8)
Clàssics poliglotes: Bernat Metge
en anglés i en espanyol
Ha aparegut (en edició trilíngue [original català,
traducció a l'anglés i a l'espanyol], amb introducció, notes i índex onomàstic i
de matèries) que ajuda a escampar globalment la el coneixement global d'un
clàssic indiscutible de les nostres lletres, Bernat Metge:
Bernat Metge (2013).
The Book of Fortune and
Prudence,
Translated into English and Spanish with an introduction and
notes by Antonio Cortijo Ocaña and Vicent Martines. Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
/ Philadelphia (USA):
John Benjamins.
ISBN 9789027240125
eISBN 97890
272 7105 1
Prof. Dr. John Dagenais (UCLA):
"These new translations
of Bernat Metge's Libre de Fortuna e Prudència (1381) into Spanish (verse) and
English (prose) make this key early work by 14th-century Catalonia's most
challenging writer available to the wider audience it has longed deserved. As
with Metge's masterwork, Lo somni (The Dream), recently translated by Cortijo
Ocaña and Elisabeth Lagresa (Benjamins, 2013), the writing of The Book of
Fortune and Prudence seems to have been precipitated by a larger crisis in
Catalan society, in this case, an all-too-familiar-sounding banking crisis.
Drawing on sources ranging from Boethius, to the Roman de la Rose to Arthurian
fable, Metge unveils the workings of the world through his two allegorical
women, Fortune (good and bad) and Prudence, in a search for consolation in the
midst of inexplicable reversals of fortune--those of others, and perhaps his
own. But as in the Somni, Metge refuses here to offer pat solutions to the
crises of his day, offering what is perhaps one of our earliest glimpses of the
impact of new ideas coming from Italy in the Iberian Peninsula. The work is
written in the popular noves rimades form (octosyllabic rhymed couplets) in the
challenging mix of Occitan and Catalan common to verse writing in 14th century
Catalonia. Cortijo's and Martines's tri-lingual edition, together with its fine
introduction and notes, is an extremely valuable contribution as it makes this
unduly neglected text of the later Iberian Middle Ages available for students
and other readers in a broadly accessible, yet scholarly, form."
Prof. Dr. Carlos Alvar, Université de Genève, Suisse /
Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain
“En 1381, año que vio el inicio de
una profunda crisis en la economía europea, que acabó con muchos bancos, Bernat
Metge escribe esta obra en la que dialoga con la arbitraria Fortuna y la
comedida Prudencia, que aconseja el estudio, frente a la ignorancia, a la vez
que recomienda desconfiar de los bienes que puede proporcionar la
Fortuna.
Ese sería uno de los aspectos, el más directamente relacionado
con las preocupaciones cotidianas, pero hay otros rasgos que Antonio Cortijo
Ocaña y Vicent Martines nos aclaran en una sólida introducción sobre el autor y
sus obras, en la que analizan el Libre de Fortuna e Prudència. Luego, publican
el texto en catalán con la traducción al inglés y al castellano, y abundantes
notas explicativas. Es la ocasión de que los lectores poco familiarizados con la
lengua medieval del escritor barcelonés, se acerquen a un texto que, en cierto
modo, es un juego y una queja: así suelen ser las sátiras y las burlas. Pero en
este caso, Bernat Metge ha encontrado unos traductores capaces de transmitirnos
los matices que mueven al escritor en medio de un mundo convulso, dividido entre
quienes siguen las veleidades de la Fortuna, y los pocos que intentan acogerse a
la sabiduría de la Prudencia.”
Prof. Dominique De Courcelles, CNRS, France
“Cortijo
& Martines provide us with a tour-de-force that makes available in English
and Spanish one of the classical texts of medieval Catalan
literature.”
Prof. Dr. Hans-Ingo Radatz, Otto-Friedrich Universität
Bamberg
“This is a groundbreaking study that presents for the first time a
trilingual edition of Metge's Book of Fortune and Prudence. Cortijo &
Martines accomplish the difficult task with panache and offer the reader
accurate translations as well as a well-thought introduction.”
Dr. Dominc Keown, University of Cambridge
“Bernat Metge's
Book of Fortune and Prudence is one of his most accomplished works. This
translation captures the flavour of the original verse and explains the
difficulties of the text with an insightful Introduction and highly pertinent
notes.”
Prof. Montserrat Piera, Temple University, USA
“This new
trilingual (Catalan, English, Spanish) edition and translation of Bernat Metge's
Llibre de Fortuna e Prudencia (1381) is a very important book and a remarkable
scholarly accomplishment. The edition is deeply learned and theoretically
engaging and the original text is rendered splendidly both in English and
Spanish. Through their carefully researched edition and excellent translations
the editors, Cortijo-Ocaña and Vicent Martines, have meticulously and
persuasively situated Bernat Metge and his allegorical text in his historical
and cultural moment, both in its local and its European context, bringing the
Catalan text to the attention of scholars in the English and Spanish speaking
world. This book is timely and extremely useful, a must read for everyone
interested in the development of humanism in the Iberian
Peninsula.”