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The prologue to Layamon's Brut recounts its author's extensive travels "wide yond thas leode" (far and wide across the land) to gather the French, Latin and English books he used as source material. The first Middle English writer to discuss his methods of translating French into English, Layamon voices ideas about the creation of a new English tradition by translation that proved very durable.
This book considers the practice of translation from French into English in medieval England, and how the translators themselves viewed their task. At its core is a corpus of French to English translations containing translator's prologues written between c.1189 and c.1450; this remarkable body of Middle English literary theory provides a useful map by which to chart the movement from aliterary culture rooted in Anglo-Norman at the end of the thirteenth century to what, in the fifteenth, is regarded as an established "English" tradition. Considering earlier Romance and Germanic models of translation, wider historical evidence about translation practice, the acquisition of French, the possible role of women translators, and the manuscript tradition of prologues, in addition to offering a broader, pan-European perspective through an examination of Middle Dutch prologues, the book uses translators' prologues as a lens through which to view a period of critical growth and development for English as a literary language.

Elizabeth Dearnley gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Language arts. --- Communication arts --- Language arts --- Communication --- Study and teaching --- Literature, Medieval --- French literature --- French language --- Prologues and epilogues --- Translators --- Translations into English --- History and criticism. --- History --- Interpreters --- Linguists --- Translating services --- Old French language --- Franco-Venetian language --- European literature --- Medieval literature --- Old French --- Literature, Medieval - Translations into English - History and criticism --- French literature - Translations into English - History and criticism --- French language - To 1300 --- Prologues and epilogues - History and criticism --- Translators - History - To 1500

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Translation science --- French language --- Literature --- French literature --- anno 500-1499