When a text is both a pseudotranslation and a translation: The enlightening case of Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441-1494)

Literary Translation

“…It has, however, largely neglected translation theory in discussions of those inauthentic texts that employ the conceit of fictional translation. Similarly, whilst recent Anglophone work on pseudotranslations (Apter 2005;Rizzi 2008) has considerably advanced Anton Popovic and Gideon Toury's fundamental work of the 1970s onwards, there is scope for further examination of the concrete historical and social determinants of such texts, their literary status and the possible motivations of pseudotranslators. Researchers of pseudotranslations and literary mystifications often discuss the same texts: it makes sense to identify areas for fruitful communication across the disciplines.…”

“…Indeed, following Susan Bassnett (1998: 25-32) and Andrea Rizzi (2008), who both present complex variants on the standard model, a looser definition of pseudotranslations is required, one recognizing the plurality of spurious translational ruses deployed and which nuances strict separations of pseudotranslation and authentic translation. Furthermore, by displaying contentious or disguised source texts as part of the whole, some pseudotranslators (here, Fabre) intend to be exposed for their textual fraudulence.…”

Pseudotranslation in the fiction of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

“…Andrea Rizzi (2008) has pointed out that texts may exhibit characteristics of both translation and pseudotranslation, and that the determination of category may shift in literary history. We, too, note the fluidity between pseudotranslation and other textual approaches in the case of Akutagawa, though in our examples it is an oscillation not so much between pseudotranslation and translation, as between pseudotranslation and the phenomenon of ''translation as mimesis''.…”

“…One interesting difference, however, is that the bibliographic description in France's novel is given within the diegetics of the narration, and hence subject to the usual readerly suspicions regarding mimetic constatives, whereas Akutagawa uses a postface in the author's own voice, thus blurring further the border between reality and fiction, original and translation. ''Death of a Disciple'' is thus an example of a phenomenon identified by Andrea Rizzi (2008), namely a text that is at once a pseudotranslation and a translation. ''Death of a Disciple'' reverses the accepted model of pseudotranslation discussed above: here it is not the source text that is fictitious, but the target text Á that is, the spurious Japanese collection, Regenda aurea.…”

Pseudo-translation as a Subset of the Literary System: a Case Study

“…In a similar vein, Rizzi (2008) stated that the ambiguity results from the dichotomy between translation and PT, and he argued that we should change our understanding of PT in lieu of considering a text as either a translation or a PT. Rizzi concluded that the coexistence of PT and translation within the same text is contingent upon our understanding of translation.…”