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Mª JESÚS LORENZO MODIA–LATE 17TH- AND 18TH-CENTURY TRANSLATIONS BY ENGLISH WOMEN
LATE SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
TRANSLATIONS BY ENGLISH WOMEN WRITERS: FACT AND/OR
FICTION
367
MARÍA JESÚS LORENZO MODIA
Universidade da Coruña
Translations by late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English women writers
will be analysed here paying attention to two main aspects. On the one hand, translation
has been frequently used as a rhetorical device to avoid responsibility and/or to cover up
identities in the publication of some texts by women writers. On the other hand, the
publication of translations into English mainly from French – and less frequently from
Latin, and Greek – provided social respectability for the very same women translators in
periods when writing itself was a dangerous social activity. Hence, translation was used
with the double function of alibi, to avoid hard criticism, and award, to demonstrate
proficiency in languages and fields not habitual in women’s curricula.
The first woman writer to be considered in this view is Aphra Behn (ca.1640-1689).
She is both a writer and a translator. These two different activities were not so clearly
separated in the history of European culture since Chaucer, Shakespeare, and many other
writers used works in various European languages as a source of inspiration. As is wellknown,
the concept of translation has had many different interpretations throughout
history, which cannot be dealt with here. Suffice it to mention that medieval writers, for
instance, were acknowledged both as “auctors” and “compilers” of other texts and their
task may be described in terms of gleaning from other sources, as Hussey points out,
referring to Chaucer’s Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (G version, 61-5): “To make
available the works of the great authors of the past, by compilation, translation,
commentary or simple transcription.” (Hussey 1971: 33). In contemporary criticism
translation may even be understood as “first and foremost, intralingual. It serves to
decipher messages between speakers and writers within the same speech-community”
(Steiner 1998: 93). However, translation, of different types, was a widespread occupation
among many relevant Restoration writers. Aphra Behn does not seem to have mixed these
two activities in theory, as she usually recognised authorship of original works, or
recognised being the translator, in the title page of her works as distinct activities.
Examples of works by her where authorship is declared are: The Fair Jilt: or, The History of
Prince Tarquin and Miranda. Written by Mrs. A. Behn (1688); Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave. A
True History. By Mrs A. Behn (1688); The Lucky Mistake. A New Novel. By Mrs. A. Behn (1689);
or The History of the Nun: Or, The Fair Vow-Breaker. Written by Mrs. A. Behn (1689). There are
also instances where the authorship is not declared on the front page due to the special
characteristics of the work. This is the case of Love-Letters Between a Noble-Man and His Sister,
Parts I, II, and III, where we find a series of letters supposedly from the true
correspondents, where no author’s name – other than those of the pen-friends – are to be
found.
As far as translations are concerned, we find in most of them the name of the
translatress, for instance in A Discovery Of New Worlds. From The French. Made English By Mrs.
A. Behn (1688), which is a translation from Fontenelle’s Entretien sur la pluralité des mondes,