Dygden och dårskapen
En studie av mamsell Malmstedts översättningar från franska och latin
Anna Maria Lenngren (ne?e Malmstedt, 1754-1817) was an eminent poet in Sweden during the 18th century and she is still known as one of Stockholms Posten?s sharpest satirists. The early stage of her career as a translator, when she was recognised as ?mamsell Malmstedt?, had a great impact on her following work, which has been largely neglected. This master?s thesis analyses her largest translations: Lucile (1776), Zemire och Azor (1778), Arse?ne (1779), and Dido til Eneas (1778), in comparison with their originals. Throughout the work with comparing the translations to their originals, it became clear that two expressions, often used to describe the female main characters in the texts, are frequently added and/or emphasized in mamsell Malmstedt?s translations: virtue (dygd) and folly (da?rskap). Through these expressions, Malmstedt changes the stories and themes of the original texts, and through her use of virtue and folly in her translations, we get access to a background, to a world of ideas, that can give us a greater understanding of her own poems and of her thoughts about being a writing woman in Sweden during the 18th century.To develop a better understanding of this world of ideas, this thesis takes its starting-point in the history of virtue, and uses a feminist literary theory by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, which explains how and why women?s roles in literature, as either angels or monsters, have had a great impact on female writers throughout history. Gilbert and Gubar?s theories are of great interest for this thesis since the female main characters in Anna Maria Malmstedt?s translations, defined by either virtue or folly, could be seen as ancestors of the angelic and monstrous characters that Gilbert and Gubar are discussing.