Abstract
This chapter examines the intersection of nation and translation by studying the translation activities of Young Irelanders. It looks at how European links challenge notions of national distinctness while at the same time assisting in a programme of political and cultural separatism. By examining how Irish cultural mediators imported ideas, forms and motifs from Europe through translation, this chapter considers the international nature of nationalism in this period. The appropriation and diffusion of European tropes and forms through translation is a striking example of transnational flows, even in the most national of arenas.
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Notes
- 1.
Prospectus reproduced in Duffy (1973 (1881), 80). For more on Young Ireland see Davis (1987).
- 2.
For example, Davis said that ‘The schools and galleries, museums and educational systems of Germany deserve the closest examination with reference to the knowledge and taste required in Ireland’ (Davis 1914c (1844)-b, 213).
- 3.
John Mitchel, reviewing Mangan’s Anthologia Germanica, wrote in The Nation: ‘History, metaphysics, aesthetics, criticism, prose fiction, dramatic, didactic, and lyric poetry, in all, Germany has in one century succeeded. What cheering to all humanity—but especially to an infant nation—shines from this fact!’ (in O’Neill 1985, 101).
- 4.
I would like to acknowledge the work of José Brownrigg Gleeson Martinez in helping prepare the statistical information contained in this chapter.
- 5.
On 24 August 1844, The Nation approvingly quoted ‘a young German poet’ as saying ‘Let us be understood; once and for all, we say, we have done with poesy of peace, with all soft, rose-and-violet poetry. We banish the ‘eternal feminine’ into the realm of the distaff and the kitchen … Poetry now, like the Maid of Orleans, must put on armour’ (in O’Neill 1985, 103).
- 6.
See, for example, translated poetry from Herwegh published on 12 April 1845 and 4 April 1846.
- 7.
This interest in patriotic Italian poetry continued in The Nation with the publication of a ‘beautiful apostrophe to Italy’ by Cardinal Bembo, which, according to the writer in that paper, ‘though not so generally known as Filicaja’s verses on the same subject (so admirable translated by Father Prout), or as Petrarca’s “Italia mia” seems to me not inferior to either in grace, vigour, and harmony. The sentiment in all three is pretty nearly identical’ (The Nation, 17 May 1856).
- 8.
Attribution from MacGrath (1949).
- 9.
See also articles on this theme on 13 October 1849 and 10 November 1849.
- 10.
All references to the translation are taken from MacDermott (1847). MacDermott’s translation was well received: in a review of the work in The Examiner, the reviewer said, ‘The Patriot-poets of the Past is a very free and forcible translation from the Italian of Petrarch and does Mr. Martin MacDermott great credit’ (1 December 1847).
- 11.
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O’Connor, A. (2017). Translation and the Nation. In: Translation and Language in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59852-3_6
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