The influence of memory and life experiences on the rewriting of the Bible: agency as a(n) (un)conscious feature in (re)translation

Márcia Dias Sousa*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

This paper analyzes how the Catholic Bible has been (retranslated in a particular creative writing process. The case study is Colleen Carroll Campbell's autobiographical work My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir, in which specific biblical excerpts are integrated into the authorial discourse. The relation between translation and memory will be crucial in this analysis: on the one hand, the author was raised in a strong Catholic environment in which reciting the Bible was a daily habit; on the other, the biblical verses were conveyed in such a way as "to get the right feel", i.e. to accord with the narrative as a whole. This paper focuses upon the notion of agency to examine how personal experiences can determine the way an author chooses to (re)translate such "authoritative" texts as biblical verses, and the possible reasons and effects of the options taken to analyse the contours of the rewriting pursued.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)34-45
Number of pages12
JournalTranslation Matters
Volume1
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 5 Feb 2019

Keywords

  • Agency
  • Bible
  • Colleen Carroll Campbell
  • My Sisters the Saints
  • Rewriting

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