Translation as Transposition: how do you modify a text? To begin with, a few examples from painting…

Translation as Transposition: how do you modify a text?

To begin with, a few examples from painting…

Leonardo da Vinci:

Monna Lisa

A “translation”by

Marcel Duchamp

Another by

Andy Warhol

Diego Velàzquez

Ritratto di Papa Innocenzo X

Translated by

Francis Bacon

Francesco Petrarca

Rima 190(see Thomas Wyatt, ‘Whoso list to hunt’, p. 595)

Una candida cerva sopra l’erbaverde m’apparve, con duo corna d’oro,fra due riviere, all’ombra d’un alloro,levando ’l sole a la stagione acerba.

Era sua vista sí dolce superba,ch’i’ lasciai per seguirla ogni lavoro:come l’avaro che ’n cercar tesorocon diletto l’affanno disacerba.

" Nessun mi tocchi - al bel collo d’intornoscritto avea di diamanti et di topazi - :libera farmi al mio Cesare parve ".

Et era ’l sol già vòlto al mezzo giorno,gli occhi miei stanchi di mirar, non sazi,quand’io caddi ne l’acqua, et ella sparve.

AMOUR COURTOISExpressed through three metaphors:

LOVE – WARLOVE – HUNTING

LOVE – SIEGE

The Lady and the Unicorn(Paris, Musée de Cluny)

Metaphor of love as hunt

The white deer: a symbol of inaccessible beauty

The deer as symbol of nobility: emblem of King Richard II

THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIIIAs a young man, Henry had been married by special dispensation to CATHERINE OF ARAGON who gave him a daughter, Mary, but she was now unlikely to bear him a son. In 1536, ANNE BOLEYN, who had given the king a daughter, Elizabeth, was executed and Henry married JANE SEYMOUR. In 1540, the king later married the Protestant ANNE OF CLEVES but he soon divorced to marry CATHERINE HOWARD. After two years he had he executed because of a love affair with hr cousin. Henry’s last wife was CATHERINE PARR, who managed to survive her husband.

Who is the hunter, and who is the hunted?

The deer as symbol of Parental Protection: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Basic bibliography on the Elizabethan Sonnet:

John Fuller, The Sonnet (London : Methuen, 1972)

Julius Walter Lever, The  Elizabethan Love Sonnet  (London : Methuen, 1966)

Wilhelm Theodor Elwert, Versificazione italiana dalle origini ai giorni nostri (Firenze : Le Monnier, 1991)

Derek Attridge, Poetic Rhythm. An Introduction (Cambridge : Cambridge University

Press, 1995)