Structure and Form of Entries
The database is based on a BIBFRAME data model and consists of three datasets: Resources, Agents, and Timeline. Resources contain bibliographical records of translations and their paratexts, and source texts. We do not provide full-text digital editions at this stage, but URLs of existing online repositories such as Gallica and Google Books have been provided where available. Information about Persons and Organizations are found under Agents, and the Timeline is a tool to visualize and more importantly correlate the links between translations, their source texts and a typology of historical and political events chosen specifically for their relevance to both the history of political radicalism and translation.
Fields where information is uncertain are flagged with a question mark.
1. Resources
As translations are our main focus, this is where our analytical effort has concentrated. Translation records have been extensively annotated and include information on Forms (i.e. genre, type of text) and Subjects (i.e. a text’s subject matter) (see Authority Lists below). The most innovative aspect of this database is the prominence we accord to the paratext. We have produced separate records for the paratext of translations, so as to be able to correctly attribute authorship and provide a thick description of its forms and functions. In literary criticism, paratext is defined as material that surrounds the text. In our corpus this typically includes title page, dedication, epigraph, prefatory material, notes, postface and appendixes. We consider paratext as a key element in the identification and interpretation of radical translations. It is here that the translator’s voice is often heard, and evidence can be gleaned as to why and how they translate a particular text at a particular time. “Minor” paratextual elements such as the choice of dedicatee or a date expressed in the revolutionary calendar or a printer’s motto echoing revolutionary slogans can become key markers of a radical translation, especially in cases when the source text has no recognizable radical content. Moreover, the paratext is fundamental to the effort of reshaping, adapting, and extending the impact of radical ideas into new contexts, which is the driving force of many radical translations.
To further recover how translators sought to extend radical ideas beyond the intended or imagined readership of a source text, the paratext have also been described using newly introduced “Paratext functions” (see Authority Lists).
All parts of the paratext (i.e. Preface, Notes etc.) are grouped under the same record unless they have different publication dates or are by different authors, in which case they will be entered as separate records (still linked to the same resource they belong to via the “paratext of” relation).
Records of translations, their paratext and source texts are connected via the “Related resources” list at the bottom of each record. Here we have also included other editions and larger works that a resource is part of (for instance in the case of translations that appeared in periodicals). When known, we have listed the actual edition of a source text on which a given translation was based. Relations are defined as follows:
- “Translation of” and “Has translation” relate translations to source texts.
- “Paratext of” relates translations to paratext records.
- “Part of”: Resource in which the described resource is physically or logically contained.
- “Other edition” is used when a translation appears in re-issues and/or subsequent editions (including adaptations). Other editions are not linked directly to source texts but only to the first edition of the translation they reproduce.
- “Related to” is used when a text refers in some way to another resource in our corpus, e.g. when a paratext contains extracts of another work. In almost all cases “related to” will include an editorial note explaining the relation.
- “Derivative of”: in cases when a given text is derived from another without being a translation. Rarely used in this database.
Other relevant information is included discursively in the Notes. For translation records, Notes often contain an explanation of why a particular resource has been included in the database and its radical quality, as well as any information on unknown or contested authorship and references to secondary literature. For paratext records, Notes are used to summarize the content of prefatory materials and explain the selected paratext functions. The ‘Summary’ field is sometimes used to reproduce relevant quotations. Notes and Summary are not usually filled out for source texts.
2. Agents
The project also seeks to illuminate the lives and often shadowy activities of radical translators. We are compiling a digital prosopography to sketch a collective portrait of the personal and professional identity and the transnational networks in which they lived and worked. While the database contains information about three main categories of people (authors, translators, and publishers), the prosopography focuses solely on the lives of translators. Some of the translators are already well known, others less so, or remain anonymous. As a consequence, the amount of information available on each person in our database varies. We sought to provide a structured record for every translator in our database, that can be expanded when new information is uncovered, complementing it with longer discursive biographies for a number of key figures.
The information contained in the prosopography provides further evidence of the translators’ aims and motivations; it is used to locate new translations or discover the identities of new, overlooked or unknown translators; and to shed new light on anonymous, pseudonymous or uncertain attributions (e.g. by linking translators to known printers or other networks).
The “Knows” rubric visible in the Persons records connects individuals to other individuals in our database. This is a generic indicator that maps networks in the widest possible sense, without specifying the degree or kind of relationship. In a few specific cases, Persons who are not recorded elsewhere in the database (i.e. as authors, translators or publishers) are included here when they are known to be central to a given network.
As BIBFRAME classifications are generally modelled on the modern publishing industry, they do not always provide perfect equivalents to eighteenth-century editorial practices. We have opted for economical solutions whereby the Agent role ‘Publisher’ is assigned to Persons and Organizations who might also have acted as printers, booksellers, and in some instances served as organs for the dissemination of ideas associated with key social and intellectual circles as well. ‘Printer’ is used for Agents who printed and bound a given book, but bore no responsibility for its content. We have synthesized under the name of ‘Journalist’ the often multifaceted figure of magazine or newspaper contributors who might also be their sole authors and/or general editors. ‘Editor’ is reserved for persons who edited book volumes (in the modern sense of the word: compiling texts of which they are not the author).
Publishers were not indicated for source texts that fall outside of the project’s temporal scope.
3. Timeline
Investigating the temporalities of radical experience has been one of the driving interests of this project since its inception. Many of our initial discussions revolved around the question of how revolutionary movements intersected with the distinct political chronologies of different regions or nations as revolution spread across Europe at different times and in different places. We were particularly keen to consider how translation was used to extend revolutionary opportunities available in one political context to another, especially as the revolutionary impetus was blocked or displaced (whether momentarily or more permanently) by counter-revolution and restoration.
Translations seemed to us the ideal object to illustrate such dynamics as they necessarily contain at least two sets of temporal and linguistic/geographic dimensions: that of the source text and that of the translated text.
We have created the Timeline to make visible not only the movement of texts across languages, communities and countries, but also their position on multiple time axes.
Our timelines have not been taken off the shelf. Rather they have been specifically constructed to highlight political and social events that are relevant for both a history of political radicalism and translation. In the case of France, Italy and Britain, the typology of events is complex; for the United States and Ireland less as these chronologies have mainly been constructed to trace the circulation and re-issue of English language texts. In a few particularly noteworthy cases where resources have been published in other important centres (Belgium, Netherlands), we have grouped these under 'Other'. In a future iteration of this project, this will be expanded.
Translations and source texts are plotted on the same timeline, arranged by place and year of publication. Users can thus correlate metadata about texts to political, military and other relevant historical events. We invite users to draw their own conclusions on how translation activity is associated with a specific political Stimmung or climate. This can enable researchers to assess the specific value and intensity of a given text’s radicalism, according to whether it appears within a radical moment or during a phase of reaction. Our understanding of radical features (e.g. adoption of revolutionary calendar, dedication to political figures, translation strategies aimed at widening potential reading public etc.) could then be fine-tuned using this ad hoc tool for contextualization.