Who is the author of the translated text? The Swedish translation of Dinah Mulock’s A Woman’s Thoughts about Women

Författare

Cecilia Wadsö-Lecaros

Summary, in English

This paper will discuss authorial and editorial voices in connection with Sophie Leijonhufvud’s translation of Dinah Mulock’s A Woman’s Thoughts about Women (1858). The pronounced aim of the translation was to mediate Mulock’s ideas on womanhood to a Swedish audience. The Swedish translation was published by the Swedish women’s periodical Tidskrift för hemmet in 1861. Leijonhufvud was one of the founders and editors of this periodical.

The title of Mulock’s book – A Woman’s Thoughts about Women – indicates that the work presents a particular woman’s notions on the general concept of womanhood. It was translated word for word as En qvinnas tankar rörande qvinnan. We may ask, however, whose thoughts are conveyed in the translated text? What impact does the specific agenda of the translator/publisher have on the target text? This paper will also ask how the implied reader of the target text differs from that of the source text and in what ways the translator’s voice occasionally overshadows that of the source text author, by commenting on, rather than translating, the source text.

Avdelning/ar