Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Death of the Author, Birth of the Translator? Translation and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Translation and Language in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ((PTTI))

  • 292 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationship between translation and originality by focusing on the literary activities of Francis Mahony and James Clarence Mangan and their experiments with translation and creativity. The chapter explores the creative tensions in translation as both an original and a derivative text and looks at how the Irishmen’s work challenged the notions of originality and authorship in the nineteenth century. It questions the overlaps between translation and imitation in debates on authorship in the Romantic era, and it looks at how, in the work of these two translators, translation could function in the liminal space between inspiration and imitation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for example, the ‘borrowings’ by Coleridge and Byron discussed in Mazzeo (2007). Mazzeo, however, does not in her analysis differentiate between plagiarism from texts originally written in English and texts written in other languages.

  2. 2.

    See discussion on these issues in Gutbrodt (2003) and Apter (2009). Apter says that ‘Translation offers a particularly rich focus for discussions of creative property and the limits of ownership, because it is a peculiar genre; one that, counter to Romantic values and myths of avant-garde originality, exalts the art of the copy, flaunts its derivativeness, and proudly bears the lead weight of prediction on literary antecedent’ (89).

  3. 3.

    See Bassnett and France (2006, 55–56).

  4. 4.

    Ireland’s interest in the treaty and details of its content can be found in The Nation, 6 December 1851; 13 December 1851 and 13 March 1852.

  5. 5.

    In her study of plagiarism in the Romantic period, Mazzeo says that if a work claimed to have improved on a previous work, then it was deemed to fall outside the boundaries of plagiarism (Mazzeo 2007, 2–3).

  6. 6.

    Mahony published the article under his pseudonym Fr Prout and it was subsequently included in his book The Reliques of Fr. Prout (1836). For more on the ‘Prout Papers’, see Dunne (2014). For more on Mahony’s general literary production and adventures, see Eagleton (1996), Gaynor (1999), (Campbell 2013, 48–68).

  7. 7.

    Dunne has correctly observed that Mahony’s ‘original translations satirize the politicized project of antiquarianism by humorously demonstrating how the authority of the past can be manipulated or distorted. But they also push the “synthetic” aesthetic of Moore’s Irish verse to its logical extreme, exaggerating the distance between national origins and their poetic representation already evident in the Melodies, and thus moving toward a post-Romantic notion of the impossibility of literary authenticity’ (Dunne 2012, 472).

  8. 8.

    It is possible that Mahony did not translate ‘On Whiskey’ into Greek himself: his Greek ‘original’ is attributed to a certain ‘Stakkos Morphides’ who may have been fellow Corkman and translator Frank Stack Murphy (Dunne 2012, 472).

  9. 9.

    In 1834, for example, De Quincy published his exposé of Coleridge’s borrowings/plagiarism and the following years saw countless publications on this theme in periodical literature

  10. 10.

    In his Preface to the second edition of the Reliques, Prout said that he ‘quite abhorred the clumsy servility of adhering to the letter while allowing the spirit to evaporate; a mere verbal echo distorted by natural anfractuosities, gives back neither the tone nor quality of the original voice […]’ (in Dunne 2012, 469).

  11. 11.

    The Nation, 16 January 1858.

  12. 12.

    For this reason, I will be citing from the original Mangan publications rather than from his collected works where the prose pieces are separated from the poetry they introduce.

  13. 13.

    See Lloyd (2014, 17).

  14. 14.

    See also The Nation, 8 September 1849.

  15. 15.

    O’Donoghue said of Mangan that ‘His best work is undoubtedly that in which he forgets all about his author, and soars away into the air on his own wings’ (1903, xiv).

  16. 16.

    Although Mangan’s approach to translation attracted surprisingly little negativity, there were some dissenting voices such as J. De Jean who ‘alluded to the very few original thoughts which Mangan has left after him, and his ignorance of all the languages—the Irish as well as the German—which he presumed to translate’ (The Nation, 10 April 1852). Also in the Foreign Quarterly Review (October 1845), a reviewer said of Mangan that ‘He takes many unwarrantable liberties with his authors, mutilates and interpolates, and falsifies them by an exaggeration that not seldom produces a burlesque effect where a grave one was intended’ (Lloyd 1982, 142).

  17. 17.

    Similarly to Mahony, Mangan was involved in the debates on the Round Towers in Ireland and their origins, he once wrote that Charles Vallancey had ‘proved us mere Irish to be Orientals’ (Mangan 1838b, 491).

