Mentors' Help and Learned Women

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This paper examines the workings of the relationships between the writers and their mentors. The two cases dealt with here are: 1) Elizabeth Carter assisted by Catherine Talbot and Thomas Seeker and 2) Sarah Fielding asking advice of James Harris. Both women translated Greek texts into English in the mid-eighteenth century. They are two of the very few female translators who published their work in rendering Greek into English. The former's publication of Epictetus was a success, contributing much to her reputation. The latter's Xenophon less successful. I focus on the difference their mentors and advisors made in their progress toward publication. Talbot and Seeker helped Carter to make her scholarship appeal to the educated reading public, while Harris's attention was directed toward scholarly precision. I regard their attempts in translation as examples of a difficult process of transforming the private scholarly exercise of a learned woman into a published public text, where the mentors' influence counted.

Journal

  • Studies in humanities

    Studies in humanities 52 (2), 135-156, 2002-01-31

    Shizuoka University. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

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