John of Antioch (translator)
John of Antioch, also known as Harent of Antioch, was a 13th-century
Life
John was born in
Works
At the request of fellow Hospitaller
John also translated
The influence of Brunetto Latini's Livres dou trésor is apparent in John's addenda to the Otia. These five additional chapters rely heavily on chapters 82–98 of the first book of Brunetto's Trésor as completed after 1266. These contain references to Emperor
John may also be behind the Old French translation of the Hospitaller rule and of certain documents from the Hospitaller archives in Acre initiated by William of Santo Stefano and undertaken between 1278 and 1283.[14]
Methodology
John's translations were pioneering. Only about ten Old French translations of classical writers are known down to John's time. His Rectorique may be among the two or three earliest true translations, rather than adaptations, from Latin into Old French. It was the first such translation on rhetoric other than a few passages of Brunetto Latini's Trésor.[15] The translation of De topicis differentiis is "one of the first vernacular [European] texts in logic".[16] The significance of this translation lies in the fact that leading contemporary opinion, as expressed by no less than Roger Bacon, was that logic could not be adequately expressed in vernacular languages. Indeed, John had to create new words to translate Boethius, such as entimeme for enthymeme, a word not otherwise attested in medieval French.[17]
In his epilogue on translation, John describes the difference between translating by word and by sense:
... the manner of speaking in Latin is not generally the same as that of French. Neither the properties of words nor the methods of arranging arguments and words in Latin are the same as those of French. And that is [so] generally in every language. Because every language has its own properties and its manner of speaking. ... For that reason it was useful for the translator of this science to translate sometimes word for word, and sometimes and more frequently sentence for sentence, and sometimes because of the great obscurity of a sentence to add to it and lengthen it.[18]
Although the ad verbum (by word) and ad sensum (by sense) distinction was ancient, John's phrase maniere de parler (manner of speaking) has an exact equivalent in
Notes
- ^ The inspiration for William's request came from his native Lombardy, where vernacular Italian translations of De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium had been produced by Brunetto Latini and Guidotto da Bologna, respectively.[5]
- ^ It is sometimes spelled Rettorique.[4] Elisa Guadagnini has produced an edition.[6]
- ^ The dates 1272 (MCCLXXII), 1282 (MCCLXXXII) and 1382 (MCCCLXXXII) are all found in the manuscript, but only the second corresponds to a time when William of Santo Stefano was in Acre.[7]
- ^ Cinzia Pignatelli and Dominique Gerner have produced an edition with a modern French translation. It should not be confused with the translation of Jean de Vignay, known under the title Oisivetez des empereurs.[11]
References
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 97.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 90.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 101.
- ^ a b c Pignatelli 2016.
- ^ a b c d Pignatelli & Gerner 2006, pp. 26–27.
- ^ Guadagnini 2009.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 92 n9.
- ^ a b c Rubin 2018a, pp. 90–94.
- ^ a b Rubin 2018b, p. 72.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, pp. 183–184.
- ^ a b Pignatelli & Gerner 2006, p. 25 n. 1.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 90 n4.
- ^ Pignatelli 2009, p. 133.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, pp. 72, 188–189.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 92.
- ^ Rubin 2018a, p. 93.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, p. 74.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, p. 75.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, p. 76.
- ^ Rubin 2018b, p. 79.
Bibliography
- Delisle, Léopold (1899). "Notice sur la Rhétorique de Cicéron traduite par Maître Jean d'Antioche". Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres bibliothèques. 36: 207–265.
- Folda, Jaroslav (1976). Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d'Acre, 1275–1291. Princeton University Press.
- Folda, Jaroslav (2005). Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre. Cambridge University Press.
- Guadagnini, Elisa, ed. (2009). La “Rectorique de Cyceron” tradotta da Jean d'Antioche. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale.
- Pignatelli, Cinzia; Gerner, Dominique, eds. (2006). Les traductions françaises des Otia imperialia de Gervais de Tilbury par Jean d'Antioche et Jean de Vignay. Librairie Droz.
- Pignatelli, Cinzia (2009). "Jean d'Antioche et les exempla ajoutés à la traduction des Otia imperialia de Gervais de Tilbury". In Michèle Goyens; Werner Verbeke (eds.). "Lors est ce jour grant joie nee": Essais de langue et de littérature françaises du Moyen Âge. Universitaire Pers Leuven. pp. 127–136.
- Pignatelli, Cinzia (2016). "Jean d'Antioche". In Graeme Dunphy; Cristian Bratu (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Brill Online.
- Rubin, Jonathan (2018a). "John of Antioch and the Perceptions of Language and Translation in Thirteenth-Century Acre". In John France (ed.). Acre and Its Falls: Studies in the History of a Crusader City. Brill. pp. 90–104.
- Rubin, Jonathan (2018b). Learning in a Crusader City: Intellectual Activity and Intercultural Exchanges in Acre, 1191–1291. Cambridge University Press.