Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VIR MAXIMUS (Moral & Intellectual Qualities of the Political Man in the Translations of Gracián's Work (XVII-XXI cent.))
Période du rapport: 2019-09-02 au 2021-09-01
The VIR MAXIMUS project aimed to trace the differences in the notion of the qualities requested for an active member of the society (political leader, influential intellectual, etc.) through European languages and cultures, on the basis of the analysis of a corpus of translations of Baltasar Gracián’s “Oráculo manual” (1647).
In his work, B. Gracián establishes a set of moral and intellectual qualities that should be developed by those who aspire for a leading role in the society. His work was spread all around the world through translation : at the end of the project, more than 200 translations were detected. But the ways of reading Gracián’s advice vary greatly between countries and historical periods. Tracing these differences permits to gain insight into the dynamics of the ‘soft’ policy transfer between European countries.
By the end of the project, a multilingual lexicon of the differences between the first European translations of Gracián’s “Oráculo” was published. This Lexicon shows the ways in which the intellectual, moral and psychological qualities of an actor of the public life were translated, and can be consulted in the user-friendly form on the project’s web site. The lexicon demonstrates, for example, that the German “Sinn”, the English “discerning”, the Russian “разум” were chosen as analogous to the Spanish “gusto”, one of the crucial qualities of Gracián’s ‘maximum man’, while it’s translated as “goût” into French; and thus, only French culture had sufficient basis for the extension of a gastronomic term to the intellectual and moral domain.
A series of instruments for the further analysis of the issue were elaborated during the project and published on in open access.
Extended to other influential European political, moral-political and political-philosophical treaties that received a wide reception through translation throughout the world, the database can serve as a tool for the facilitation of intercultural communication and of different forms of soft policy transfer.
In his work, B. Gracián establishes a set of moral and intellectual qualities that should be developed by those who aspire for a leading role in the society. His work was spread all around the world through translation : at the end of the project, more than 200 translations were detected. But the ways of reading Gracián’s advice vary greatly between countries and historical periods. Tracing these differences permits to gain insight into the dynamics of the ‘soft’ policy transfer between European countries.
By the end of the project, a multilingual lexicon of the differences between the first European translations of Gracián’s “Oráculo” was published. This Lexicon shows the ways in which the intellectual, moral and psychological qualities of an actor of the public life were translated, and can be consulted in the user-friendly form on the project’s web site. The lexicon demonstrates, for example, that the German “Sinn”, the English “discerning”, the Russian “разум” were chosen as analogous to the Spanish “gusto”, one of the crucial qualities of Gracián’s ‘maximum man’, while it’s translated as “goût” into French; and thus, only French culture had sufficient basis for the extension of a gastronomic term to the intellectual and moral domain.
A series of instruments for the further analysis of the issue were elaborated during the project and published on in open access.
Extended to other influential European political, moral-political and political-philosophical treaties that received a wide reception through translation throughout the world, the database can serve as a tool for the facilitation of intercultural communication and of different forms of soft policy transfer.
By the end of the first year of project, a Catalogue of the translations of B. Gracián’s work was published in the open depository Zenodo. The catalogue supplies biobibliographical data in a format that permits automated data treatment (e. g. filter by language or year of publication). The catalogue gives for the first time a comprehensive sight of the dynamics of the reception of the work of the Spanish thinker in the world. These dynamics were object of the Monograph published few months later.
In Europe, the spreading of Gracián’s popularity was ensured for the first time by a French diplomat and erudite Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye. Crucial figure in the European intellectual panorama of the 17th century, Amelot remained in many aspects an enigmatic figure, strongly understudied. During the implementation of VIR MAXIMUS important advancements in this field were made and led to the publication of four-handed article of the project’s main investigator and supervisor. The article proposes a deep revision of the biobibliographical data on Amelot de la Houssaye and brings a new light to his activity and ideas. It was followed by the organization of a monthly online seminar dedicated to Amelot. The publication of the proceedings of the seminar is currently under preparation.
Further dissemination of the results of the WP1 was ensured by the publication of three papers by the principal investigator and a number of conference talks.
The publication of the Catalogue enabled the realization of an outreach program under various forms : dedicated FB-page, the project website, online and offline talks, both for specialists and general public.
The WP2, lexical Database on the first Italian, French, English, German and Russian translations of “Oráculo”, was implemented during the second year of the project. It was published in open depository Zenodo under form of searchable database and on the project website under different user-friendly forms. The structure of Database ensures portability of data and an easy integration of additional datasets.
Given that the Database was completed by the end of the project, two talks that presented its functionalities were given immediately after the project end date.
The dissemination and the outreach of the project were as multilingual as its object: they were performed in English, French, Russian, Spanish and Italian.
