Translating Colonial American Documents (Workshop seminar) »ANG253-1«

Instructor: Novák György
Level/Program: 2-5 ENG, US, 2YU

Lit/hist/cult; optional, seminar
Tuesday 8-10, American Seminar

 

Description: The aim of the course is to discuss in depth certain documents of colonial America and use the intimate knowledge of them in translating them. The documents will be hopefully published in the series Documenta Historica of the University. The document to be translated is:

Thomas Morton: New English Canaan or New Canaan. Amsterdam: Jacob Frederick, 1637.
(a sample, and another)

(Hawthorne’s May-Pole of Merry Mount)

Assignments: Translations and their critique will be done every week. Copies of the efforts will be distributed among the participants by the translators (left in drop box by 10 am. Monday, and picked up by readers by 8 pm that day) and the translations discussed in class. (Participants should be prepared to pay for the xeroxed copies.) The revised translations should be handed in a week after the last class. Participants will also have to submit a short (4-5000 characters) paper on some aspect of the work and/or its translation. Extra points will be awarded for translation of versified sections.
Grading: will be based on
[1]the contribution to the discussions in class (25%),
[2]on the quality (25%) and
[3]the improvement of the translations during the semester (25%), and
[4]on the paper (25%).
The workload (translation) of 4th-year participants will be twice as much as that of 2nd- and 3rd-year students. Since class activity will be vital to the success of the course, participants should be prepared that no more than two absence on whatever excuse will be allowed. The course will not take more than 12 participants. Prerequisites: JATE AE1 or 2; one course in American history; preferably another in translation.
Compulsory and/or recommended reading will include:

  • Connors, Donald F.: Thomas Morton. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969.
  • Connors, Donald Francis: “Thomas Morton of Merry Mount: His First Arrival in New England.” American Literature IX.2 (May, 1939), 160-166.
  • Miller, Perry and Johnson, Thomas H. (eds): The Puritans. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. (There are more recent editions). Especially chapters I, II, IV.
  • Lemay, J. A. Leo (ed): An Early American Reader. Washington, D.C.: USIA, 1989. Especially Chapter One, D (pp.141-172), Chapters Three and Four (pp. 387-598).