Definición de las actividades del proyecto 114

At first glance, Wagenseil’s German text represents a word-for-word translation in the actual sense as well as the translational union Derrida and Benjamin propose. The text – the words – seem to correspond and to represent their counterparts in the respective other language. Rhymes are generally kept. As mentioned above, Wagenseil’s Yiddish is printed in the so-called

Vaybertaytsh, a font commonly used for early Yiddish publications, in contrast to the square script of Hebrew prints. The German text is printed chiefly in a Fraktur typeface. However, words of a strict Hebrew origin, not differentiated in the Vaybertaytsh setting, are marked and stand out as “different” in the German text on the right side as they are set in an Antiqua typeface. The words of Hebrew origin set in Antiqua interrupt the Fraktur typeface. Wagenseil decided not to keep the Hebrew term exactly un-translated, but rather transliterated it – or so it seems. Although the Yiddish text includes no distinction within the typeface in regard to Hebrew words, unknown names, such as Wieduwilt, are printed in Vaybertaytsh font, but are

(inconsistently) presented in brackets upon the first mentioning and are thus marked as different. But Wagenseil’s German text includes markings where there are none in Yiddish and breaks with the homogenous typeface and the notion of a homogenous language. He uncovers what he understands to be the Hebrew and thus what he believes to be foreign elements to the Yiddish language, presenting it to his audience as a language with two distinct lingual traditions. Therefore, in Wagenseil’s understanding, words of Hebrew origin are not an integral part of Yiddish, but rather loanwords, Hebraisms, which he highlights for the language learner and

thereby alienates from their place in the Yiddish language. Wagenseil achieves this by the means of the typeface, which presents the reader not just two but three different graphic systems as it translates the Yiddish printed in Vaybertaytsh into German in Fraktur and Hebrew in the Latin Antiqua.62

This would suggest a transliteration rather than a translation. Yet, Wagenseil does not offer a probable biblical Hebrew pronunciation in Antiqua, but aims for a supposed Ashkenazi pronunciation of the corresponding word, such as “Méschiach” (in Antiqua) and “Omen” (in Antiqua) (Wagenseil, Belehrung, 302). But Wagenseil is by no means consistent. Already the first page of the German presents us with an “Amen” in Fraktur (Wagenseil, Belehrung, 159). He tends to present the sound of the Hebrew letter Aleph as “a” rather than as “o” as an Ashkenazi pronunciation would require. Wagenseil’s German text meanders between a translation and a transliteration. On one hand, the Yiddish “kinig” finds its German counterpart in “König.” Wagenseil not only adjusts the pronunciation, but also matches the Yiddish with the German grammar, adjusting the morphology of the respective word accordingly, “correcting” for example the declination of the Yiddish “ersht” (transliteration A.O.) to “erstes” (in Fraktur) (Wagenseil, Belehrung, 158-159). In a second example of morphological changes, Wagenseil combines prefixes and verbs that are separate in Yiddish into single words in German (for example “for mern” [translit. A.O.] becomes “vermehrn” [in Fraktur]; Wagenseil, Belehrung, 160-161). On the other hand, the Hebrew letters Tav and Tet are dropped in the German text, as in the Yiddish, thus using “is” in Fraktur rather than “ist”; and “az” [translit.] is presented as “as” in German, whereas a translation would require “als.” Wagenseil provides neither a consistent transliteration nor a direct translation of the Yiddish or German, but rather offers a philological

62 _{Another distinction in the German text is the bold printed words. Within the German preface of the text, the title}

interpretation, a philological adaptation. Translation theories help to describe a number of aspects of Wagenseil’s Wigalois. However, looking at these passages, the phenomena of Wagenseil’s appropriation (of the Yiddish into the German) exceed translation and require an expansion of the theoretical framework.

Accommodating the aforementioned linguistic aspects of Wagenseil’s work, an attempt to adjust the concept of “translation” for this material could draw on the idea of “cultural translation.” Two aspects of Wagenseil’s text must be taken into account as we look to expand the theory of translation for early modern literature. First, Wagenseil presents a Yiddish text and a corresponding translation in a book aimed primarily at a non-Jewish and non-Yiddish-speaking audience. Second, the Yiddish text itself presents, according to Wagenseil, a Jewish retelling of an English story. Could our analysis benefit, therefore, from a concept of “translation” in the sense of “cultural translation” or “cultural transfer?” These theories have been popular with cultural studies of the last twenty years. The proximity of “cultural translation” to both classical translation theories and (post-)colonial studies, however, results in an immense diversity of interpretations of the concept.

