"Employs Chaucer as a lens to argue that Anglo-French translation of formes fixes poetry helped rebuild cultural ties between England and Continental Europe during the Hundred Years' War"--
This book examines Anglo-French cultural and literary relations during the Hundred Years' War (c. 1337-1453), focusing on poets and scribes who illustrate the relationship and connections that bound Francophone Europe together despite the chaos of the war, shown through medieval translators engagement with form and interlingual translation work. It describes how the translation of formes fixes poetry promoted structure, alliance, and solidarity during the war and focuses on the role of form in building cross-regional community. It discusses the history of the development of formes fixes lyric; Continental understandings of translation and the historical relevance of the French program of translation; challenges to claims of England's cultural proximity to Francophone Europe posed by Geoffrey Chaucer's choice to compose exclusively in English; John Gower and Thomas Hoccleve's decisions to compose formes fixes lyric in French and English during the resurgence of the war; and John Shirley and John Lydgate's developments of Chaucer's translator image during the occupation of France that created an increase in Francophone literary material in England. Annotation ©2022 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Scholars have often viewed the Hundred Years’ War (c. 1337–1453) between England and France as sharpening animosity and isolationism. Further, medievalists have often characterized translator–source relationships as adversarial. In Continental England, Elizaveta Strakhov develops a new model, reparative translation, as a corrective to both formulations. Zeroing in on formes fixes poetry—and Chaucer as a leading practitioner—she shows that translation played two essential, interrelated roles: it became a channel for rebuilding fragmented communities, and it restored unity to Francophone cultural landscapes fractured by war. Further, used in particular to express England’s aspirational relationship to Francophone culture despite the ongoing war, translation became the means by which England negotiated a new vision of itself as Continental rather than self-contained. Chaucer’s own translation work and fusion of Francophone and Italian humanist influences in his poetry rendered him a paradigmatic figure for England’s new bid for Continental relevance. Interpreting Chaucer’s posthumous canonization as a direct result of reparative translation, Strakhov shows how England’s transition from island to Continental constituent problematizes our contemporary understandings of nation-bound authors and canons.
Employs Chaucer as a lens to argue that Anglo-French translation of formes fixes poetry helped rebuild cultural ties between England and Continental Europe during the Hundred Years’ War.
