The Multivalent Potential Of Romance Translations

By Author: Porter Black
Total Articles: 54
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A key difference from conventional royalist poetic treatment of friendship is that, similar to the theme of heroism discussed above, most of the strongest ties in the romance, including those between Oroondates and Artaxerxes, and Oroondates and Darius's family, do not feature those on one side or other of a particular political or dynastical divide, but former adversaries, sworn foes who Links London have fought each other in bloody, almost elemental, battles.

Invariably, of course, it is precisely these hostilities which breed the mutual respect that makes allies of enemies. Indeed, such is the fluidity and inter-changeability of friendship-forming in Cassandra that an underlying theme of the work seems to be: when is an enemy not your enemy, a friend not your friend This unanticipated slipperiness of identity, consonant with the disconcerting instability of the English language itself, which D' Addario has identified in exilic literature of this period and which translators attempt both to reflect and mitigate, is mirrored in the names of its chief protagonists: Oroondates, ...
... for example, is a figure of hate to the Persians for much of Book One, yet as 'Orontes' he is their hero. As he reveals his true identity to an Artaxerxes rendered 'more unmoveable than a Statue', so he announces to an equally disbelieving Darius: In the false Orontes, you behold the true Oroondates, Oroondates Son to the King of Scythia, your mortall enemy: Oroondates who burning with love for the Princess Statim, ever since that fatall night that gave him entry into your tents, changed both his name and quality to serve her, though utterly unworthy; and that under that deceit hath abused your real affection.

On this reading, for a designedly 'royalist' translation the fixity of partisan positions based on name, nationality or family background is unexpectedly subverted. Within a translation the stated intention of Links Of London Charms which is to unequivocally espouse and implicitly, with the help of the reader, construct the cause of royalism, the provenances of friendships and the impermanency of identities are in one sense, for the royalist, awkward elements in La Calprenede. Royalist literary filters which sift out unwanted material cannot function so effectively in a faithful translation. Jerome De Groot correctly identifies that royalist writing 'attempted to define a straightforward identity hierarchy in which you were either in or out', to construct 'a set of binary roles and behavioral models designed to perpetuate a certain paradigm of social stability'. Yet, hemmed in as well as vindicated by the characterization and plots of the original work, this strategy does not always map as neatly on to translation as it does to other genres.

In conclusion, neither Cassandra nor Cotterell's royalist sympathies provide a simple template for some uniform notion of royalist exile; in the 1650s royalist ideologies and their corresponding literary modes are too variegated for this. They do, however, afford an insight into the multivalent potential of romance translations, freighted with meaning as these invariably are in both the private and public sphere, within a theoretical framework of the romance genre in the 1650s that demands careful interpretation of complex and sometimes competing notions of political interest and passions such as love and sympathy. La Calprenede's Cassandre enables an English exile to apply his considerable language skills to, and help reshape, the popular genre of prose romance, and thereby gain respite from, as well as reflect, the exigencies of life in Antwerp.