Women writers and the fictionalisation of the classics

ABSTRACT

Translation studies scholars have traditionally studied texts that are called translations in the receiving cultures. But in the age of mass media, blogs, online journals, reader reviews, and fan fiction, the latest generation has taken translation to a new stage. Linguistic accuracy, once the primary criterion for analysis, recedes in importance; creativity and innovation are valued, and social and political factors move to the fore. This paper discusses the gender politics of such a movement. In my book Translation and Rewriting in the Age of Post-Translation Studies (2017), I looked at film, theatre, and music adaptations, focusing on how rewritings can effect social change. This essay turns to the fictionalisation of classical texts by contemporary women writers, including Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, and Madeline Miller. I suggest that translation scholars be open to new forms being introduced by such women writers and focus on more social arena where political change is already underway.

KEYWORDS:

• Translation
• post-translation
• fiction
• rewriting
• women
• fictionalisation
• classics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. An early version of this paper was presented at the conference on ‘Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural’ held at the Universidad de Salamanca, 28–30 November 2018.

2. ‘VI. Penelope’s Lament’ is from the poem sequence entitled ‘The Odyssey in Six Sonnets’ from Bird Odyssey by Barbara Hamby © 2018. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Edwin Gentzler

Edwin Gentzler is a Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is author of Contemporary Translation Theories (Routledge 1993) and Translation and Identity Formation in the Americas (Rutledge 2008). He is the co-editor (with Maria Tymoczko) of Translation and Power (2002) and a series co-editor (with Susan Bassnett) of the Topics in Translation Series.