The English translation of seventeenth-century French lyric poetry and epigrams during the Caroline period

Abstract

This doctoral thesis is the first comprehensive study of contemporary English translations of French lyric poetry during the Caroline period. While there has been extensive study of translations from French literature of other genres, notably drama, translations of lyric poetry have been largely ignored. The thesis examines the translations within the context of literary and cultural trends in France and England during the seventeenth century. Differing cultural tendencies and reader expectations are evident both in the selection of particular poems for translation, and in the changes translators made to their source texts. Chapter one contains background information on the social and literary relations between France and England during the seventeenth century, and an overview of the social and political conditions in which poetry was written in each country. Chapter two investigates where and how translators obtained the texts of the poems they translated, and in particular the use of the recueils collectifs as sources for translations. Chapters three, four and five provide a thematic overview of the most significant and interesting translations. The themes chosen - eroticism, love and nature - constitute those most popular with translators, and the representation of these themes in both the original poems and the translations is closely connected to wider literary and cultural tendencies in both France and England. Having provided a thematic overview of the translations, chapters 6 and 7 examine some of the more technical and linguistic aspects of the practice of translating from contemporary French poetry in Caroline England. Chapter seven studies the translation of the French lyric voice, and the effects of this on the representation of themes, particularly love and nature. Chapter eight examines the English treatment of some aspects of seventeenth-century French prosody, placing these and the changes made by translators in the context of prosodic developments in both France and England. The conclusion highlights patterns identified in translators' handling of the source texts; these draw attention to the literary and cultural differences between France and England in the seventeenth century, and demonstrate that French poetry is altered in English translation to suit the tastes of translators and their intended English readership.