IMC 2024: Sessions

Medieval translations are a unique facet of medieval culture. Both transmitters of texts and reflections of (inter-)cultural demand, they offer a rare insight into hermeneutical practice. These two sessions aim to explore both internal crises affecting translations, and translations as a propagandistic tool or response to external crises, across a broad geographical and chronological scope. The second session will include proposals covering topics across territories of Germanic and Aramaic languages. Firstly, Burke will explore how translators of Beowulf often fail to consider the Gestaþáttr of Hávamál, and how this causes a crisis of interpretation regarding the characterisation of the hero. Zenkova will investigate the complex ways in which the Old Norse scribe of the Clemens saga translates and adapts the Latin sources used, often incorporating Scandinavian motifs and literary elements. Next, Angerer will analyse how the multilingual sources of Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis help to retrace and interweave complementary and competing histories of the British, the Danes, the English and the Normans. Finally, Griggs will consider the influence of the Islamic commentary tradition on Gregory Bar Hebraeus’ Translation of the Kitāb al-Išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt, which consisted of a means to to enter into the climate of debate over the development of the post-Avicennan tradition in the Islamic sciences.