Translation and Anglo-Saxon hagiography: Abbo of Fleury's 'Passion of St. Edmund' and AElfric's Old English translation

This study uses the Latin and Old English versions of the Passion of St. Edmund to explore issues surrounding the translation of hagiographical texts in Anglo-Saxon England. Traditional source study often fails to account for the social and political implications of translating religious works into the vernacular. A broad sociolinguistic approach, using modern translation and orality theory, allows a fuller treatment of personal and textual authority, modes of equivalence, audience, and interpretive stance.;The first chapter surveys classical and patristic translation theory, and gives an overview of translation in Anglo-Saxon England. The analysis of classical theory focuses on rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian, who framed translation as a contestative activity, displacing the source text with the translation. The tension (never fully resolved) in translation between subservient replication and creative originality is crucial in all historical periods. The patristic period saw modifications of the classical outlook, although much of the language of the earlier theorists remains intact; through Jerome and Gregory the Great, Anglo-Saxon translators made use of the patristic heritage in their own translation projects. An extended discussion of King Alfred's programme is followed by a brief survey of Old English works translated from Latin, with special concentration on hagiography.;The second chapter is a detailed discussion of the Passio Sancti Eadmundi, written by the continental scholar Abbo of Fleury on a visit to England during the 980s. Abbo's prologue highlights the central issue of replication versus originality: he implicitly acknowledges, but does not openly admit, that his work is a novel treatment of his oral sources. Treating Abbo's text as a translation in a broad sense, I examine his attitude to the authority of his source material, and his reasons for putting the story into writing. This serves as a springboard for a discussion of textual and oral elements in hagiography. Three strategies in the text--Abbo's attitude toward the English setting of the story, his treatment of the Danes, and his use of quotations and allusions--serve as examples of the critical issues.;The third and final chapter looks at AElfric's translation, which constitutes a substantial abbreviation and alteration of the Latin text. AElfric had definite ideas about brevity, authority, and the function of literary language: I use the prefaces to his translated works to examine these attitudes, and to place his version of the Edmund story in context. By reading parallel passages in the Latin and English texts, I identify the differences between Abbo's and AElfric's attitudes to their sources and to their own works. The chapter concludes with a discussion of AElfric's rhythmical prose style, by which AElfric inscribes a kind of constructed orality into a written text.