Translating the Self in Medieval European Romance: Narration and Emotion in Partonopeu de Blois, Partonopier und Meliur and Partonope of Blois

Abstract

This article approaches the question of selfhood by reading the opening passage of the Old French romance Partonopeu de Blois alongside its translations in different Northern European languages: the thirteenth-century Middle High German Partonopier und Meliur by Konrad von Würzburg and the fifteenth-century Middle English Partonope of Blois. Both translations bring interiority and subjectivity to the passage by adding direct speech and access to the character’s thoughts and motivations. In allowing the protagonist to respond to and rationalise his own emotions, the translators add a layer of self-awareness to their characterisation, thus producing a narrated self that was lacking in the original. This article demonstrates the great potential of comparative analysis in the study of medieval emotion and self. The different linguistic versions of the same passage here illuminate one another, highlighting different narrative techniques in the construction of literary selfhood. While the objective, exterior style of narration in the Old French passage constructs a helpless character, lacking in self-possession, the later German and English translations display a different narrative strategy that reveals their character’s decision-making process, and thus make him into a self-reflecting agent.