Abstracts

La reutilització de les fonts en el Tirant lo Blanc
The reuse of the sources of Tirant lo Blanch

Rafael Alemany

When analysing Martorell’s novel we find a recurrent feature such as the re-utilisation of different literary sources. This re-utilisations may prevent the reader from grasping the key points of Tirant lo Blanch. From this point of view Rafael Alemany analyses the Valencian author’s modus operandi when reusing texts such as Llibre d’ordre de cavalleria, Lancelot en prosa or Voyage d’outre mer and the new spirit present in Tirant. On the other hand the study of the sources of this Valencian work can enable us to confirm the hypothesis that Tirant lo Blanch was written only by one author.

Tirant lo Blanc i la historiografia catalana medieval
Tirant lo Blanch and the Medieval Catalan Historiography

Paül Limorti

The importance of historiography in the creation of the novel is an irrefutable fact in literature, especially in Greek literature. Did the same happen in Catalan literature? Paül Limorti follows the traces of the historiographic genre in the making of the narrative technique of Tirant lo Blanch. From this point of view the author analyses the creation of Diafebus as a character-narrator, which is a typical device used in the chronicles to achieve a stronger historic realism. In this sense, the author studies the manner of interrelation typical of chronicles and of Tirant lo Blanch. Another device used by Martorell to present this work as a historic recreation is the group of parallel texts (prologue and dedication) which heads the book, as well as the topics which can be found in it: the false translation and the reuse of previous texts.

De Troia a Constantinoble: Aquil·les i Tirant en l’amor i en la guerra
From Troy to Constantinople: Achilles and Tirant in War and in Peace

Joan Maria Perujo

The importance of Guido delle Colonne’s Històries Troianes in the creation of the medieval mythical chivalresque universe can be studied in different literary works as in Tirant lo Blanch. By means of the semiotic method used in other works, the author establishes a particular parallelism between Tirant and Achilles in respect to their military and affectionate behaviour. Both heroes share similar literary stages: a process of falling in love which culminates in the traditional ‘love sickness’ and, therefore, in the abandonment of military duties. This behaviour warrants punishment: to be killed after walking into an ambush (Achilles’s casc) and a journey of atonement to Northern Africa (in Tirant lo Blanch).

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Sobre la font d’una font del Tirant lo Blanch i la modernitat de la novel·la
On the Source from another Source of Tirant lo Blanch and modernity in novel·la

Júlia Butinyà i Jiménez

Throughout time mankind has resigned himself to the changeability of Fortune. Each cultural expression has approached this topic from a different point of view. On the basis of the comparison between the concepts of Fortune in Petrarca, Metge and Martorell, the author analyses the progressive modernity which arises at the end of the Middle Ages in both the literary and the ethical fields. Júlia Butinyà reviews the different episodes of the Tirant lo Blanch, and Petrarca’s De remediis and Metge’s Lo somni which confirm the different stages on the concept of Fortune. If Petrarca proposes to rationally control passions in order to counteract the actions of Fortune, Metge contradicts him and exposes the bad predictions expressed in Tirant lo Blanch: Fortune does not respect those who are virtuous either.

La fortuna de Tirant lo Blanch entre alguns lectors hispànics dels segles XVI al XIX
Fortune in Tirant lo Blanch: comments of some Hispanie readers from the XVIth to the XIXth centuries

Rafael M. Mérida

The author reviews the history of Tirant in the Iberian Peninsula through the literary tastes and reflections of characters who have a main importance in the creation of the Hispanic aesthetic canon: from the different translations to the critical and literary opinions. Mérida describes to us the possibilities of reading and the influences, possible or not, of Martorell’s work on other authors’ creations, such as Rodríguez de Montalvo, Cervantes or Avellaneda. From the aforementioned authors, to critics such as Clemencín or Pascual de Gayangos, Mérida has presented a study which becomes the testimony of the life and death of the experts’ fascination of Martorell’s great novel.

El Tirant lo Blanch i les seues traduccions anteriors al segle XIX: aspectes de recepció i de traducció
Tirant lo Blanch and its translations before the XIXth century: aspects of reception and translation

Vicent Martines

On the basis of the premise that every translation is a recreation to a great extent, the author studies the translations of Tirant lo Blanch into Castilian, Italian and French made before the XIXth century. By means of the comparison of texts and the analysis of quotations, notations and, in general, all the difficulties found in the different manuscripts where these translations are kept, Vicent Martines elaborates a history of the reception by these three cultures of the Valencian novel. Through this history we can find out that Tirant lo Blanch was not very different from a chivalresque book of this period (as regards the typographic solutions, the format and the publishers’ and translators’ remarks) and that i t was interpreted as a real chivalresque manual.

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Tres traduccions angleses del capítol 436 del Tirant lo Blanch
Three English translations of the 436th chapter of Tirant lo Blanch

Curt Wittlin

This paper analyses the history of three English translations of Tirant lo Blanch which are currently available. In order to show the working method of each translator, Wittlin compares the three English versions of one of the most famous chapters of the novel, which is that of the love affair between Tirant and Carmesina in La Fontaine’s, Rosenthal’s and Rudder’s version. The translations of Tirant lo Blanch confirm the translators’ great power and the importance of their way of understanding literary works when reproducing the original aesthetic canons.

La traducció del Tirant lo Blanch en neerlandès
The translation of Tirant lo Blanch into Duteh

Bob de Nijs

Bob de Nijs exposes some considerations about possible sources of different episodes of Tirant lo Blanch which arose when preparing the translation into Dutch. De Nijs focuses basically on the coincidences in the argument (the buriat of both lovers in Brittany, for instance) and in the re-use of the characters (the Fresian king or Pyramus, Diafebus’s shield bearer) between the Tirant and Tristan et Iseult, which is one of the landmarks of the literature created in Brittany. The last part of the study analyses the influences of the ecclesiastic liturgy in some episodes in Constantinople. As an introduction, the Belgian translator summarises the preliminary stages of his work and exposes shortly the social and linguistic situation of the Dutch speakers who are divided into different states.

Polifonia de gèneres i d’estils en Tirant lo Blanch i el problema de la seva adequada traducció al rus
Polyphony of genres and styles in Tirant lo Blanch and the problem of translating it properly into Russian

Marina A. Abràmova

In respect to the Batkinian approaches on the creation of the novel, Maria A. Abràmova uses the opposition between Utopia and reality to highlight the modernity of a work such as Tirant lo Blanch. The episode on which she bases her analyses is the appearance of King Arthur in a cage during the celebrations in Constantinople and the similarities between this and Guillem de Torroella’s Faula. In the second part of the study, the Russian philologist considers the difficulties of adapting the language and the cultural issues of the medieval Catalan universe which is completely different from the Russian tradition. Therefore she proposes that the translators base their task on models of previous medieval Catalan translations, which is impossible to carry out, since there are no such translations from Catalan into Russian. In this case the solution appears to be the adoption of similar criteria as in the translation from French into Russian, although this may have several disadvantages.

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The modern Translation of Tirant lo Blanch into French: method and problems
La traduction française moderne de Tirant le Blanc: méthode et problèmes

Jean Marie Barberà

When reading a good translation we seldom consider how many hours the translator has spent on it or how difficult the text was for him. Jean Marie Barberà’s paper aims at showing us, on the basis of concrete examples, how extremely difficult is to translate a literary work such as Tirant lo Blanch into a language as close to Catalan as French. The author exposes the difficulties that have arisen in the translation of Martorell’s novel by showing us the original version of a fragment followed by the French version; afterwards, we will find a thorough comment on every detail which appears in the translation of different words or fragments which cannot have a natural or simple adaptation into French.