Dialoguing across the centuries

on some challenges of translating medieval french works today

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2025..96-107

Keywords:

medieval literature, translation, faithfulness, adaptation

Abstract

Every translation is a dialogue between multiple voices. The specific features of medieval literature make its translation both stimulating and complex, requiring cultural and artistic mediation to preserve the spirit and form of the works. Translating French medieval texts involves not only conveying meaning, but also recreating a complex cultural and aesthetic experience. This process requires balancing between faithfulness to the source text, adaptation to modern sensibilities and respect for the artistic form, in order to achieve a cultural encounter that transcends centuries.

Author Biography

  • Vessela Guenova, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

    Vessela Guenova GUENOVA is a Professor of French Literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Classicism at the Department of Romance Studies at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She also teaches translation in an MA Programme in Translation she is co-directing. Vessela Guenova has authored four books, La Ruse dans le Roman de Renart et dans les œuvres de François Rabelais (2003, in French), Playfulness in French Medieval Farce (2015), The Evolution of the Comic in Seventeenth-Century French Classical Comedy (2018) and Locations and Functions of Theatricality in Moliere's Dramatic Texts(2019), and several studies and articles in the field of comparative literary studies, especially on various forms of medieval comic literature and on French medieval and Classicist theatre. Vessela Guenova is also a long-standing translator of literature in the field of humanities.

References

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Published

2025-10-14

Issue

Vol. 11 (2025)

Section

I. Dialogues, continuité, ouverture: le cas des littératures romanes

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How to Cite

Dialoguing across the centuries: on some challenges of translating medieval french works today. (2025). Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum, 11, 96-107. https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2025..96-107