Obra ressenyada: Mirella AGORNI, Translating Italy for the Eighteenth Century : British Women, Translation and Travel Writing (1739-1797). Manchester: St. Jerome, 2002

Saglia, Diego

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Quaderns. Revista de traducció 11, 2004 235-252RESSENYESThis is a book which covers much importantand often neglected ground. Studies of theimage of Italy in eighteenth-century Britishculture are not uncommon, whileexaminations of the exchanges between thetwo nations and traditions in the sameperiod are similarly familiar. Nevertheless,the role of women in these culturalinvestments, and the function of this Anglo-Italian contact in the construction ofwomen’s culture, have been rarelyexamined. Agorni’s is the first book-lengthstudy which seeks to reconstruct and assessthis particular intercultural exchange. Because of the vast task it sets itself, thebook touches on a range of disciplinaryareas, from translation studies, to literaryhistory and criticism, and cultural history.With such an extensive field in sight, Agorniis careful in staking out her theoreticalground. In particular, starting from areconsideration of polysystem theory, sheembraces the idea of localism, as elaboratedby M. Tymoczko, adopting it as the mainframe of her argument. As it aims at detailedanalyses of specific instances of translationand their effects within a broader system,Tymoczko’s notion of the ‘local’ isparticularly useful in that it enables Agornito avoid generalizations and instead toconcentrate on translation ‘in action’ andthus produce metonymical models of thewider cultural context in which translationoperates. This done, Agorni insertsadditional theoretical notions within thisbroader picture, notions such as AndréLefevere’s now classic concept oftranslation as rewriting, Susan Bassnet’sidea of ‘collusion’, and Lawrence Venuti’sinterpretation of the idea of the ‘remainder’as that crucial element of linguistic variationproduced by translation within a seeminglyhomogeneous target system. Furtherrelevant theoretical factors in the book arethe reflection on agency in translationdeveloped by feminist theorists, andconceptual models drawn from postcolonialstudies such as Mary Louise Pratt’s idea ofthe ‘contact zone’.If at times these gestures in the directionof theory may seem slightly insistent, thebook, by its nature and structure, needs thisconstant negotiation of the intellectualposition of its arguments, especially in viewof the fact that, with regard to eighteenth-century documents, it examines worksproduced at different times and of differentgenres. It is precisely this kind oftransdiscursive approach which requirescomplex and iterated theoretical support.AGORNI, MirellaTranslating Italy for the Eighteenth Century: British Women, Translation and Travel Writing (1739-1797)Manchester: St. Jerome, 2002. 169 p.Quaderns 11 001-260  14/9/04  11:35  Página 235Although Agorni’s book focuses on, inchronological order, Elizabeth Carter’s1739 translation of Francesco Algarotti’s Ilnewtonianismo per le dame (1737), HesterPiozzi’s Observations and Reflections on aJourney through France, Italy and Germany(1789) and Anne Radcliffe’s Gothic novelThe Italian (1797), she begins herexamination from the last of these works,resulting in an analysis which takes an àrebours itinerary. Radcliffe’s is the mostfamiliar of the three works and, as such,arguably provides easy access to herargument and cultural reconstruction; at thesame time, however, the book represents animportant point of arrival in Britishwomen’s appropriation of Italy and theiruse of this cultural geography in the framingof discourses that could be beneficial to thedevelopment of British women’s writing inthe eighteenth century.In her examination of the function of Italyin Radcliffe’s The Italian, Agorni’s claimsstrike a true note, albeit one that is familiarenough from recent studies on thegeographies of Gothic and their ideologicalvalues. The important insight here, however,is that the Gothic must be seen as part of acultural development which begins in thefirst half of the century, and that its imaginedItaly is a crucial component in the century-long evolution of women’s writing andintervention in the processes of establishedand male-dominated cultural production. Inorder to reconstruct this development,Agorni turns to Elizabeth Carter’s translationof Algarotti, carefully tracing the inceptionand impact of the original in Italy, as well asof the English translation in Britain. Carterwas a famous bluestocking, translator ofEpictetus, and a major figure in theburgeoning of female literature in the firsthalf of the eighteenth century. Her interest inAlgarotti is peculiar, as Agorni explains,especially because the text had proved verycontroversial in Italy. An introduction toNewtonian physics aimed at a genteel femalereading public, the treatise was polemicallypeppered with lascivious undertones, andhad been duly included in the Church’s Indexlibrorum prohibitorum. Through its deftnegotiations of these (and other) difficulties,Carter’s translation becomes a localizedoperation of cultural adaptation. As womenwere excluded from the world of science,Carter’s translation offers itself as a femaleinvasion and appropriation of this domain, atranslation which, simultaneously, constructsan image of Italy as a country in whichwomen’s education and