Rewriting Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from Dryden, through Voltaire, to Niemcewicz: Medievalism or Modernisation?

Monika Coghen

Tytuły

Abstrakt

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to track down the fortunes of cross-cultural transmission of The Wife of Bath’s Tale in the course of the 18th century. The continental interest in the tale was sparked off by Dryden’s adaptation in his Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700). Dryden’s version was rewritten by Voltaire as Ce qui plait aux dames (1764), which in turn was translated into Polish by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, and appeared in his collection Pisma różne wierszem i prozą (Various Writings in Verse and Prose, vol. I, 1803) as Co się damom podoba (What Pleases the Ladies). This trajectory of the Polish reception of Chaucer’s tale confirms the characteristic pattern of adaptations and translations of English literary works into Polish – from English through French into Polish, though it is not typical of Niemcewicz’s practice as a translator as he was one of the very few Polish translators translating directly from the English at the time. Thus, paradoxically to the 21st-century reader, the first, to my knowledge, Polish adaptation of The Wife of Bath’s Tale does not reveal an interest in Chaucer but rather confirms the dependence of late 18th- and early 19th-century Polish writers on French literary models. Likewise, differences in the representation of gender relationships between Chaucer’s romance and its eighteenth-century versions reveal that the agenda of the eighteenth-century adapters was rather catering to the taste of their contemporaneous readers than engaging with medieval English culture.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to track down the fortunes of cross-cultural transmission of The Wife of Bath’s Tale in the course of the 18th century. The continental interest in the tale was sparked off by Dryden’s adaptation in his Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700). Dryden’s version was rewritten by Voltaire as Ce qui plait aux dames (1764), which in turn was translated into Polish by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, and appeared in his collection Pisma różne wierszem i prozą (Various Writings in Verse and Prose, vol. I, 1803) as Co się damom podoba (What Pleases the Ladies). This trajectory of the Polish reception of Chaucer’s tale confirms the characteristic pattern of adaptations and translations of English literary works into Polish – from English through French into Polish, though it is not typical of Niemcewicz’s practice as a translator as he was one of the very few Polish translators translating directly from the English at the time. Thus, paradoxically to the 21st-century reader, the first, to my knowledge, Polish adaptation of The Wife of Bath’s Tale does not reveal an interest in Chaucer but rather confirms the dependence of late 18th- and early 19th-century Polish writers on French literary models. Likewise, differences in the representation of gender relationships between Chaucer’s romance and its eighteenth-century versions reveal that the agenda of the eighteenth-century adapters was rather catering to the taste of their contemporaneous readers than engaging with medieval English culture.

Słowa kluczowe

Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Voltaire, Ce qui plait aux dames, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Co się damom podoba, translation, adaptation, rewriting, gender, medievalism.

Bibliografia

Association Les Amis de Charles Perrault, Les frontispices des contes de ma Mère l’Oye, Oeuvres de Perrault et illustrations, 23 September 2014, http://amisdeperrault.canalblog.com/archives/2014/09/23/30640565.html.

Bérnier-Tomas S., Désinvolture morale et revendications féministes dans le conte en vers des Lumières, Féeries 2016, http://feeries.revues.org/1001.

D’Arcens L., Introduction: Medievalism: Scope and Complexity [in:]The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism, ed. L. D’Arcens, Cambridge 2016.

Clive Stuart D., The Source of Two of Voltaire’s “Contes en Vers”, “The Modern Language Review” 1917, Apr., vol. 12, n 2, p. 177–181.

Contes de Guillaume Vadé, Œuvres complètes de Voltaire 57B, ed. S. Menant, Ch. Mervaud et al., Oxford 2014.

Dryden J., Fables Ancient and Modern [in:] The Poems and Fables of John Dryden, ed. J. Kinslay, London 1969, p. 521–522.

Hannon P., Duggan A.E., French Tales [in:] The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales, ed. D. Haase, Westport, Connecticut–London 2008, vol. 1.

Hunter A.C., Le “Conte de la femme de Bath” en français au XVIII siècle, “Revue de la littérature comparée” 1929, n 9, p. 117–140.

Johnson S., A Dictionary of the English Language. A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson, http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/?p=6765.

Joliat E., Smollett, Editor of Voltaire, “Modern Language Notes” 1939, vol. 54, n 6, p. 429–436.

Niemcewicz, J.U., Co się damom podoba [in:] J.U. Niemcewicz,Pisma różne wierszem i prozą, vol. 1, Warszawa 1803.

Niemcewicz J.U., Przemowa autora [in:] J.U. Niemcewicz,Pisma różne wierszem i prozą, vol. 1, Warszawa 1803.

Spearing A.C., Rewriting Romance: Chaucer’s And Dryden’s Wife of Bath’s Tale [in:] Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer, ed. R. Morse, B. Windeatt, Cambridge 1990, p. 243–244.

The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F.N. Robinson, Oxford 1988.

The Works of M. de Voltaire, translated from the French with notes historical and critical by T. Smollett, London 1765, vol. 35.

Works of M. de Voltaire, vol. 35, trans. T. Smollett, T. Francklin et al., London 1815.

Informacje

Informacje: Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, 2017, Volume 12, Issue 3, s. 175 - 185

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.17.014.7580

Typ artykułu: Oryginalny artykuł naukowy

Tytuły:

Polski:

Rewriting Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from Dryden, through Voltaire, to Niemcewicz: Medievalism or Modernisation?

Angielski:

Rewriting Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale from Dryden, through Voltaire, to Niemcewicz: Medievalism or Modernisation?

Autorzy

Monika Coghen

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0572-2673

Uniwersytet Jagielloński w Krakowie, Polska, ul. Gołębia 24, 31-007 Kraków

Publikacja: 22.01.2018

Status artykułu: Otwarte

Licencja: CC BY-NC-ND

Udział procentowy autorów:

Monika Coghen (Autor) - 100%

Korekty artykułu:

-

Języki publikacji:

Angielski

Liczba wyświetleń: 1406

Liczba pobrań: 1078

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