Johannes D. Kaminski, eds., Erotic Literature in Adaptation and Translation

Johannes D. Kaminski, eds., Erotic Literature in Adaptation and Translation

It is alleged that Joachim Du Bellay (ca. 1522-1560) in his patriotic appeal to the defense and enrichment of the French language through translation and imitation first raised the concept of “Traduttore, traditore” (“Translator, traitor”) in the Italian language, an adage that finds further concerting echo in the poet-critic's own mother tongue: “Traduire, c'est trahir” (“To translate is to betray”). No matter which Drydenian translation strategy--metaphrase, paraphrase, or imitation--a translator intends to adopt and appropriate, he or she is to confine him- or herself to the compass of numbers and the slavery of rhyme. “'Tis much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected” (172), as Dryden (1631-1700) so wittily put it in his “Preface” to Ovid's Epistles (1680). Facilitated by a two-day workshop at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge (9), the research project engaged by Johannes D. Kaminski takes final solid shape in the current volume that undertakes to academize translational studies of our time in the arms de volupté of erotic literatures in the hope of transcending the Bellayian epistemic confines apropos contemporary traductology. Voilà “Erotica, thou art translated” across both languages and media.