1796: When the Terror Ballad Came to Britain

Yıl 2019, , 16 - 36, 31.12.2019

Robert William Rix

https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.610699

Cited By: 1

Öz

In 1796,
numerous English translations of the German writer Gottfried
August Bürger’s poem “Lenore” were published. Critics have long seen this
intense publication activity (within just one calendar year) as both remarkable
and difficult to explain. The article examines the factors that made the poem
such an immediate sensation. By analyzing prefaces and reviews related to the
English translations of “Lenore,” it becomes clear that the poem offered
something new: it was a Kunstballade that drew on vernacular poetic
forms and thereby challenged existing verse genres. In order to understand the
popularity of the ballad, the article revisits aspects of the theorist Itamar
Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, which provides a useful departure for a
discussion of translations as the conduits through which a domestic repertoire
of literary genres can be expanded and renewed. In this connection, it is
important to look at how the various translations were aimed at different
segments of the book market. However, as an innovation, Bürger’s poem was not
universally welcomed. Conservative detractors and, remarkably, some of the
translators themselves baulked at introducing Bürger’s superstitious ballad to
an English reading public insofar as “Lenore” could be seen to contest British
rationality and offend religious sensibilities.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Gottfried August Bürger, ballad, translation, romanticism, polysystem theory, book market

1796: Korku Baladı Britanya’ya Geldiğinde

Öz

1796’da Alman yazar Gottfried August Bürger’in
“Lenore” şiirinin çok sayıda İngilizce çevirisi yayınlandı. Eleştirmenler
(yalnızca bir takvim yılı içerisindeki) bu yoğun yayın etkinliğini hem kayda
değer hem de açıklaması güç buldular. Bu makale, bu şiiri böylesine ani bir
sansasyona dönüştüren etkenleri incelemektedir. “Lenore”un İngilizce
çevirilerine yazılan önsöz ve değerlendirmeler analiz edildiğinde, şiirin yeni
bir şey ortaya koyduğu açığa çıkar: bu şiir, anadilde yazılmış şiir
biçimlerinden beslenen ve böylece yaygın olan nazım türlerine meydan okuyan bir
Kunstballade’dır. Makale, bu baladın popülaritesini kavrayabilmek için,
teorisyen Itamar Even-Zohar’ın, çeviri üzerine tartışmalarda yeni bir çıkış
yolu sağlayan ve bu sayede yerel edebi türler repertuarında yenilenme ve
genişlemeye olanak kılan çoğuldizge kuramının (polysystem theory) bazı
yönlerini yeniden ele almaktadır. Bu bağlantı içinde, çeşitli çevirilerin kitap
piyasasının farklı paydaşlarına nasıl odaklandığına bakmak önem taşır. Öte
yandan, bir yenilik olarak Bürger’in şiiri, evrensel anlamda hoş
karşılanmamıştır. Muhafazakâr muhalifler ve ilginçtir ki, bizatihi bazı
çevirmenler, “Lenore”un İngiliz rasyonelliğine meydan okuyan ve dini
hassasiyetleri rencide eden bir eser olarak algılanabileceğini düşünüp
Bürger’in batıl inançlara dayanan baladını İngiliz okurlara tanıtmaktan
kaçınmışlardır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Gottfried August Bürger, balad, çeviri, Romantisizm, çoğuldizge kuramı

