Ovide Moralisé: Manuscript Tradition and Translation Strategies

The Ovide Moralisé constitutes the first complete adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into French, a masterpiece of 72.000 octosyllabes to which there remain today no fewer than 22 witnesses. The manuscript tradition shows that some of the most valuable codices were commissioned by well-known noblemen and inventoried in important libraries. The work of an anonymous Burgundian author, the text was most likely completed before 1320. It rewrites the classical work, blending it with a number of sources and materials, explaining Ovid’s fabulae by means of Christian allegory, so as to recover a Christian truth behind pagan stories. The lecture will first focus on some of the more interest aspects of the manuscript tradition of the Ovide Moralisé, before offering textual analyses to help identify relevant translation strategies.