British Literature - Translations

Translations

Translations are an important feature of the literatures of the regional languages of the islands, for example: Alice in Wonderland has been translated into Manx as Contoyryssyn Ealish ayns Cheer ny Yindyssyn by Brian Stowell (published in 1990), into Cornish as Alys in Pow an Anethow by Nicholas Williams (published in 2009), into Ulster Scots as Alice’s Carrànts in Wunnerlan by Ann Morrison-Smyth, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was translated into Jèrriais, from the English version by Edward FitzGerald, during the German Occupation by Frank Le Maistre, and into Scots by Rab Wilson (published in 2004). Reasons for translating into a lesser-used language range from demand from a public wanting to experience a familiar work in a more familiar voice to a desire to raise the status of the language by associating it with a recognised work of world literature. There is a paradox in the necessary openness of writers to literature in widely-used languages that leads them to express national identity in a lesser-used language.

Since the 1920s a significant quantity of poetry has been translated into Scots, but the amount of prose translated lagged behind, with the exception of translations of classic plays undertaken since the 1940s and of contemporary drama since the 1980s. Alexander Hutchison has translated the poetry of Catullus into Scots, and in the 1980s Liz Lochhead (1947 - ; Scots Makar since 2011) produced a Scots translation of Tartuffe by Molière. The volume of translations rivals the production of new literature.

Translations have not been as important to the Scottish Gaelic literary tradition as to that in Scots, but of those writers who have undertaken translations, George Campbell Hay and William Neill are two noted exponents.

Translations played an important rôle in mediaeval Welsh literature bringing chansons de geste into popular literature and translations from Latin provided literary Welsh with new religious and philosophical vocabulary and laid the basis for a new formal register. Literary translations through the 19th and 20th centuries brought foreign influences to the attention of Welsh writers.

Translations into modern English of Old English literature continue to inform the cultural context of contemporary literature. Seamus Heaney in his verse translation of Beowulf (2000) uses words from his Ulster speech Simon Armitage's Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (2007) harmonises the original author's northern English dialect with his own.