The Vergilian Society has awarded the 2021 McKay Prize to Susanna Braund’s co-edited volume (with Zara Martirosova Torlone), Virgil and his Translators (OUP, 2018).The McKay Prize is given in recognition of the book that, in the opinion of the prize evaluation committee, makes the greatest contribution toward our understanding and appreciation of Vergil.
Book abstract from OUP:
This is the only volume of its kind that addresses the long and complicated history of translations of Virgil, whose poems were at the centre of the educational curriculum and the wider culture of Europe until the nineteenth century. While this collection of chapters covers numerous European traditions (English, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish), the volume also extends its focus beyond European translations to translations into Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Slovenian, Turkish, and the young world language, Esperanto. Classic translations such as those of Dryden, Du Bellay, Leopardi, Valéry, and Voß are considered alongside more surprising names, including Pasolini and Wordsworth, and recent interventions, for example by Heaney and Veyne. Each essay provides theoretical background for the case studies considered. In the Introduction the editors draw attention to some overarching issues. The volume closes with contributions by two active translators, Alessandro Fo in Italian and Josephine Balmer in English. This volume is dedicated to the study of translations of Virgil as a national and transnational cultural phenomenon and is an invitation to further study of this important topic.