  18. 18.

    For a detailed account of the interactions between Mangan’s Oriental translations and the question of origins, see Lloyd (1986).

  19. 19.

    O’Donoghue says that Mangan held the ‘curious belief’ ‘that the public demanded versions of well-known German and other poets in preference to his own original work, and that they were right in their taste’ (O’Donoghue 1903, xiii).

  20. 20.

    For a discussion of the terminology, reception and theory of indirect translations, see Washbourne (2013), Ringmar (2006).

  21. 21.

    There were further links via William Maginn: as previously mentioned Mahony was closely aligned to the Fraserites, and Charles Gavan Duffy claims that Mangan was influenced for more than a dozen years by Maginn in the fields of the burlesque and the fantastic (Duffy 1908, 279). Furthermore, Mangan wrote a sketch about Maginn (O’Daly 1849; Mangan 1849b). Duffy also recounts that when Mangan was challenged that one of his oriental translations was not Moorish, he replied ‘Well, never mind, it’s Tom Moorish’ (290).

  22. 22.

    Some of Mangan’s noms-de-plume include: Mr James Mangan; M.; J.M.; J.C.M.; C.; C.M.; B.A.M.; Z.; Clarence; Drechsler; Selber; Terrae Filius; HiHum; Whang-Hum; Mark Anthony; Vacuus; The Man in the Cloak; The Out-and Outer; Peter Puff Secundus; Monos; A Yankee; Lageniensis; A Mourne-r; Herr Hoppandgoön Baugtrauter; Herr Popandgoön Tutchemupp; Solomon Dryasdust; Dr Berri Abel Hummer (Ryder 2004, 1).

  23. 23.

    For more on this link, see Cronin (1996), Eagleton (1998).

Works Cited

  • Anon. 1848. Boyd’s Book of German Ballads. Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 31(Jan–Jun), 305–314.

