Translated Poe

Emron Esplin, Margarida Vale de Gato

• Publisher: Lehigh University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781611465051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Literature

Few, if any, U.S. writers are as important to the history of world literature as Edgar Allan Poe, and few, if any, U.S. authors owe so much of their current reputations to the process of translation. Translated Poe brings together 31 essays from 19 different national/literary traditions to demonstrate Poe's extensive influence on world literature and thought while revealing the importance of the vehicle that delivers Poe to the world—translation.

Translated Poe is not preoccupied with judging the "quality" of any given Poe translation nor with assessing what a specific translation of Poe must or should have done. Rather, the volume demonstrates how Poe's translations constitute multiple contextual interpretations, testifying to how this prolific author continues to help us read ourselves and the world(s) we live in. The examples of how Poe's works were spread abroad remind us that literature depends as much on authorial creation and timely readership as on the languages and worlds through which a piece of literature circulates after its initial publication in its first language. This recasting of signs and symbols that intervene in other cultures when a text is translated is one of the principal subjects of the humanistic discipline of Translation Studies, dealing with the products, functions, and processes of translation as both a cognitive and socially regulated activity. Both literary history and the history of translation benefit from this book's focus on Poe, whose translated fortune has helped to shape literary modernity, in many cases importantly redefining the target literary systems. Furthermore, we envision this book as a fountain of resources for future Poe scholars from various global sites, including the United States, since the cases of Poe's translations—both exceptional and paradigmatic—prove that they are also levers that force the reassessment of the source text in its native literature.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Poe Translations in Literary Traditions
• Ch01. Poe Translations in Portugal
• Ch02. A Historical Approach to the Translation of Poe’s Narrative Works in Spain
• Ch03. The Italian Translations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Works
• Ch04. Edgar Allan Poe in Greek Letters
• Ch05. Poe Translations in France
• Ch06. Poe in Germany
• Ch07. The History of Poe Translations in Russia
• Ch08. Edgar Allan Poe in Romanian Translation
• Ch09. Hyper-Poe
• Ch10. Edgar Allan Poe and Icelandic Literary Culture
• Ch11. Transatlantic Mediation
• Ch12. The Egyptian Afterlife
• Ch13. Edgar Allan Poe in Turkish
• Ch14. Encountering the Melancholy Swan
• Ch15. The Unparalleled Adventure of One Edgar Poe in the Brazilian Literary System
• Ch16. The Double Task of the Translator
• Ch17. Edgar Allan Poe in Classical and Vernacular Chinese Translations
• Ch18. Poe Translation in Korea, 1945–2010
• Part II. POE’S FICTION AND POETRY IN TRANSLATION
• Ch19. Retranslating Poe into French
• Ch20. “Black Radiation”
• Ch21. Code for Kids
• Ch22. (Un)Masking the Red Death in Romanian Translations
• Ch23. Poe in Brazil
• Ch24. “William Wilson” as a Microcosm of Julio Cortázar’s Poe Translations
• Ch25. An Early Reading of “The Black Cat” in Japanese
• Ch26. “The Fall of the House of Usher” from a Translational Perspective in China
• Ch27. Fernando Pessoa Spiritualizes Poe
• Ch28. Spanish Versions of a Modern Classic
• Ch29. The Reception of Poe’s Poetry in the Turkish Cultural and Literary System
• Ch30. Seven Ravens
• Ch31. Return to El Dorado?
• Notes
• Index
• About the Editors and Contributors