Translated into Swedish. Ancient literature and its Swedish translators (16th to 21st centuries)

Like originals, translations bear the mark of the time, place and milieu of their origin as well as of their translator. Translation is a matter not merely of transfering a text from one language to another, but of making a text written for another time, place and audience available to a new audience at a different time and place. How have Swedish translators of the Classics marked their texts?

This project follows upon a bibliographical inventory of the material and an initial attempt to survey the very copious source material through their paratexts. In this study designatied portions of the material is examined: select types of text (drama, epic, poetry, prose); texts from select periods; translations from select periods, by select translators, of select authors. Texts translated repeatedly appear to be promising, particularly if they were/are school texts, such as the biographies of Nepos, the speeches of Cicero, the odes of Horace. Texts such as these have been subjected to various kinds of translations, ranging from literary translations by poets to translations made to aid pupils with their Latin. Another interesting type are the epic poems, especially the Homeric epics and Vergil and Ovid. These texts are widely read and they have tempted translators to make literal, supposedly didactic, translations to help students find their way through the textual mazes, and also literary translations that aim to recreate the original. In Sweden as in the rest of Europe, at the turn of the 18/19th century, translations of classical epics and poetry were the site for debates and even battles concerning the correct principles of translation and prosody (central question: how normative may can the original be?).