Ystoryaeu Seint Greal - Zwischen Übersetzung und Adaption

Ystoryaeu Seint Greal (YSG), the Stories of the Holy Grail, are a bipartite late 14th century Welsh translation of two early 13th century French Arthurian tales. Part 1 (YSG1) consists of La Queste del Saint Graal, part 2 (YSG2) of Le Haut Livre du Graal, nowadays mostly known as Perlesvaus. This thesis explores the relation between French sources and Welsh translation in select subject areas. Central questions concern closeness/distance between sources and translation, translation methods and possible inferences on the translator(s), the socio-cultural environment and the target audience. This thesis aims to measure for the first time the relative distance/closeness between sources and translation on the basis of a newly developed comparative method in a statistically replicable way, and by that to review previous research. YSG are the only Welsh specimen of the Grail stories that are so widely known on the European continent. At the same time they are the only surviving late 14th century translation of narrative prose in Wales. They have been widely ignored by researchers even though they allow insights into a developed tradition of translation due to their relatively late time of creation. The basis for all statistical research in this thesis is a sentence-to-sentence juxtaposition of the Welsh text of Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 11 and its French sources. In the case of YSG, Queste and Perlesvaus sources and translation are so closely related, that this can be undertaken without any problems. Two modern editions of each of the Old French source texts that had shown themselves to be closest to the Welsh version in random samples have been chosen as reference. To get insights into the translator's practices and competences, as well as into demands he was confronted with by his target audience, modes of adaptations are examined in the source-target pair of Queste and YSG1. Loanwords and loanword hybrids shed a light on linguistic competences and the cultural environment of both translator and target audience. Different from the French sources where the explicit presence of a narrator is very common, this is an exception in the medieval Welsh narrative tradition. The Welsh translator's handling of these passages, thus, shows how much acceptance for such alien elements he could expect from his audience and what had to be accommodated to native Welsh customs. Examination of interjections/oaths, Welsh translation options for the Old French term chevalier and the usage of the adjective urdawl offers insights into linguistic habits and competences of the translator as an individual. At first glance YSG1 appears to be an almost literal translation of the Queste, but statistical examination shows that in fact only little less than 40% of the French source's content have been kept untouched. More than 60% on the other hand have been omitted, abbreviated, relocated or slightly modified in content. This is indeed surprising and shows the Welsh translator's diligence as the result of his work was nevertheless a text that can be considered a translation even in a modern sense. A statistical comparison of YSG1 and Queste differentiated in content categories shows a divergence from previous research insofar as passages with a lot of action (e.g. combats) are not considerably less abbreviated than others. Scenes with religiously didactic content on the other hand are not more abbreviated than others apart from passages of religious exhortation of which over 70% are affected by omission and abbreviation. For the most part the translator retains the explicit presence of a narrator typical for his medieval French sources, even though it is rather uncommon for his own native tradition. This demands of his target audience a certain amount of tolerance but also of basic knowledge of the foreign French culture. Analysis of loanwords and translation variants of the word chevalier reveals a rather high percentage of loanwords in the translator's vocabulary that he quite often uses without a direct stimulation by his sources. On the one hand this suggests an environment of considerable linguistic and cultural blending. On the other hand one can assume a certain educational level for the translator who is perfectly capable to transfer courtly, military and administrative terms with ease and nuances. He accommodates his audience with allusions to characters and events from other native Welsh texts. Analysis of the distribution of interjections in particular, but also of the approach to passages with an explicit narrator reveal considerable differences between YSG1 and YSG2. This might point to the extensive task of translation having been handed over to several translators. For the first time the present thesis illuminates the closeness of sources and translation in the case of YSG in a statistically replicable way, as well as the highly developed linguistic and cultural competence of a late 14th century Welsh translator, that far exceeds any daily usage both of the source language French and the target language Welsh.