In Europe, the spreading of Gracián’s popularity was ensured for the first time by a French diplomat and erudite Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye. Crucial figure in the European intellectual panorama of the 17th century, Amelot remained in many aspects an enigmatic figure, strongly understudied. During the implementation of VIR MAXIMUS important advancements in this field were made and led to the publication of four-handed article of the project’s main investigator and supervisor. The article proposes a deep revision of the biobibliographical data on Amelot de la Houssaye and brings a new light to his activity and ideas. It was followed by the organization of a monthly online seminar dedicated to Amelot. The publication of the proceedings of the seminar is currently under preparation.
Further dissemination of the results of the WP1 was ensured by the publication of three papers by the principal investigator and a number of conference talks.
The publication of the Catalogue enabled the realization of an outreach program under various forms : dedicated FB-page, the project website, online and offline talks, both for specialists and general public.
The WP2, lexical Database on the first Italian, French, English, German and Russian translations of “Oráculo”, was implemented during the second year of the project. It was published in open depository Zenodo under form of searchable database and on the project website under different user-friendly forms. The structure of Database ensures portability of data and an easy integration of additional datasets.
Given that the Database was completed by the end of the project, two talks that presented its functionalities were given immediately after the project end date.
The dissemination and the outreach of the project were as multilingual as its object: they were performed in English, French, Russian, Spanish and Italian.
The investigation performed during the project provided an innovative model for the study of the movement of the ideas: a searchable multilingual corpus of the translations of the same text into various languages. Although VIR MAXIMUS database provides analysis only for moral-intellectual lexicon, the model can be extended on other lexical domains and other corpora. The project unveiled the most common issues in the creation of such type of corpus and explored possible solutions. It also proved the importance of a preliminary bibliographical and textual critical research for the creation of such corpora in order to establish the exact source of every translation. The most part of the translations of Gracián’s work for whom the source is known are second-, third- or even forth-hand translations.
In fact, the Catalogue and the Monograph provided unintentionally a pioneering model for reception studies, especially in what concerns the young research domain of Indirect Translation Studies. The Monograph offers a description of the European reception of Gracián’s work as divided in three main “waves” (large series of interrelated translations) and offers methodological basis for further research in the field of translation and indirect translation studies.
An immense series of advancements in tighter research domains are carried out. The Catalogue VIR MAXIMUS is by far the most complete index of the translations of Gracián. The translations in Eastern-European and Oriental languages were almost completely unknown in the field of the studies of Gracián’s work. The dynamics of the diffusion of Gracián’s work in the Eastern Europe and Russia were examined for the first time in the monograph “La traversata europea…” The work of French diplomat and translator Amelot de la Houssaye were reexamined by the main researcher and the supervisor of the project in an article published in open access; in the article, the reviewed and updated list of his work as editor and translator was released, together with a list of previously unknown documents (such as his manuscript annotations on various books stored in the libraries of Paris), which led to reconsider the notion of his career and ideological program. Subsequently, a series of seminars dedicated to him was organized. The intense and fructuous interdisciplinary dialogue was fructuous to the further understanding of Amelot’s thought and cultural-political activity; currently, the volume of proceedings is under preparation.
For the first time, a comparative study was drafted during a conference talk on the ways various translators worked with the texts of Gracián and Góngora, Spanish Baroque writers whose texts perform a witty style, full of wordplay and references to Classical culture, and thus difficult to translate.
In fact, the Catalogue and the Monograph provided unintentionally a pioneering model for reception studies, especially in what concerns the young research domain of Indirect Translation Studies. The Monograph offers a description of the European reception of Gracián’s work as divided in three main “waves” (large series of interrelated translations) and offers methodological basis for further research in the field of translation and indirect translation studies.
An immense series of advancements in tighter research domains are carried out. The Catalogue VIR MAXIMUS is by far the most complete index of the translations of Gracián. The translations in Eastern-European and Oriental languages were almost completely unknown in the field of the studies of Gracián’s work. The dynamics of the diffusion of Gracián’s work in the Eastern Europe and Russia were examined for the first time in the monograph “La traversata europea…” The work of French diplomat and translator Amelot de la Houssaye were reexamined by the main researcher and the supervisor of the project in an article published in open access; in the article, the reviewed and updated list of his work as editor and translator was released, together with a list of previously unknown documents (such as his manuscript annotations on various books stored in the libraries of Paris), which led to reconsider the notion of his career and ideological program. Subsequently, a series of seminars dedicated to him was organized. The intense and fructuous interdisciplinary dialogue was fructuous to the further understanding of Amelot’s thought and cultural-political activity; currently, the volume of proceedings is under preparation.
For the first time, a comparative study was drafted during a conference talk on the ways various translators worked with the texts of Gracián and Góngora, Spanish Baroque writers whose texts perform a witty style, full of wordplay and references to Classical culture, and thus difficult to translate.