Lost in Reception: Periodical Reviews and the Transatlantic Legacy of Selma Lagerlöf in English Translation (Periodicals and translation Webinar, Session 3)
Lost in Reception: Periodical Reviews and the Transatlantic Legacy of Selma Lagerlöf in English Translation.
Periodicals and translation Webinar, Session 3, ‘, 26 March 14-15 pm (CET)
Dr Eloïse Forestier, Ghent University
Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) has never been out of print and remains one of the most translated Swedish authors. There appears, however, to be a consensus among scholars regarding Lagerlöf’s history of poor translation into English, with the finger of criticism most often pointing to her American translator, Velma Swanston Howard (1868–1937). Swanston Howard’s legacy was seriously undermined by Peter Graves’ 1998 chapter on the reception of Lagerlöf in Britain, in which Graves quotes from the Times Literary Supplement (17/4/1913): a horrified critic claims that Lagerlöf is “so mauled, so mangled in translation” that “we can but guess at the nationality of the translator.”
Stepping away from the British sphere, a perusal of American reviews quickly shows how much praise Swanston Howard received for her work.
This presentation highlights the political and partial nature of periodicals by examining the transatlantic reception of Lagerlöf’s translations in English in a selection of literary reviews such as the TLS (1902-), the Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937), the American Review of Reviews (1890 – 1937) and the more specialized American-Scandinavian Review (1913-). While the political dimension of periodicals is well established, what is perhaps less emphasized is how the (anglophone) press of the time functioned not merely as a channel of circulation. It was a contested space shaped by cultural bias, as well as political and linguistic tensions, all of which could significantly fracture the reception of literary texts. This contribution, as part of a new project on undervalued Anglo-Swedish feminine translation partnerships, opens an initial window onto the entangled interactions that underpinned the translation and press industries at the turn of the twentieth century.
Eloise Forestier obtained her PhD in 2020 at Ghent University. After a first postdoc on transnational feminism in Swedish periodicals of the late-nineteenth century, she has recently been appointed senior FWO (Flanders Research Foundation) postdoctoral researcher for a project on Anglo-Swedish feminism and translation at the turn of the twentieth century. She has published several articles on women editors from Britain, France, and Sweden. Her first monograph, Transnational Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Swedish Literature and Periodical Culture: Entangled Dreams and Cross-Cultural Encounters was published in 2024 (Brill). Eloise Forestier is also part of the editorial team of the Journal for European Periodical Studies.
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Bénédicte Coste, UR CPTC, Université Bourgogne Europe