Cover not available
Part of
A World Atlas of Translation
Edited by Yves Gambier and Ubaldo Stecconi
[Benjamins Translation Library 145] 2019
► pp. 355–374

Chapter 17
Germanic tradition

The report on the Germanic translation tradition spans a long period of time, from the Gothic beginnings and the Nt translation of bishop Wulfila in the fourth century, through the Carolingian Renaissance and the late medieval traffic of chansons de geste and romances, disseminated and read for centuries. The Reformation and its translational explosion is another important aspect and in the following centuries, it may be argued that the literary development of the Germanic speaking literatures was more or less driven by translation, through translations and imitations of the classics right into the Romantic era, which, paradoxically, led to the invention of the purely original author and ever increasing translational activity, since the mother tongues had taken over in the Germanic literary systems.

Keywords: mother tongue, translation without an original, romance, imitations, Bible translations
Article outline
  • Preamble
  • 1.Gothic beginnings
  • 2.A Germanic tradition born?
  • 3.Rise of the vernaculars
  • 4.The matter of the North
  • 5.The mother tongue movement
  • 6.Printing the biblical blow
  • 7.Imitating the classical
  • 8.A look to the North
  • 9.Back to classics
  • 10.Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 5 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.145.17kri
References
Barnes, Geraldine
2007 “Travel and translatio studii in the Icelandic riddarasögur”. In Übersetzen im skandinavischen Mittelalter [Studie Medievalia Septentrionalia 14]. Vera Johanterwage and Stefanie Würth (eds), 123–140. Wien: Fassbaender.Google Scholar
Boutcher, Warren
2000 “The Renaissance”. In The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, Peter France (ed), 45–54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Britannica Academic, s.v.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” accessed July 17, 2016, [URL].
Beowulf,” accessed July 17, 2016, [URL].
Romance,” accessed July 21, 2016, [URL].
Burke, Peter
1987 The Renaissance [Studies in European History]. London: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Copeland, Rita
1991 Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cronin, Michael
1996 Translating Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press.Google Scholar
Dante, Alighieri
1996 De vulgari eloquentia. Steven Botterill (transl. and ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryden, John
2002 “The Three Types of Translation”. In Western Translation Theory, Douglas Robinson (ed), 172–174. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Even-Zohar, Itamar
1990 “Polysystem Studies”. Poetics Today 11 (1): 1–268.Google Scholar
Eysteinsson, Ástráður & Daniel Weissbort
2006 Translation – Theory and Practice. A Historical Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gloning, Thomas and Christopher Young
2004 A History of the German Language through Texts. London/New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glunz, H. H.
1933 The History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Bacon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goffart, Walter
2005 “Jordanes’s Getica and the Disputed Authenticity of Gothic Origins from Scandinavia”. Speculum 80: 379–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, D. H.
1994 Medieval Listening and Reading. The primary reception of German literature 800–1300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hahn, Thomas
1999 “Early Middle English”. In The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. David Wallace (ed.), 61–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haugen, Einar
1984 Die skandinavischen Sprachen. Magnús Pétursson (transl). Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel
1755 Dictionary of the English Language. London: W. Strahan.Google Scholar
Kay, Sarah, Terence Cave, Malcolm Bowie
2003 A Short History of French Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kristmannsson, Gauti
2005 Literary Diplomacy I. The Role of Translation in the Construction of National Literatures in Britain and Germany 1750–1830. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2013 “Ossian in the North”. Translation and Literature 22 (3): 361–382. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “Ossian and the State of Translation in the Scottish Enlightenment”. In The International Companion to James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian. Dafydd Moore (ed). Glasgow: Scottish Literature International.Google Scholar
McElduff, Siobhán
2013 Roman Theories of Translation. Surpassing the Source. London/New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall
1962 The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Ólason, Vésteinn
1992 “Kristileg trúarkvæði til loka 13. aldar”. In Íslensk bókmenntasaga I. Vésteinn Ólason (ed), 483–517. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.Google Scholar
2006 “The Middle Ages. Old Icelandic Poetry”. In A History of Icelandic Literature. Daisy Neijmann (ed), 1–64. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Óskarsdóttir, Svanhildur
2007 “Heroes or Holy People? The Context of Old Norse Bible Translations”. In Übersetzen im skandinavischen Mittelalter [Studie Medievalia Septentrionalia 14]. Vera Johanterwage and Stefanie Würth (eds), 107–121. Wien: Fassbaender.Google Scholar
Rambelli, Paolo
2009 “Pseudotranslation”. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Mona Baker (ed). London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Erroll F.
1993 “Medieval Versions”. In The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (eds), 755–758. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rix, Robert
2015 The Barbarian North in the Medieval Imagination. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Scardigli, Pierguiseppe
1973 Die Goten. Sprache und Kultur. Benedikt Vollmann (transl). München: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Snædal, Magnús
2015 “Gothic Contact with Greek Loan Translations and a Translation Problem”. In Early Germanic Languages in Contact. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Staats, Reinhard
2011 “Der Codex Argenteus und Philipp Melanchthon in Helmstedt”. In Daphnis 40: 377–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tómasson, Sverrir
1992 “Kristnar trúarbókmenntir í óbundnu máli”. In Íslensk bókmenntasaga I. Vésteinn Ólason (ed), 421–479. Reykjavík: Mál og menning.Google Scholar
2006 “The Middle Ages. Old Icelandic Prose”. In A History of Icelandic Literature, Daisy Neijmann (ed), 64–173. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria
1993 “Translation as a force for literary revolution in the twelfth- century shift from epic to romance”. In La traduction dans le développement des littératures, José Lambert and André Lefevere (eds), 75–92. Bern: P. Lang.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence
2000 “Neoclassicism and Enlighenment”. In The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, Peter France (ed), 55–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vermeer, Hans J.
1996 Das Übersetzen im Mittelalter (13. und 14. Jahrhundert). Vol. 2. Heidelberg: Texcontext.Google Scholar
2000 Das Übersetzen im Renaissance und Humanismus. (15. und 16. Jahrhundert). Vol. 1, Westeuropa. Heidelberg: TextcontextGoogle Scholar