Translation technique and the moral theme : Gregory I's Libellus Responsionum in Book III of the Old English Bede

Abstract

This thesis focusses upon a sample section of the Old English Historia Ecclesiastica Centis Anglorum, Gregory's Libellus Responsionum, in order to examine the technique of Bede's Old English translator and to argue that the translator's changes may evidence his desire to communicate the need for moral and penitential vigilance to his audience. Although a translator is always an agent in transferring a text from one culture and language into another, he (or she) may also be an author with ideas, preferences, and objectives of his/her own. To access such an authorial presence in the OE Bede, I first isolate "doubling" as part of the rhetorical fabric of the OE Libellus. Through particular "doublings," the translator develops a series of repetitions to revise and augment the moralising force of the text. These recurrent, subtle emendations reveal a concern with moral behaviour and penance in the translator's work on the Libellus, suggesting that such concerns had particular importance for his version of the text and its inclusion in the Old English HE. I then consider the translator's placement of the Libellus after Book III of the HE, which allows the penitential undertone revealed in his doublings within the Libellus to interact with material of penitential value in the later three books of the text. The relationship between the content of the Libel! us and events contemporary with or prior to the translator's lifetime, reflected in moralistic narrative within the HE, can then be seen to extend the impact of this rhetoric into the social and political climate of the translator's audience. Such interactions transform the Libellus into a component of the moralising rhetoric of the translator's new, updated HE.