Pseudotranslation
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In
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
, a pseudotranslation is a text written as if it had been translated from a foreign language, even though no foreign language original exists.


History

The practice of writing works which falsely claimed to be translations began in medieval
chivalric romance As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric ...
. It was common in 16th-century Spain, where Amadís de Gaula and the numerous works descended from it benefited from the invention of printing to offer fantasies of travel, war, and love to wealthy young adults. The most successful of the Spanish works were quickly translated into all the major languages of Western Europe.
Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-emin ...
wrote the 1605
Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...
to finish them off (he succeeded) because he believed that false history was socially harmful, as one of his characters explains in Chapter 49. The concept of a pseudotranslation was reinvented by Israeli scholar
Gideon Toury Gideon Toury ( he, גדעון טורי) (6 June 1942 – 4 October 2016) was an Israeli translation scholar and professor of Poetics, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he held the M. Bernstein Chair of ...
in ''Descriptive Translation Studies–and Beyond'' (1995). The technique allows authors to provide more insight into the culture of the work's setting by presupposing that the reader is unfamiliar with the work's cultural setting, opening the work to a wider world audience. Writing a pseudotranslation involves using features that usually indicate to a reader that the text is a translation. As some translators have argued, pseudotranslations can be a way of publishing
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
that is stylistically different or critical." Scholars such as
Gideon Toury Gideon Toury ( he, גדעון טורי) (6 June 1942 – 4 October 2016) was an Israeli translation scholar and professor of Poetics, Comparative Literature and Translation Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he held the M. Bernstein Chair of ...
also note that readers are more likely to accept texts that differ from the norm if they are culturally distant. Many works of
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
and
fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
can be regarded as pseudotranslations from nonexistent languages.
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
's ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
'' explicitly claims to have been translated from the ancient languages of
Middle-earth Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the '' Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is ...
, while
Gene Wolfe Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and nove ...
, in the afterword to its first volume, claims that ''
The Book of the New Sun ''The Book of the New Sun'' (1980–1983) is a four volume, science fantasy novel written by the American author Gene Wolfe. It inaugurated the "Solar Cycle" that Wolfe continued by setting other works in the same universe (''The Urth of the Ne ...
'' series is translated "from a language that has yet to achieve existence".


Examples

*''
History of the Kings of Britain ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...
'' (c. 1136), by
Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography ...
*''
Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of West ...
'' (1605), by
Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...
*''
Persian Letters ''Persian Letters'' (french: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France u ...
'' (1721), by
Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the princi ...
*''Cleveland'' (1731), by Abbé Prévost * '' Candide'' (1759), by
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
* '' The Works of Ossian'' (1765) by
James Macpherson James Macpherson (Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of epic poem ...
*'' La Guzla, ou Choix de Poesies Illyriques recueillies dans la Dalmatie, la Croatie et l'Herzegowine'' (1827), by
Prosper Mérimée Prosper Mérimée (; 28 September 1803 – 23 September 1870) was a French writer in the movement of Romanticism, and one of the pioneers of the novella, a short novel or long short story. He was also a noted archaeologist and historian, and a ...
*''Le Livre de Jade'' (1867), by
Judith Gautier Judith Gautier (25 August 1845, Paris – 26 December 1917) was a French poet, translator and historical novelist, the daughter of Théophile Gautier and Ernesta Grisi, sister of the noted singer and ballet dancer Carlotta Grisi. She was mar ...
*'' The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî'' (1880), by
Richard Francis Burton Sir Richard Francis Burton (; 19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar,and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary kn ...
*'' The Songs of Bilitis'' (1894), by Piere Louÿs *'' The Man Who Counted'' (1938), by Júlio César de Mello e Souza *''La Fille d’un héros de l’Union soviétique'' (1990)'','' by
Andreï Makine Andreï Sergueïevitch Makine (russian: Андрей Серге́евич Макин; born 10 September 1957) is a French novelist. He also publishes under the pseudonym Gabriel Osmonde.Always Coming Home (1985), by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin


See also

*
Translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...


References


Further reading (most recent first)

* Kupsch-Losereit, Sigrid (2014) "Pseudotranslations in 18th century France". In: ''Transfiction. Research into the realities of translation fiction.'' Eds. Klaus Kaindl/ Karlheinz Spitzl. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 189–202. * Gürçağlar, Şehnaz Tahir. (2010). "Scouting the Borders of Translation: Pseudotranslation, Concealed Translations and Authorship in Twentieth-Century Turkey," ''
Translation Studies Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. As an interdiscipline, translation studies borrows much from the vari ...
,'' Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 172–187. * McCall, Ian. (2006). "Translating the Pseudotranslated: Andreï Makine's ''La Fille d'un héros de l'Union soviétique'',"
Forum for Modern Language Studies
'' Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 287–297. * Rambelli, Paolo. (2006) "Pseudotranslations, Authorship and Novelists in Eighteenth-Century Italy." In ''Translating Others.'' Ed. Theo Hermans. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing, pp. 181–193. * {{cite book , title=Fact or Fiction. The Dilemma of the Renaissance Storyteller , first=William , last=Nelson , location=
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
, publisher=
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
, year=1973 , isbn=0 674-29065-8 Comparative literature Translation Literary genres