knowledge areprized and encouraged.Agorni is at her best when she examinesprimary materials. Her analyses arethorough and acute, and there, after the longopening expositions, theory can be seen inpractice, while the fundamental notion of‘localism’ is at its most useful and effective.Unfortunately, however, the Britisheighteenth century does not offer endless listsof translations from the Italian by women.Agorni’s useful summary of translations byBritish women from French, German andItalian shows that, although there were manytranslations from Italian, most were printedanonymously. Only a handful, and Carter’s isamong them, were acknowledged to havebeen produced by a woman. From this pointof view it seems difficult to state thatwomen’s investment in Italian culture was adecisive cultural move. Yet Agorni clears thisobstacle by considering the discourse ofeighteenth-century travel writing (with itsnow generally ackowledged affinities withtranslation) and the presence of Italy in it.Here Hester Piozzi’s travel book provides animportant addition to the Agorni’s argument,for it enables her to show that Italy was also‘translated’ in the latter part of the eighteenthcentury through the aesthetic and ideologicalmechanisms of travel writing. Thisrepresentation of, and reflection on Italy asculture and society develops a discoursecentred on woman and femininity, even as itpermits a discussion of the location of woman in culture that is in line withCarter’s earlier attempt. Finally, Agorni’sexamination of Piozzi returns to the book’sstarting point, as Anne Radcliffe’s The236 Quaderns. Revista de traducció 11, 2004 RessenyesQuaderns 11 001-260  14/9/04  11:35  Página 236Tant els professors de traducció com els tra-ductors que treballem principalment ambl’anglès i el català no podem sinó celebrarl’aparició del primer Manual de traduccióanglès-català. Fins ara (com ens passa enca-ra amb els diccionaris, la manca dels qualsen català ens obliga tot sovint a passar a tra-vés del castellà per trobar la solució detraducció ideal) ens havíem hagut de con-formar amb els manuals existents en altresllengües i, especialment, amb el manual detraducció anglès-castellà obra de dos pro-fessors i traductors de la UAB, GabrielLópez Guix i Jacqueline Minnett, que vapublicar Gedisa el 1997. Potser la diferèn-cia d’anys en la publicació de l’un i l’altremarca ja una diferència essencial enla manera d’enfocar-ho. El 1997, encara, lamajoria de persones que es dedicaven a latraducció (especialment literària) veniend’altres camps del coneixement i, nomésarmats amb una mica d’experiència d’estu-dis i vida, començaven a dedicar-se a latraducció i a qualificar-se de traductors. Ara,sis o set anys després, són legió els alum-nes sortits de les diferents facultats de tra-ducció que aborden la tasca de traductorsmés com a resultat d’uns coneixementsadquirits en el terreny lingüístic que com aproducte d’una vocació humanista general.Si es compara l’enfocament dels dosmanuals, es veu molt clar que allà on el pri-mer parla del «geni del llenguatge» i «elpaper del traductor», el que ens ocupa vadirecte a qüestions pràctiques, com ara leseines del traductor, els procediments de tra-Italian is known to bear evident traces ofPiozzi’s Observations and Reflections. The book is centred on the notion andpractice of translation as a contribution to thedevelopment of women’s literary voice andcultural presence in eighteenth-centuryBritain. It is a stimulating study whichcomplicates our notions of British women’scultural operations from the Augustan Ageto the early Romantic period. In particular, itreminds us that these authors were muchmore complex, conversant with Continentaltraditions, and less parochial than a purelyAnglocentric standpoint would indicate. Thebook also shows women’s multifarious actsof translation as not merely ‘service work’for a culture which tolerated, but ultimatelysneered at, their activities. These translationsare also, and most importantly, a contributionto the development of women’s own culturalreferences, as well as weapons to carry ontheir own cultural confrontations andconflicts. More generally, therefore, this bookremoves us from the traditional approachesthat have long characterized comparativecultural studies in this area. Through Agorni’sapproach, the contacts between cultures areseen as manifold and supple phenomena,straddling different cultural forms andmoving beyond the idea of fascination withanother culture and towards notions of the‘use’ of other cultures for the benefit ofthe target culture. Solidly (if, at times, toourgently) theorized, this book deserves to beread by scholars interested in applications of translation theory, scholars of eighteenth-century literature and culture, andcomparative literature specialists. What mightbe gained is an insight into the intricacies ofthose translational mechanisms by whichwomen in eighteenth-century Britainultimately imagined, in Agorni’s words, asociety ‘inhabited by modern individuals whodefine themselves in terms of genderedsensibility’ (p. 5).Dr. Diego SagliaUniversita di ParmaRessenyes Quaderns. Revista de traducció 11, 2004 237AINAUD, Jordi; ESPUNYA, Anna; PUJOL, DídacManual de traducció anglès-catalàEumo Editorial, 2003 (Biblioteca de Traducció i Interpretació; 9). 397 p.Quaderns 11 001-260  14/9/04  11:35  Página 237

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