Translating Italy for the Eighteenth Century: Women, Translation and Travel Writing (1739-1797)

Translating Italy for the Eighteenth Century seeks to trace the thread of British literary representations of Italy backwards from the Female Gothic of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to mid-century translations by female authors, to early travel writing (the genre of literature most accessible to, and therefore favored by, women authors during the eighteenth century).  By taking a translation studies approach to this material, the author manages to connect many seemingly disparate cultural representations, particularly those of literature, science, and aesthetics.  A broad concept of translation is central to Mirella Agorni’s exploration of the appropriation of images (descriptions of social and physical aspects of Italian culture) of Italy by British Women writers; the translation of cultural norms, of images, and of texts each play a role in the larger picture of what Italy meant to eighteenth-century British society.

The first two chapters of this book contain a broad overview of “Women’s Writing in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century,” including translations by women, and provide a valuable basis for the author’s subsequent arguments.  The reader is presented with arguments for a localist perspective when looking at translation studies, and a feminist reading of the work of these women authors and translators (which I believe is unavoidable considering the social climate of the time, which is well described here as well).  A brief “Survey of Translations by Women” allows the reader to get a feel for the types of texts “preferred” (although agency is a question) by female translators, while pointing out the difficulty in researching these types of texts as oftentimes the translator's name was not included on the title page.

In the middle third of the book, Agorni describes the circumstances and final outcome of a translation of Il Newtonianismo per le Dame by Royal Society member Francesco Algarotti.  The numerous factors surrounding the publication of this translation (from the publisher’s involvement, to the choice of translator, to the role of the British publishing industry and the nascent women’s movement of the time) almost work against the author’s argument, which relies upon a certain amount of agency on the part of the translator in the appropriation and exploitation of the author’s original text in order to (presumably) contribute to the proto-feminist movement in mid-eighteenth century Britain.  Ultimately, through numerous examples and a very comprehensive set of footnotes, it becomes apparent that although the thread of the author’s original argument connecting this translation with women’s travel writing and the proto-feminist movement may seem lost in the midst of these other factors, there is still ample evidence that maintains the ties.

While the title indicates the timeframe that this work will cover to be 1739 through 1797, the author does take some liberty with this, which serves the overall feel of her study as being less rigidly linear, thereby allowing an examination of time periods and genres which overlap set boundaries and must therefore be considered from many directions.  The transitions between genres and timeframes in this book tend to jockey back and forth, undermining the notion that these modes of representation followed a rigid progression.  With this in mind, it is possible to conclude that British authors (in particular female authors) were not only using a re-imagined Italy to influence or relate to their readership, but that they were also redefining their literary past in order to gain legitimacy within their present social situation.

Take, for instance, eighteenth-century travel writing.  The author is quick to point out that women’s travel narratives certainly did not emerge in the eighteenth century, but it was at this time that they began to gain popularity within the reading public.  With popularity came a certain amount of cultural credibility which allowed for the appropriation of images and social observations not only by the later gothic authors such as Ann Radcliffe, but also by women translators who were able to utilize these images in their “reconstruction” of Italian texts for a British audience.  Agorni argues that these translators and authors used these images of Italy to (perhaps not in a conscious manner) promote their own proto-feminist ideas and influence their social reality by making female authorship both credible and acceptable.  She supports this claim with evidence of relationships between these writers and early feminist writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as with examples of the greater movement of women writers away from the “scandalous fiction” that marked the careers of female writers in the first half of the eighteenth century.  According to Agorni,  “The new woman writer had to reject her predecessors, in order to demonstrate her superiority as a virtuous representative of domestic femininity” (10).

This new wave of women writers openly discussed their predecessors “faults” in order to separate themselves from what had become a socially unacceptable role for women, and to empower a new female discourse centered around conduct and education, which sought to encourage the participation of women in those aspects of culture deemed appropriate at the time.  “Behn, for example, is rapidly dismissed.  After a hesitant reference to her ‘genius of writing’, this reluctant praise is redressed by the claim that her works would be ‘very improper to be read by, or recommended to virtuous minds and especially to youth’ (V. Jones 1990:  184)” (12).  This tactic seems to have had an effect as we begin to see many more women involved in literature in the second half of the century, but at the same time we should not forget the importance of the early woman writers who laid the groundwork for later female authorship.

The latter part of this book is concerned with exploring further the role of women in the new discourse of national identity, which begins with Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who debated the dichotomy of public and private space (discussed in chapter 1) in women’s lives. Also key to the formation of a British national identity was the life and works of Hester Piozzi.  Piozzi’s travel narratives and anecdotal accounts of her friendship with Samuel Johnson, which were very popular at the time, helped to shape an era in which women were emerging as figures involved in the importation of ideas from abroad as well as being involved in domestic intellectual circles: “Piozzi’s image of Italy, in fact an observation, became a powerful symbolic source which enabled the fictional image of a relatively egalitarian British society to take shape” (143).

Hester Piozzi’s publication of her observations on foreign landscapes and cultures as well as famous literary figures helped to define her as a woman who was both educated and observant, yet when she tried to break the literary mold by publishing popularized versions of what were thought to be purely “intellectual” subjects, she was rejected and her career was ruined.  As Agorni explains,  “The strong opposition between high literature, produced by well-known scholars or literary figures, and low-ranking literature, hastily put together by Grub Street, was still the most important characteristic of the eighteenth-century literary marketplace.  Readers were not prepared to accept popularized versions of history such as that proposed by Piozzi” (114).  Seemingly the new “national identity” of Britain could only support so much transgression from a woman, as can also be seen in Piozzi’s decision to leave England for the Continent after her scandalous second marriage:  As an author, a woman’s reputation was considered as important as her ability to write.  It wasn’t until her journals, letters, and travel accounts were made public last century, that Hester Piozzi’s influence on British literature and society were again acknowledged and she regained her position as an important author of her time.

When all is said and done, Translating Italy for the Eighteenth Century is a work of new historicism, and a very valuable one at that.  The breadth of Mirella Agorni’s study is ambitious, and she succeeds by including extensive sources and by masterfully connecting each of the threads of study that she includes.  What the reader is presented with is a cohesive overview of the various and varied influences of Italian images on women writers in eighteenth century Britain, as well as the influence of those writers upon later female authors.  This text also contains a comprehensive set of footnotes that are invaluable to a deeper understanding of the conditions of translation, transmission of literature, and the often underrepresented connectedness of the British and Italian intellectual movements of the eighteenth century.