IV - Owein, Ystorya Bown, and the Problem of ‘Relative Distance’: Some Methodological Considerations and Speculations

Summary

Die Erforschung des Verhältnisses von Vorlage und deutscher [und kymrischer und altnordischer etc.] Aneignung – eine nicht abschlieβbare Aufgabe, weil sie sich unter den sich ändernden Perspektiven zweier Literaturgeschichten immer wieder neu stellt.

The Concepts of Relative Distance and Translatio

The relationship between Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn (henceforth Bown) and its Anglo-Norman source, the Geste de Boeve de Haumtone (henceforth Boeve), has played a minor, but methodologically not insignificant role in recent discussions of the relationship between the Middle Welsh Owein (or Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn) and Chrétien's Yvain (Le chevalier au lion). In the introduction to his edition of Owein, R. L. Thomson suggested that the relative distance between Boeve and Bown could be taken as a yardstick for a medieval Welsh translator's treatment of a foreign narrative source:

In case it should be suggested that this degree of difference between the French text (F) [i.e., Chrétien's Yvain] and the Welsh (W) [i.e., Owein] is merely a normal difference between any Welsh translation and its original, i.e. that Welsh translators never did follow their original closely, it may be as well to add that the validity of our argument may be established by taking for comparison another Welsh prose text that is certainly a translation from French verse, and of which Norse prose and English verse translations also exist. Such a text is Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn […]. A comparison of these versions [i.e., of the various narratives about Boeve …] gives a clear indication that in this case the Welsh version is based directly on the French, for it shows no variations of any significance, and is about equally as close to the French as the Norse version is.