that of the English author. Balestrini builds upon these earlier studies in examining the effects of changing Gower's verse into prose, which she links to a shift from public to private reading in which the English lagged behind their continental contemporaries. Restricting herself to the CA Prologue, she points to the provision of chapter numbers (together with titles derived from the Latin summaries that were originally placed in the margins of Gower's text) and to a number of small revisions--some instances of amplification, the fuller provision of information that is only implicit in Gower's verse, the elimination of redundancy and other evidence of ornament, the insertion of conjunctions, the straightening out of the word order, and the omission of generic citations of authority such as "if that ye rede"--as evidence of the economy and efficiency that made prose more appealing than verse to late medieval readers. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 21.1]
- Date
- 2000
- Gower Subjects
- Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
- Confessio Amantis