    Google Scholar 

  • Apter, Emily. 2005. Translation with No Original: Scandals of Textual Reproduction. In Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation, ed. Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. What is Yours, Ours and Mine: On the Limits of Ownership and the Creative Commons. Angelaki 14(1): 87–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bassnett, Susan, and Peter France. 2006. Translation, Politics and the Law. In The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, vol. 4: 1790-1900, ed. Peter France and Kenneth Hayes, 48–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, Walter. 1923 [1968]. The Task of the Translator. In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, 69–82. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, Matthew. 2013. Irish Poetry under the Union, 1801–1924. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chuto, Jacques. 1976. Mangan, Petrie, O’Donovan, and a Few Others: The Poet and the Scholars. Irish University Review 6(2): 169–187. doi:10.2307/25477127.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. The Sources of James Clarence Mangan’s Oriental Writings. Notes and Queries 29(3): 223–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1999. James Clarence Mangan: A Bibliography. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cronin, Michael. 1996. Translating Ireland: Translation, Languages, Cultures. Cork: Cork University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duffy, Charles Gavan. 1908. Personal Memories of James C. Mangan. The Dublin Review 142(284/285): 278–294.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunne, Fergus. 2012. The Politics of Translation in Francis Sylvester Mahony’s “The Rogueries of Thomas Moore”. European Romantic Review 23(4): 453–474. doi:10.1080/10509585.2012.694649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Centrally Peripheral, Peripherally Central: The “Prout Papers” of Francis Sylvester Mahony. Victorian Periodicals Review 47(2): 163–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eagleton, Terry. 1996. Cork and the Carnivalesque: Francis Sylvester Mahony (Fr. Prout). Irish Studies Review 4(16): 2–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1998. Crazy John and the Bishop and Other Essays on Irish Culture, Critical Conditions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press in association with Field Day.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fegan, Melissa. 2013. ‘Every Irishman is an Arab’: James Clarence Mangan’s Eastern ‘Translations’. Translation and Literature 22(2): 195–214. doi:10.3366/tal.2013.0113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaskill, Howard. 2004. The Reception of Ossian in Europe. The Athlone Critical Traditions Series. London; New York: Thoemmes Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaynor, Fergal. 1999. ‘An Irish Potatoe Seasoned with Attic Salt’: The Reliques of Fr. Prout and Identity before The Nation. Irish Studies Review 7(3): 313–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Groom, Nick. 2007. Romanticism and Forgery. Literature Compass 4(6): 1625–1649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutbrodt, Fritz. 2003. Joint Ventures: Authorship, Translation, Plagiarism, European University Studies Series XVIII, Comparative Literature. Bern; New York: P. Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayot, Eric R.J. 2005. The Strange Case of Araki Yasusada: Author, Object. PMLA 120(1): 66–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latané, David E. 2013. William Maginn and the British Press: A Critical Biography. Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, David. 1982. Translator as Refractor. Towards a Re-reading of James Clarence Mangan as Translator. Dispositio 7(19/21): 141–162. doi:10.2307/41491233.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1986. James Clarence Mangan’s Oriental Translations and the Question of Origins. Comparative Literature 38(1): 20–35. doi:10.2307/1770222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1987. Nationalism and Minor Literature. Berkeley; Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Crossing Over: On Mangan’s “Spirits Everywhere”. In James Clarence Mangan: The Man in the Cloak, ed. Sinéad Sturgeon, 14–32. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maginn, William. 1831. Poetical Plagiaries. Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country 4(19): 45–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahony, Francis. 1836. The Reliques of Father Prout. London: J. Fraser.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mangan, James Clarence. 1837. Literae Orientales I. Dublin University Magazine 10: 274–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1838a. Literae Orientales II. Dublin University Magazine 11: 291–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1838b. A Polyglott Anthology. Dublin University Magazine 13: 483–501.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1839. A Sixty-Drop Dose of Laudanum, Drop Fifty-One. Dublin University Magazine 13: 267–278.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1847a. Anthologia Hibernica No. I. Dublin University Magazine 29: 239–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1847b. Anthologia Hibernica No. III. Dublin University Magazine 30: 66–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1849a. Sketches and Reminiscences of Irish Writers. John Anster. Irishman.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1849b. Sketches and Reminiscences of Irish Writers: William Maginn. Irishman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mangan, James Clarence [E.W.] 1850. Sketches of Modern Irish Writers: James Clarence Mangan. Irishman, 17 August.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mangan, James Clarence, and Jacques Chuto. 2003. Selected Poems of James Clarence Mangan. Bicentenary Ed. Dublin; Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mangan, James Clarence, Jacques Chuto, Peter Van de Kamp, and Ellen Shannon-Mangan. 2004. Selected Prose of James Clarence Mangan. Bicentenary Ed. Dublin; Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mazzeo, Tilar J. 2007. Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchel, John. 1859. Poems by James Clarence Mangan. New York: P. M. Haverty.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Daly, John. 1849. The Poets and Poetry of Munster. Translated by James Clarence Mangan. Dublin: O’Daly.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Donoghue, D.J. 1903. Poems of James Clarence Mangan. Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paloposki, Outi, and Kaisa Koskinen. 2004. A Thousand and One Translations: Revisiting Retranslation. In Claims, Changes and Challenges in Translation Studies, ed. Kirsten Malmkjaer, Daniel Gile, and Gyde Hansen, 27–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ringmar, Martin. 2007. “Roundabout Routes” Some Remarks on Indirect Translations. In Selected Papers of the CETRA Research Seminar in Translation Studies, ed. Mus Francis, https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/cetra/papers/files/ringmar.pdf.

  • Robinson, Douglas. 1998. Pseudotranslation. In Routledge Encylopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker, 183–185. London; New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russett, Margaret. 2009. Fictions and Fakes: Forging Romantic Authenticity, 1760–1845. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryder, Sean. 2004. James Clarence Mangan: Selected Writings. Dublin: University College Dublin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scrutator. 1853. J. Clarence Mangan a Plagiarist. Commercial Journal and Family Herald. 24 September–15 October.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sohár, Anikó. 1999. The Cultural Transfer of Science Fiction and Fantasy in Hungary 1989–1995. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • St André, James. 2008. Relay Translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 2nd ed., Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 230–232. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stafford, Fiona J. 1988. The Sublime Savage: A Study of James Macpherson and the Poems of Ossian. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, L.H.C. 1951. “Walladmor”: A Pseudo-Translation of Sir Walter Scott. The Modern Language Review 46(2): 218–231. doi:10.2307/3718564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toury, Gideon. 1984. Translation, Literary Translation and Pseudotranslation. Comparative Criticism 6: 73–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Washbourne, Kelly. 2013. Nonlinear Narratives: Paths of Indirect and Relay Translation. Meta: Journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 58(3): 607–625.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Anne O’Connor

Authors
  1. Anne O’Connor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

O’Connor, A. (2017). Death of the Author, Birth of the Translator? Translation and Originality in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. In: Translation and Language in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59852-3_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59852-3_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59851-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59852-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation