La recepción de la narrativa francesa medieval en el País de Gales durante la Edad Media

263 Pages·2014·2.05 MB·English

La recepción de la narrativa
francesa medieval en el País de
Gales durante la Edad Media:
Los casos de Chwedyl Iarlles y
Ffynnawn y Cân Rolant
Cordo, Luciana Russo
Delpy, María Silvia
2015
Tesis presentada con el fin de cumplimentar con los requisitos finales para la
obtención del título Doctor de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en Letras
Universidad de Buenos Aires
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Carrera de Letras

Tesis doctoral

The reception of medieval French narrative in medieval Wales: the
case of Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn and Cân Rolant

Directora de tesis: María Silvia Delpy
Co-directora de tesis: Sioned Mair Davies

Doctoranda: Luciana Mabel Cordo Russo
DNI: 31.380.063
Expediente: 860.803/10
Tel. [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]

- 2014 -
Universidad de Buenos Aires
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Carrera de Letras

Tesis doctoral

The reception of medieval French narrative in medieval Wales: the
case of Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn and Cân Rolant

Directora de tesis: María Silvia Delpy
Co-directora de tesis: Sioned Mair Davies

Doctoranda: Luciana Mabel Cordo Russo

- 2014 -
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. v
PART I ................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Definitions ..................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Translating in Medieval Wales: Research Questions ....................................................... 4
1.3 Intercultural Exchange between Wales and France in the Central Middle Ages .............. 7
1.3.1 Linguistic and non-linguistic evidence of contacts between Wales and France ......... 8
PART II ................................................................................................................................ 16
2. Wales in the thirteenth-century: literary and historical context ........................................ 17
3. Chrétien de Troyes' Le chevalier au lion and its Middle Welsh ‗translation‘ Chwedyl
Iarlles y Ffynnawn ............................................................................................................. 25
3.1 Chrétien de Troyes: Le chevalier au lion ...................................................................... 25
3.2. Formal devices and major themes ................................................................................ 26
3.3 Manuscript tradition and editions .................................................................................. 28
3.4 Le chevalier au lion in a European context: medieval translations of the text ................ 29
3.5. Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn: Manuscript tradition and modern editions ...................... 31
3.6 The date and place of composition ................................................................................ 35
3.7 Literature review: beyond the source problem .............................................................. 37
4. La chanson de Roland and its Middle Welsh translation Cân Rolant .............................. 47
4.1 Textual transmission: the versions of La chanson de Roland ........................................ 47
4.2 The tradition of Carolingian epic in France ................................................................... 50
4.3 Medieval translations: the challenge of translating La chanson de Roland .................... 52
4.4 The epic poem as genre ................................................................................................ 55
4.5 Cân Rolant: textual transmission, modern editions and literature review ....................... 58
4.6 The problem of source .................................................................................................. 65
4.7 Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 67
PART III ............................................................................................................................... 71
5. Translation in Medieval Wales ....................................................................................... 72
5.1 Chrétien's Yvain as the source of Iarlles: reappraisal and antecedents ........................... 77
5.2 Translation in the Middle Ages: general survey and contemporary scholarly attitudes .. 79
5.3 Critical terminology: redefining translation .................................................................. 84
5.4 Modern Translation Studies: What can Modern Theories add to our understanding of
Middle Welsh Translations? ............................................................................................... 88
5.5 Narratology and Reception Theories ............................................................................. 92

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5.6 Closing remarks ........................................................................................................... 95
PART IV .............................................................................................................................. 96
6. Translating the ―matière de France‖: The case of Cân Rolant ......................................... 97
6.1 General shift: genre ...................................................................................................... 98
6.2 Unit of translation ......................................................................................................... 99
6.3 Macro-textual level....................................................................................................... 99
6.3.1 Narrative structure ............................................................................................... 100
6.3.2 Abridgement ........................................................................................................ 106
6.3.3 Additions ............................................................................................................. 112
6.3.3.1 Expansions ........................................................................................................ 112
6.3.3.2 Explicitation ..................................................................................................... 119
6.3.3.3 Exemplification ................................................................................................. 121
6.4 The micro-textual level ............................................................................................... 122
6.4.1 Lexical change ..................................................................................................... 123
6.4.1.1 Substitutions ..................................................................................................... 124
Predictable substitutions ............................................................................................... 125
Unpredictable substitutions ........................................................................................... 129
Unpredictable substitutions: Amherawdyr and teulu ...................................................... 133
6.4.1.2 Circumlocutions ................................................................................................ 138
6.4.1.3 Adoptions ......................................................................................................... 139
6.4.2 Syntax .................................................................................................................. 140
6.4.3 Style .................................................................................................................... 151
6.4.3.1 Terms of address and politeness ........................................................................ 151
6.4.3.2 Speech and greetings ......................................................................................... 152
6.4.3.3 Formulaic style ................................................................................................. 155
6.5 Conclusions: considerations about norms of translation for Cân Rolant ...................... 157
7. Translating the ―matière de Bretagne‖: Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn ............................. 161
7.1 Fabula and story: Narrative Structure ......................................................................... 162
7.2 The story .................................................................................................................... 165
7.2.1 Narrative motivation ............................................................................................ 176
7.2.2 Characterization ................................................................................................... 187
The Giant herdsman ................................................................................................................ 188
Yvain / Owein ......................................................................................................................... 189
Arthur ...................................................................................................................................... 194
Kei, Kynon, and Gwalchmei ................................................................................................... 195
Feminine characters ................................................................................................................ 197
7.3 Text ............................................................................................................................ 201
7.3.1 Lexical change ..................................................................................................... 205
7.3.1.1 Predictable substitutions .................................................................................... 207

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7.3.1.2 Communicative translation ................................................................................ 210
7.3.1.3 Unpredictable substitution ................................................................................. 211
7.3.2 Style .................................................................................................................... 211
7.4 Conclusion: Rethinking Iarlles as a translation ........................................................... 216
PART V .............................................................................................................................. 219
8. Attitudes to translation in medieval Wales .................................................................... 220
Appendix 1 ...................................................................................................................... 226
Appendix 2 ...................................................................................................................... 227
Appendix 3 ...................................................................................................................... 228
Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 231

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Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to a number of individuals from both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean who have helped me in the course of researching and writing this thesis:
My two supervisors, María Silvia Delpy and Sioned Davies, for their constant patience,
encouragement, support and valuable advice. It would have been impossible for me to
embark on this adventure without Silvia‘s trust and assistance from my time as an
undergraduate student. I would like to thank Sioned particularly for welcoming me at Cardiff
University, making my stays so enjoyable and fruitful, and providing so much help in our
multilingual journey. Diolch o galon!
The National Scientific and Technical Research Council – Argentina for generously funding
my doctoral research for these past five years. The School of Welsh, thanks to the Project
Santander, for kindly financing my three visits to Wales.
The Director of the Instituto Multidisciplinario de Historia y Ciencias Humanas (IMHICIHU-
CONICET), Dr. Ariel Guiance, for providing institutional and personal support through all
these years.
My teachers at Universidad de Buenos Aires: Dra. Lidia Amor, Lic. Ana Basarte, Lic. María
Cristina Balestrini, and Dr. Leonardo Funes.
My colleagues and fellow doctoral students at the IMHICIHU: Santiago Barreiro, Daniel
Panateri, María Dumas, Fernando Ruchesi, for so many hours and coffees spent in the library,
in the office, and in the basement. The researchers Dr. Alfonso Hernández, Dr. Pablo
Ubierna, and Dr. Alejandro Morin for their kind advice and encouraging words.
Dr. Diana Luft, Dr. Juliette Wood, Dr. Dylan Foster Evans, and Prof. E. Wyn James, for their
valuable insights. My Welsh tutors for teaching me so much about Welsh and Wales.
Prof. Erich Poppe for kindly sending me part of his published and unpublished work.
Prof. Hines for assisting me with the Old Norse material.
My friends and colleagues at Cardiff University for their warm welcome and for making me
feel part of the community of the School of Welsh.
Walter and Geraldine, for opening their house and sharing so many mates.
Finally, special recognition goes to my family for their unrelenting love and support and for
instilling in me the value of hard work. My partner, Matías, was a constant support during all
the stages of this project.
To all, a big thanks, diolch yn fawr iawn, muchas gracias.

v
P I
ART
I
NTRODUCTION

1
1.1 Definitions
In medieval literary studies, the phenomena of intercultural exchange are fundamental; they
constitute a place of convergence and of transmission of languages and texts. This thesis
seeks to reappraise the reception of French narrative in Medieval Wales by examining two
case-studies, that of Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn and Cân Rolant.1 At least initially, this
reception did not follow a uniform model: along with well-known translations into Middle
Welsh such as Cân Rolant, whose source is clearly the Anglo-Norman poem La chanson de
Roland, there are other texts which, arguably, have not been considered a translation. This is
the case of Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn: even recognising that the fabula and story (in
narratological terms, see Bal, 1997: 8) are basically identical to those of Chrétien de Troyes‘
Yvain ou Li chevalier au lion, scholars have debated the nature of the relationship of both
texts for more than a century.2 Difficulties about teasing out date and place of provenance,
especially in the case of Iarlles, and the preservation of the tales in later manuscripts – the
earliest is dated to the beginning of the fourteenth century – have contributed to the
persistence of the debate (Huws, 2000; Thomas, 1993; Rodway, 2007, 2013).
The different ways in which the transmission of stories was realized entails
methodological obstacles that need to be tackled at the outset. As a result, the broad concept
of ‗reception‘ was preferred here to other terms such as adaptation, transposition, and
translatio, in order to address the translinguistic and transcultural migration of continental
material into Wales during the thirteenth century, namely, that of Yvain ou Li chevalier au
lion and La chanson de Roland. Both texts originated within a Francophone environment,
presumably in an Anglo-Norman context. However, terminological – and hence theoretical –
indeterminacy seems to prevail amongst scholars in the study of medieval translation and, to
a high degree, in the field of medieval Welsh translation: are we dealing with ‗translations‘,
‗adaptations‘, ‗transpositions‘ or a ‗translatio‟ of French texts into Middle Welsh? How do
we define these categories? Are they adequate to describe the Welsh phenomena? It is

1 Henceforth all quotations of Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn (Iarlles) will be from Thomson's edition (1986) with
indications to line numbers. As for Cân Rolant, citations of the Welsh text will be from Rejhon's edition (1984),
as well as translations; references will be made to numbered sections. Concerning the French texts, all
quotations of the Oxford version of La chanson de Roland will be from Segre (2003), whereas of the Venice 4
version will be from Cook (2005). The edition of Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain ou Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), is
that of Uitti (1994). In all cases references will be made to verse numbers. Unless otherwise stated, we will
follow Duggan and Rejhon (2012) for the translation of La chanson de Roland, Kibler (2004) for that of Yvain,
and S. Davies (2007) for that of Iarlles.
2 This circumstance has produced a lengthy bibliography, most of which has been reviewed by Bromwich
(2008). For more recent publications see Lloyd-Morgan (2004b). In this thesis we will only make reference to
the latest and more important studies, although pioneer works will be taken into consideration as they constitute
foundational ideas, many of them still valid.

2
essential, then, to define and assess the range of terms that will be employed in the course of
this dissertation and to raise any problematic issues.
‗Translation‘ is a many-sided phenomenon.3 First of all, it is a polysemic word that
can either mean the general field of studies (as in Translation Studies), the product of an act
of translation, or the process of translating. In this third sense, it is primarily a linguistic
issue: an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original language (the source
language or SL) is changed by the translator into a written text (the target text or TT) in a
different language (the target language or TL). This is the more basic definition of
interlingual translation according to Jakobson; that is, the interpretation of verbal signs from
one language into the verbal signs of another (1966: 233; cf. Munday, 2008: 5). Traditional
stances towards translation tend to define this process in terms of equivalence of a TL to its
SL, whereby the meaning of the two will be approximately similar and the structure of the SL
will be preserved as closely as possible without distorting entirely the structure of the TL
(Bassnett, 2002: 12). Within this model, a TL that does not follow these premises would be
deemed as a ‗bad or inaccurate translation‘. In medieval studies, scholars working from this
perspective and facing such a translation would conclude: a) that it was the work of a ‗slavish
translator‘ who had faithfully followed his source; b) that it was produced by the opposite of
the 'slavish translator', a ‗bad translator‘, purportedly unskilled and uncomprehending of the
SL; c) that it was necessary to employ another term, such as ‗adaptation‘, in order to reinstate
the role of the ―translator‖ as a creative and dynamic agent.4 ‗Adaptation‘ involves, as a
result, a degree of originality that a translation presumably does not have, it is susceptible of
analysis as a text in its own right, and the relationship to its source needs to be examined only
at a very general level (Djordević, 2002: 67-9). 'Transposition' is not a technical term within
the field of translation and only derivatively connotes translation into another language. In
this sense, the scope of the word seems to be rather imprecise. The Latin word ―translatio‖
was preferred by Buridant to denote the special character of medieval translation as opposed
to modern translation in the "souplesse" of the distinction between "traduction fidèle et
adaptation libre" of its source (Buridant, 1993: 89). Other terms, such as rewriting ("ré-
écriture") and version, are also employed in academic literature to highlight otherness over
sameness between ST and TT. However, they are extremely broad and can describe a very

3 There follows a very brief definition of these terms; the discussion will be reprised and expanded in chapter 5.
4 For a summary of these positions see Djordević (2000).

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