Rewriting alterity. Challenges of cross-cultural translations of the classics in 1590s England and of Shakespeare in 1890s Romania

The book is inscribed among the significant works in the domain of Shakespeare studies in Romania and examines the cultural framework of translation as a dialogic, interdisciplinary, and continuous activity at the turn of the century by comparing translations of the classics, as well as those of geography and travel literature in 1590s England, with translations of Shakespeare as a Western theatre classic in 1890s Romania. The study analyses the classical, geographic and travel texts published in Elizabethan England in the 1590s – from Ovid, Vergil, Plutarch and Pliny to Pedro de Medina, Martin Cortes, or Antonio Galv5o – in relation to the Romanian translations of Shakespeare's plays – by Scarlat Ion Ghica, Dimitrie Ghika, and Haralamb Lecca. Using quantitative data and close-text analysis, as well as the latest developments in translation theory, cultural anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, and geocritical literary studies, the book explores how two cultures belonging to different ranges of spatiality and temporality adapted to cross-cultural rewritings.

Monica Matei-Chesnoiu PhD, DLitt