Byron and Translation

This collection of essays offers an image of Byron not only as a poet––for which he is best known––but as a translator of foreign literature and culture. To recover this underexplored version of Byron as translator, the contributors examine his translated pieces in both textual and extra-textual contexts (this includes analysis of manuscripts, composition history, publishing history, and other literary and historical factors). They explore the motives behind Byron’s choice to translate in the first place, reconstruct the translational methods he applied in his writing, and examine his ideas on translation and on the role of the translator in general. Byron and Translation discusses stylistic and translatory preferences, as well as focuses on Byron’s ‘geographical mobility,’ which too involved the act of translation, though in a metaphorical sense. The cosmopolitan poet mediated and interpreted all the time: foreign cultures, behaviours, modes of living, customs, and habits. In this sense, translation becomes for the poet a dynamic ‘movement’ between languages, across texts, and around various contexts, offering Byron a vital space for the articulation of his aesthetic views and political concerns. Byron’s translation work reminds us how Romantic writers and readers sought to learn about and engage with the wider world and its various languages.