Readers as Authors: Reproducing Authority in the Iberian Translations of John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."

Author/Editor
Sierra, Juan David.

Title
Readers as Authors: Reproducing Authority in the Iberian Translations of John Gower's "Confessio Amantis."

Published
Sierra, Juan David. "Readers as Authors: Reproducing Authority in the Iberian Translations of John Gower's Confessio Amantis." eHumanista 22 (2012): 429-53.

Review
Probably the best place to begin Sierra's essay is with the last two sentences, which state (more or less) its point, and also provide a taste of its style: "This is why the Portuguese translators use the Confessio's Latin frame but do not explicitly translate it. Their translation shows that the authority of a work is not derived from its meaning or relationship to a tradition but to its ability to be reproduced, and so their work portrays the Confessio's Latin frame only in so far as it confirms the logic present in Gower's English--a textual logic that does not simply wish to narrate 'authorial' truth from some abstract meaning but which also seeks to imbue the process of narrative reproducibility with the authority of utterance itself" (450). What he apparently means by this is worked out in an elaborate comparison of the Vulgate version (which he calls "Jerome's 'Vulgata'") of the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar with Gower's and with selected passages from the Portuguese translation of the CA (435-48): the Portuguese translator(s)--Sierra prefers the plural--took the Latin apparatus for part of the poem, and the poem as a compilation, not as an "authorial" product, which gave them permission to adopt an "authorial" approach to translation themselves. They adapted what Gower wrote, that is, to their own way of reading the poem, as well as into their own language. The Castilian translation, in some fashion, fades from attention not far into the essay. [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]

Date
2012

Gower Subjects
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations