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Pseudotranslation
In literature, a pseudotranslation is a text written as if it had been translated from a foreign language, even though no foreign language original exists. History The practice of writing works which falsely claimed to be translations began in medieval chivalric romance. It was common in 16th-century Spain, where Amadís de Gaula and the numerous works descended from it benefited from the invention of printing to offer fantasies of travel, war, and love to wealthy young adults. The most successful of the Spanish works were quickly translated into all the major languages of Western Europe. Cervantes wrote the 1605 Don Quixote to finish them off (he succeeded) because he believed that false history was socially harmful, as one of his characters explains in Chapter 49. The concept of a pseudotranslation was reinvented by Israeli scholar Gideon Toury in ''Descriptive Translation Studies–and Beyond'' (1995). The technique allows authors to provide more insight into the culture of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persian Letters
''Persian Letters'' (french: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France under Louis XIV and the Regency.; Publication The first edition of the novel, which consisted of 150 letters, appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre Marteau, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business was now being run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Referred to as edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of ''Lettres persanes'' (2004) for the ongoing complete works of Montesquieu published in Oxford and Lyon/Paris beginning in 1998. A second edition (B) by the same publisher later in the same year, for which there is so far no entirely satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Louÿs
Pierre Louÿs (; 10 December 1870 – 4 June 1925) was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who sought to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection". He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'honneur for his contributions to French literature. Life Pierre Louÿs was born Pierre Félix Louis on 10 December 1870 in Ghent, Belgium, but relocated to France, where he spent the rest of his life. He studied at the École Alsacienne in Paris, and there he developed a good friendship with a future Nobel Prize winner and champion of homosexual rights, André Gide. From 1890 onwards, he began spelling his name as "Louÿs", and pronouncing the final S, as a way of expressing his fondness for classical Greek culture (the letter Y is known in French as ''i grec'' or "Greek I"). During the 1890s, he became a friend of the Irish homosexual dramatist Oscar Wilde, and was the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Songs Of Bilitis
''The Songs of Bilitis'' (; french: Les Chansons de Bilitis) is a collection of erotic, essentially lesbian, poetry by Pierre Louÿs published in Paris in 1894. Since Louÿs claimed that he had translated the original poetry from Ancient Greek, this work is considered a pseudotranslation. The poems were actually clever fabulations, authored by Louÿs himself, and are still considered important literature. The poems are in the manner of Sappho; the collection's introduction claims they were found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis (), a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho to whose life Louÿs dedicated a small section of the book. On publication, the volume deceived even expert scholars. Louÿs claimed the 143 prose poems, excluding 3 epitaphs, were entirely the work of this ancient poet—a place where she poured both her most intimate thoughts and most public actions, from childhood innocence in Pamphylia to the loneliness and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Francis Burton
Sir Richard Francis Burton (; 19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar,and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke twenty-nine languages. Burton's best-known achievements include: a well-documented journey to Mecca in disguise, at a time when non-Muslims were forbidden access on pain of death; an unexpurgated translation of ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (commonly called ''The Arabian Nights'' in English after early translations of Antoine Galland's French version); the publication of the ''Kama Sutra'' in English; a translation of ''The Perfumed Garden'', the "Arab ''Kama Sutra''"; and a journey with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. His works and letters extensively criticised colonial policies of the B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kasîdah Of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî
''The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî'' (1880) is a long English language poem written by "Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî", a pseudonym of the true author, Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890), a well-known British Arabist and explorer. In a note to the reader, Burton claims to be the translator of the poem, to which he gives the English title "Lay of the Higher Law." It is thus a pseudotranslation, pretending to have had an original Persian text, which never existed. ''The Kasidah'' is essentially a distillation of Sufi thought in the poetic idiom of that mystical tradition; Burton had hoped to bring Sufist ideas to the West. "The Translator" As the Translator, Burton signs himself “F. B.,” for Frank Baker, an English pen name from Francis (his middle name), and Baker (his mother’s maiden name). In notes following the poem, Burton claims to have received the manuscript from his friend Haji Abdu, a native of Darabghird in the Yezd Province of Persia. Describing Haji Abdu, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judith Gautier
Judith Gautier (25 August 1845, Paris – 26 December 1917) was a French poet, translator and historical novelist, the daughter of Théophile Gautier and Ernesta Grisi, sister of the noted singer and ballet dancer Carlotta Grisi. She was married to Catulle Mendès, but soon separated from him and had a brief affair with the composer Richard Wagner during the late summer of 1876. She collaborated with Pierre Loti, the famous novelist, in writing a play, ''La fille du ciel'' (1912; English, ''The Daughter of Heaven''), translated and produced under their personal supervision at the Century Theatre, New York City. She was an Oriental scholar and her works dealt mainly with Chinese and Japanese themes. Her translations were among the earliest to bring Chinese and Japanese poetry to the attention of modern European poets. She was a member of the Académie Goncourt (1910–17). Works * ''Le livre de jade'' (Paris, 1867) (extended edition Paris, 1902) * ''Le Dragon Impérial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and an important figure in the history of architectural preservation. He is best known for his novella ''Carmen'', which became the basis of Bizet's opera ''Carmen''. He learned Russian, a language for which he had great affection, and translated the work of several important Russian writers, including Pushkin and Gogol, into French. From 1830 until 1860 he was the inspector of French historical monuments, and was responsible for the protection of many historic sites, including the medieval citadel of Carcassonne and the restoration of the façade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. Along with the writer George Sand, he discovered the series of tapestries called ''The Lady and the Unicorn'', and arranged for their preservation. He was instr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Guzla
''La Guzla, ou Choix de poesies illyriques, recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, La Croatie et l'Hertzegowine'' (''The Guzla, or a Selection of Illyric Poems Collected in Dalmatia, Bosnia, Croatia and Herzegovina'') was a 1827 literary hoax of Prosper Mérimée. It was presented as a collection of translations (in fact, pseudotranslations) of folk ballads narrated by a ''guzlar'' ( gusle player) Hyacinthe Maglanović, complete with invented commentaries. Of 29 ballads, one of them, '' Triste ballade de la noble épouse d'Assan-Aga'', was an authentic one. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ... translated 11 ballads from ''La Guzla'' into his cycle '. References External linksLa Guzla in: * (''Project Gutenberg'') 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Macpherson
James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poems. Early life and education Macpherson was born at Ruthven in the parish of Kingussie in Badenoch, Inverness-shire. This was a Scottish Gaelic-speaking area but near the Ruthven Barracks of the British Army, established in 1719 to enforce Whig rule from London after the Jacobite uprising of 1715. Macpherson's uncle, Ewen Macpherson joined the Jacobite army in the 1745 march south, when Macpherson was nine years old and after the Battle of Culloden, had had to remain in hiding for nine years. In the 1752-3 session, Macpherson was sent to King's College, Aberdeen, moving two years later to Marischal College (the two institutions later became the University of Aberdeen), reading Caesar's '' Commentaries'' on the relationships between the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Works Of Ossian
Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined under the title ''The Poems of Ossian''. Macpherson claimed to have collected word-of-mouth material in Scottish Gaelic, said to be from ancient sources, and that the work was his translation of that material. Ossian is based on Oisín, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill (anglicised to Finn McCool), a legendary bard in Irish mythology. Contemporary critics were divided in their view of the work's authenticity, but the current consensus is that Macpherson largely composed the poems himself, drawing in part on traditional Gaelic poetry he had collected. The work was internationally popular, translated into all the literary languages of Europe and was highly influential both in the development of the Romantic movement and the Gaelic revival. Macpherson's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially Criticism of the Catholic Church, of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including stageplay, plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific Exposition (narrative), expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His polemics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