Kaynakça

• Alter, J.-M. (2004). Miller, William Richard Beckford (1769–1844). In Oxford dictionary of national biography, 23 September, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18741.
• Anon. (Trans.) (1796). Leonora: A poem, from the German of Mr. Bürger. London, Hookham and Carpenter.
• Bassnett, S. (2013), Translation studies, 4th ed. London and New York: Routledge.
• The British critic (1796). [A review of the translations of Grosse’s The Dagger”], August, 280-181.
• The British critic (1796). [A review of four translations of “Lenore”], September, 276-281.
• The Critical review (1796). [Review of Stanley’s and Pye’s translations], July, 303-307.
• Cook, Daniel (2015). The ballad tradition. In Andrew Bennet (Ed.), Wordsworth in context (pp.101-110). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Bürger, G. A. (1774). Leonore. In Musenalmanach 5, 214-226.
• Debray, J. R. (1996). Media manifestos: On the technological transmission of cultural forms (Eric R., Trans.). London: Verso.
• The Edinburgh review (1806). [Review of W. Herbert’s Miscellaneous poetry], October, 212-223.
• Emerson, O. F. (1915). The earliest English translations of Bürger’s Lenore: A study in English and
• German romanticism. Cleveland, ON.: Western Reserve University Press.
• The English review (1796). [Review of Stanley’s translation of Leonora, “New edition”], July, 80-84.
• Even-Zohar, I. (1990). Polysystem studies [A special edition of Even-Zohar’s essays]. In Poetics Today,11(1).
• Even-Zohar, I. (1997). Factors and dependencies in culture: A revised outline for polysystem culture research. Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 24(3), 15–34.
• The Gentlemen’s magazine (1813). Memoirs of the late Henry James Pye, September, 293-296.
• Jackson, J.R. de J. (Ed.) (1968). Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The critical heritage, vol. 1, 1794-1834. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Jacobus, M. (1976). Tradition and experiment in Wordsworth’s Lyrical ballads (1798). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Jolles, E. B. (1974). G. A. Bürgers Ballade Lenore in England. Regensburg: H. Carl.
• H. Carl. Lamb, Charles & Lamb, M. (1975). The letters [Letter from Charles Lamb to S. T. Coleridge, 5 July 1796]. In E. W. Marrs (Ed.) (Vol. 1). Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
• Lawson-Peebles, R. (1999). Translation in uncertain times: The case of Bürger’s “Lenore.” In W. M.
• Verhoeven & B. D. Kautz (Eds.), Revolutions & watersheds: Transatlantic dialogues 1775-1815 (pp. 7-26). Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• The Monthly review (1796) [Review of two Lenore translations], July, 322-325.
• The Monthly review (1797) [Review of Scott’s The Chase and William and Helen], May, 34-37.
• Mortensen, P. (2004). British romanticism and continental influences: Writing in an age of Europhobia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mathias, T. J. (1797). The pursuits of literature: A satirical poem in dialogue (1st part, 3rd ed.). London; T. Becket.
• Mathias, T. J. (1799). The Shade of Alexander Pope on the banks of the Thames: A satirical poem.with notes (2nd ed.) London: T. Beckett.
• Mayo, R. (1954). The Contemporaneity of the Lyrical ballads. PMLA 69(3), 486-522.
• McMurran, M. H. (2009). The spread of novels: Translation and prose fiction in the eighteenth century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Miller, W. (1796). Preface. In Leonora: A tale, Translated and altered from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger. (John T. S., Trans.). A new edition. London, William Miller.
• Murnane, B. (2012). Radical translations dubious Anglo-German cultural transfer in the 1790s. In (Re-)Writing the radical Enlightenment, revolution and cultural transfer in 1790s Germany, Britain and France (pp. 44-60). Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter.
• Oz-Salzberger, F. (2006). The Enlightenment in translation: Regional and European aspects. European Review of History 13(3), 385-409.
• Parkes, S. (2011). Cultural transfer, wartime anxiety and the Lenore translations of 1796. Romanticism 17(2), 175-185.
• Primeau, J. K. (1983). The influence of Gottfried August Bürger on the Lyrical ballads of William Wordsworth: The supernatural vs. the natural, The Germanic review: Literature, culture, theory 58(3), 89-96.
• Pye, H. J. (1796). Preface. In Lenore, A tale: from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger. (Henry James Pye, Trans.) London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Sampson Low.
• Rutherford, B. (2012). Introduction. In Tales of wonder: A new critical edition, B. Rutherford (Ed.) (vol. 1). Providence, RI: Poet's Press.
• Schlegel, A. (1797). Noch ein Wort über die Originalität von Bürgers Lenore. In Neuen Teutschen Merkur 4, April, 393-397.
• Scott, Walter (Trans.) (1796). The chase, and William and Helen: Two ballads, from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger. London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies.
• Scott, W. (1818). Remarks on Frankenstein. Blackwood’s Edinburgh magazine, March, 611-620.
• Scott, W. (1847). Essay on imitations of the ancient ballads. In The poetical works of Walter Scott (pp. 554-568). Edinburgh: Robert Cadell.
• Spencer, William Robert (Trans.) (1796). Leonora, translated from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürgher. London, J. Edwards.
• Thorne, R. G. (1986). “John Thomas Stanley,” The history of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790-1820. In R. G Thorne (Ed.), http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
• Stanley, John Thomas (Trans.) (1796). Leonora: A tale, translated and altered from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger (A New edition). London: William Miller.
• Stoker, B. (1897). Dracula: A mystery story. New York: W. R. Caldwell.
• Taylor, W. (Trans.) (1796). Ellenore. A ballad originally written in German by G. A. Burger. London: J. Johnson.
• Taylor, W. (1830). Historic survey of German poetry [from section on “Notes to Ellenore”] (vol. 2). London: Treuttel & Würtz, Treuttel, jun. and Richter.
• Thomson, D. H. (2008). Mingled Measures: Gothic Parody in Tales of wonder and Tales of terror. Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 50, https://doi.org/10.7202/018143ar.
• Thompson, S. (1955-1958). Motif-index of folk-literature: A classification of narrative elements in folk-tales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest- books, and local legends (Rev. ed., 6 vols.). Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.
• Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.
• Wood, L. (2019). “From Scotland new come home”: Scottish ghosts and afterlives of Bürger’s “Lenore.” In
• Michael Wood & Sandro Jung (Eds.), Anglo-German dramatic and poetic encounters: Perspectives on exchange in the Sattelzeit (pp. 47-68). Bethlehem, Penn.: Lehigh University Press.
• Simine, Silke Arnold-de (2012). Blaming the other: English translations of Benedikte Naubert’s Hermann von Unna (1788/1764). In A. Cusack and B. Murnane (Eds.), The German gothic and its international reception, 1800–2000 (pp. 60-75). Rochester: Camden House.
• Rix, Robert W. (2009). Thomas Percy’s antiquarian alternative to Ossian. Journal of folklore research 46(2),197-229.
• Whyte, S. (1800). Miscellanea Nova: Containing, amidst a variety of other matters curious and interesting (New ed.). Dublin: R. Marchbank.
• Wordsworth, W. (1800). Preface. In Lyrical ballads, with other poems (vol. 1). London: printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees, by Biggs and Co. Bristol.
• Wordsworth, W. (1815). Essay supplementary to the Preface. In Poems, 1, pp. 341-375). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
• Wu, D. (1993). Wordsworth’s reading 1770-1799, 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.