Research project Translatorship and biographies croisées
Translatorship and biographies croisées. Marie Franzos’ (1870–1941) Life-Long Engagement for Swedish Literature in German Translation. The focus of my research is the Viennese translator Marie Franzos (1870–1941). She had a fundamental role in spreading Swedish literature in German. My goal is to explain why she gained a prominent position and why her translations were so popular and appreciated by publishers and authors.
Marie Franzos. Source: Ellen Key's Collection, Additions, Foreign Portraits. National Library of Sweden, HS L41b1763.
Marie Franzos (1870–1941) played a pivotal role in the introduction of two generations of Swedish writers to German-speaking audiences. Despite her considerable influence on the reception of Swedish literature abroad, she has received little scholarly attention to date.
Translatorship and Biographies Croisées. Marie Franzos’ (1870–1941) Life-Long Engagement with Swedish Literature in German Translation explores Franzos’ literary translatorship from extratextual, paratextual, and textual perspectives within Translation History. The dissertation reconstructs Franzos’ biography; her epistolary relationships with the Swedish authors Ellen Key, Selma Lagerlöf, and Per Hallström; and the translator’s and her writers’ statements on the translation process and Franzos’ influence on the reception of her published translations. Finally, a comparative textual analysis of three STs-TTs by Key, Lagerlöf, and Hallström investigates Franzos' translation practice.
Overall, the four studies fill a research gap in translation history concerned with female translators at the turn of the 20th century and contribute to specific knowledge about Franzos, the authors that she translated, the publishers that she worked with, and the literary and cultural relationships between Sweden and German-speaking countries at that time.