Translation During King Alfred's Reign: the Politics of Conversion and Truth

Benison, Lı́am

doi:10.1484/m.tmt-eb.4.00017

Cited by 4 publications

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“…17 Nelson (2000. 18 As argued in Benison (1998). For a full account of the translation practices of Alfred and others, see Bately (1998).…”

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confidence: 99%

Metaphors of Authority in Alfred’s Prefaces

Harbus

2007

Neophilologus

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This paper explores King Alfred's use of metaphors of power and authority in his prefaces to texts translated from Latin into Old English. It argues that in his prefaces, Alfred constructs a role for himself as textual mediator for the audience of his vernacular translations, or adaptations, via his use of both conventional and novel metaphors. This paper examines the ways in which secular, textual authority is presented, sustained, and negotiated by Alfred through metaphoric language in these prefaces. In particular, it explores how claims to this type of authority rely on linguistic and interpretive prowess, the rhetorical power of the vernacular, or the thematization of language itself, and are expressed through the systematic figurative association of wisdom and physical strength, an idea still very familiar today.It is now widely accepted that metaphors can functions in ways other than merely as verbal ornament, and can say as much about how the user thinks as how he or she uses language. Many linguists and cognitive scientists believe that we structure our ideas on systems of metaphors, and have shown that metaphors express deep-seated mental ways of organising thought. One of the most influential of these theories is that put forward by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, first in Metaphors We Live By, and later in other publications, including most recently in Philosophy in the Flesh. 1 Here, the most important idea is that of the categorisation of thoughts into groups that are expressed through conventional metaphors: e.g., the mind is a container, so we ''file away ideas''. But Lakoff and Johnson and others who study this master trope do not examine older forms of our language to see just how long A. Harbus (&)

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“…17 Nelson (2000. 18 As argued in Benison (1998). For a full account of the translation practices of Alfred and others, see Bately (1998).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%