Beathadh Sir Gui o Bharbhuic: A Medieval Irish Romance

Abstract

During the mid- to late-fifteenth century, Ireland produced a corpus of translations of continental literary works, with a well-evidenced predominance of the romance genre. Among the eight extant romance translations stands the Early Modern Irish version of the Middle English romance Guy of Warwick, Beathadh Sir Gui o Bharbhuic, preserved in a single copy: the miscellaneous TCD MS 1298. This study will be divided into a theoretical phase and a practical one. The first will introduce Guy of Warwick and Beathadh Sir Gui o Bharbhuic, explore the phenomenon of medieval Irish translation, and discuss the codicological context of the Irish version. The second will compare the source text to the target text following the method of Descriptive Translation Studies; the major structural, stylistic, and content differences will be brought to the fore, with a view to understanding the reasons behind them. By analysing a text that has been largely neglected by previous scholarship, this project pursues three main objectives. To begin with, it aims to shed new light on the literary tastes, historical context, and socio-political framework of late-medieval Ireland. Furthermore, it intends to reveal some writing trends of the translator, identified as the prolific scribe Uilliam Mac an Leagha. Last, it hopes to show that Ireland was at the very heart of the dynamics of cultural transition and intellectual conversation that shaped the European Renaissance.