EMMA CAMPBELL

             SEXUAL POETICS AND THE POLITICS OF TRANSLATION IN THE TALE OF GRISELDA

DRAWING ON BOTH modern philosophy and theories of medieval translation, this article attempts to reconsider some of the hermeneutic difficulties encountered by interpretations and re-writings of the tale of Griselda, particularly as these concern the translations of the tale made by Boccaccio, Petrarch and Chaucer. Taking my cue from certain feminist readings of the tale of Griselda, I argue that the relationship between gender and the disruptions that occur through the appropriations that the text undergoes in being translated and interpreted by its authors is central to many of the difficulties posed by the narrative. However, drawing on some of the most recent work by Judith Butler, the article seeks to develop further some of the conclusions reached by other feminist readings by exploring the implications of viewing gender and the textual processes involved in translation as inextricably linked.

I argue, firstly, that Boccaccio’s story – although perhaps less explicitly concerned with translation than the two later versions of the tale by Petrarch and Chaucer – nonetheless highlights the problematic status of the female body as it is framed by various possible interpretations of the narrative. Secondly, looking at Petrarch’s appropriation of Boccaccio’s tale, the article explores how the text’s feminine status is construed in relation to the materiality of Griselda as a woman, considering how the meanings that accrue to her femininity might be problematically related to the translation in which she appears. Finally, examining the Chaucerian translation, I consider how the depiction of Griselda as an exemplary and inimitable wife, along with the ironic glosses to which the story is subject in this version, might illustrate (and be used to critique) Butler’s concept of translation as a subversive political strategy.

The article thus suggests that instead of representing appropriations of a feminine textual body, the different versions of the tale of Griselda reveal the "bodies" of Griselda and her story through textual reclothings that posit the absence rather than the presence of the material bodies they cite. Through the act of translation, the gender of these textual bodies and its ideological deployment in the narrative are, I argue, effects of textual performances that can either confirm or disrupt the identities of those bodies in anterior versions of the tale. The article thus considers how we might interpret medieval narrative from a (gender) political perspective, addressing issues pertinent to the understanding of medieval textual processes and also asking questions concerning the subversive potential of representational forms when considered in relation to those processes.