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Spenserian Overlay and the English Translation of the Italian Romance Epic

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

"The fact is that all writers create their precursors” (Borges). In his Englished Romance Epic The Faerie Queene (1590/96), Edmund Spenser transmutes his generic precursors: Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516/1532) and Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1581). Spenser so effectivelyacculturates the Italian Romance Epic for his Elizabethan audience that The Faerie Queen becomes a form of intermediary translation, surrogate source text, or interpretive overlay for contemporary translators like Sir John Harington (1591) and Edward Fairfax (1600). These translators read Ariosto and Tasso through The Faerie Queene : characters, episodes, and individual translation choices bear a Spenserian inflection. Particular attention will be given to the Bowers of Alcina, Armida, and Acrasia, as they morph from Ariosto and Tasso through Spenser the literary grafter. Analyzed intertextually, these Bowers are sites of metalinguistic transformation— locus amoenus as locus translatus.

Original languageAmerican English
StatePublished - Mar 18 2019
EventRenaissance Society of America Conference - Philadelphia, PA
Duration: Apr 3 2020 → …

Conference

ConferenceRenaissance Society of America Conference
Period4/3/20 → …

Keywords

  • Italian literature
  • Spenserian

Disciplines

  • Italian Literature
  • Literature in English, British Isles

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