Anthony Pym offers an overview of what the term “cultural translations” can mean by highlighting the problem that many definitions and terms possess.63 In order to make the term still applicable and useful for an analysis, Pym himself defines “cultural translation” in a somewhat restricted way, as something that has neither a source text nor a fixed target text.64

63 _{Anthony Pym, Exploring Translation Theories (London: Routledge, 2010), 162.}

64 _{(Pym, Exploring Translation Theories, 144). Opposing such a definition, Bachmann-Medick alludes to the}

problem of “cultural translation” as there are always only fragments of a culture “and never general and holistic cultural concepts – that are translated“ (Doris Bachmann-Medick, “Translation. A Concept and Model for the Study of Culture,” in Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, ed. Birgit Neumann and Ansgar Nünning [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012], 23-43, here 28). Bachmann-Medick therefore pleads cultural studies to focus more on micro than a macro analyses, only one text or concept rather than larger ideas. Microanalyses, according to Bachmann-Medick,

Anna Veronika Wendland offers an alternative definition. Summarizing both, “cultural translation” and “cultural transfer” under the term “travelling concepts,” Wendland presents a stricter terminology and argues that these theories can be the key to cultural research.65

Wendland makes a claim relevant for an analysis of medieval literature, as she points out that the term “cultural transfer” in contrast to “cultural translation” is by no means a new one, but rather was part of the concepts translatio imperii and translatio studii.66 Furthermore, she argues that there is no such thing as a failed transfer, because terms such as “right” and “wrong” do not apply to the processes of cultural transfer, and that the concept of “kulturelle

‘Missverständnisse’” leads away from the idea of a dynamic transfer.67

The idea of dynamic transfer seems fruitful for an interpretation of the Wagnseil material, since the audience encounters the Geschicht-Roman (in the introduction) as the product of an English-Jewish heritage. Furthermore, Wagenseil ascribes some significant elements in Kinig Artis Hof to its “Jewish background:”

[D]ie Juden haben sich hierüber gemacht / und den Hof des König Artus (den sie zwar / wie es der gemeine Mann ausspricht / Artis genannt /) samt den seltsamen Begebnussen / der darin lebenden Ritter / auf folgende Weise in ungebundener und gebundener Rede zu beschreiben sich nit entrechen können. Davon ist uns das Poetische Gedicht zugekommen / welches wir hiemit gemein machen. Die Einfälle sind lustig / und auch so wie sie von den Juden herkommen können.

(“The Jews undertook the task and could not resist to describing King Arthur’s Court

(calling him Artis like a common man) in the following manner, rhymed and un-rhymed.

will eventually help to foster a more constructive research on larger processes of cultural translations (Bachmann- Medick, “Translation,” 29).

65 _{Anna Veronika Wendland, “Cultural Transfer,” in Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture, ed. Birgit}

Neumann und Ansgar Nünning (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2012), 45-66, here 45.

66 _{(Ibid., 48-49). See also Stierle, who points out that classical concepts of translation and transformation include}

translatio imperii, translatio studii, and translatio sapientiae (Karlheinz Stierle, “Translatio Studii and Renaissance. From Vertical to Horizontal Translation,” in The Translatability of Cultures. Figurations of the Space between, ed. Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser[Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996], 55-66, here 57 and 61).

From that project, this poetic poem came down to us. The inventions are funny, and as expected from Jews.” Wagenseil, Belehrung, 154).

His astonishment about fantasy creatures such as dwarfs, dragons, and giants displays a lack of knowledge of the Arthurian tradition in general, and of the German Wigalois adaptations in particular. If we dismiss Wagenseil’s interpretation as simply “wrong,” we may close off an understanding of the adaptation and reception process involved in this (re)creation. Constructive research, as Wendland points out, should focus much more on questions about why a certain cultural knowledge did or did not exist at a respective point in history.68 Thus, Wendland’s criticism affects the way in which adaptations are compared to their models and the

understanding of the reworkings of the Wigalois narratives and their relationship to each other. Within this debate about cultural translation and transfer, it seems useful to further subdivide the concept into transcultural and intercultural phenomena. Similar to the definitions of intertextual and international, intercultural implies that the phenomenon of dialogue includes integral entities in dialogue, whereas the term transcultural implies overcoming boundaries.69 Already Wagenseil’s example includes two different texts that react to each other and are part of an ongoing tradition. They do not represent two clearly marked and different cultures. Therefore, to describe the Wigalois narrative as transcultural phenomenon is important in order to

acknowledge the shared and combined narrative tradition in which it participates.