The Poet as Translator

This article examines Mary Wortley Montagu's self-representation in her letters in the context of literature, history, and culture, especially her literal and metaphorical translations of a Turkish love lyric in a letter to Alexander Pope in the spring of 1717. Beginning with a survey of recent feminist and postcolonial criticism in Montagu studies, including the fraught term of “orientalism” as it has sometimes been applied recursively to understand the discourse of Montagu's era, I emphasize Montagu's own words as she presents herself and her purpose in the letter and as she makes use of tropes of foreignness, literary tradition, and artistic merit. Along with a consideration of critical interpretations of Montagu, this article provides a historical and cultural analysis of Montagu's understanding of a poet's role and explores the political resonance of her choice to translate a Turkish lyric for Pope, an icon of British poetry.Mary Wortley Montagu was an influential figure in the literary, social, and political circles of Britain in the eighteenth century. She was a prolific author of poems, novels, and plays, including the frequently anthologized poem “The Lover: A Ballad,” as well as more serious critiques of women's place in society, and even before the age of fourteen, she had produced an impressive volume of writing.A woman with a lively curiosity and wide social circle, she produced the Turkish Embassy Letters, a milestone in travel literature, literature by women, and British-Muslim interaction. Montagu is mostly remembered today for her travel writings. She is also known to medicine for having popularized in Britain the Turkish practice of inoculation against smallpox, decades before Edward Jenner developed vaccination.Montagu corresponded frequently with her friends while in Turkey, including the poet Alexander Pope, although her friendship with Pope appears to have ended after her return to England. She is frequently rumored to have insulted him by refusing his offer of love. They traded insults in verse: she is thought to be an author of “A Pop upon Pope,” and he castigated her in his Dunciad and his First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated.Montagu was doubly an outsider in Turkish society when she traveled there with her diplomat husband. As a woman, and therefore the appendage to her diplomat husband, she was a privileged observer of life in the countryside, at the Turkish court, and especially among the “princesses and great ladies,” as she described court women in the terms of European aristocracy.1 Although she was a British woman accompanying an early diplomatic mission to a civilization much more ancient than and at least as powerful as England's, Montagu's observations are mundane and domestic, rather than tinged with the male world of political intrigue, as she reports on life in this rival empire.These multiple layers of her presence also impart a certain authority, however. In her travel letters, she claimed to be presenting to her friends at firsthand the authentic nature of life among the Ottoman Turks. Her correspondent, Alexander Pope, is significant; Montagu's biographer Isobel Grundy suggests that “Pope, struggling against the restrictions imposed on his own life by his ill-health and by his religion, more than once expressed his sympathy with those of the other sex ‘by their Forms confin'd ... Womankind.’”2 Grundy has demonstrated Montagu's involvement in women's issues; she was friends with poet and reformer Mary Astell and gave voice to feminist sentiments in works such as “Epistle from Mrs. Yonge.” Pope was still Montagu's close friend in 1717, although they would later part, apparently after their own Pan-Syrinx episode.Montagu's cultural and historical context informed her literal and metaphorical translation of lyric poetry. Assessing attitudes and views toward the Turkish culture she was visiting, whether of her compatriots, herself, or Turks, Montagu linguistically presents herself as an edified observer who has been transported to a land reminiscent of ancient Greece, with a literature reminiscent of ancient Israel as well. Montagu sidesteps the medieval conflict between Europe and Western Asia and instead appeals to both the humanist classical tradition and Judeo-Christian literary history.A study of Montagu's idea of the poet's role in the love lyric she translates for Pope, compared to other elements in her oeuvre and works by contemporary female lyricists, indicates her investment in a literary representation of the Turks barely precedented in British letters. Hans-Uwe Lemmel describes her work here as a “seminal” moment in British perceptions of Turkey and, by extension, in a larger process that shaped Europe as a geographical space in opposition to “a non-European ‘other’” between 1650 and 1800.3 Conversely, Joseph W. Lew suggests that “her Letters missed their historical moment”: in 1717, “the doors of both West and East were open for true exchange,” yet in 1762, when her letters were widely published, “this moment had been lost.... Lady Mary's ironic vision was rejected for one based on the new British power.”4Montagu's involvement role in this process was not unambiguous, like the involvement of others before her, such as Queen Elizabeth I, who corresponded with the Turkish queen mother Safiye, as Bernadette Andrea has described. Andrea describes “the emergence of a discourse we can clearly label ‘feminist’ and material conditions we can reliably call ‘imperialist’” in Montagu's era.5 Montagu does not evince a fully developed modern “orientalist” view on Turkey, nor are her views straightforwardly egalitarian; rather, Montagu's appropriation and translation of a Turkish love lyric for her correspondent reveals a nuanced approach to a culture foreign to her and a diplomatic engagement that reflected her husband's own employment.Katherine S. H. Turner calls Montagu's approach “classical, tolerant, and largely ahistorical,” in contrast to the 1789 travel writings of Elizabeth Craven, who is associated with the inception of orientalism.6 Similarly, Lew asserts that “Lady Mary turned her female-addressed letters into powerful critiques of both Ottoman and British culture; her description of how Oriental women subverted order anticipated, by two hundred fifty years, the work of feminists such as Mernissi and Abu-Lugho.”7Her critique of Ottoman and British culture suggestively parallels her critique of genre discussed by Scott Paul Gordon: “Montagu's poetic production enables us to consider, more unsettlingly, that we may never know whether or not we are outside of genre.”8 Devoney Looser adds, “Montagu's writings do not reveal a programmatic political agenda (feminist or otherwise), nor do they convey consistent generic affiliations. Like the masquerade she was so fond of in several cultures, Montagu tried on a variety of writerly guises in regard to genre.”9 Montagu states that her correspondent will naturally view this love lyric as foreign, containing unfamiliar language and tropes, and she responds to this assumed view by emphasizing this Turkish lyric's many overlaps with the British lyrical tradition. She explicitly situates herself in response to an othering culture and as seeking to present a less othered view of the Turkish lyric.Montagu, therefore, in her own rhetorical choices, seeks to emphasize the poetic validity of a non-British lyrical tradition in a letter to a pillar of the British poetic tradition. Andrea describes Montagu's approach as a “celebrationist, and even exoticist, stance” in discussing Montagu's account of women in the hammam.10 Arthur J. Weitzman, conversely, says of the same account that “the overall effect ... avoids the implication that these women are from some exotic world, distant from and alien to Europe but instead discovers a link of commonality and sororal camaraderie, notwithstanding Lady Mary's upper-class bias.”11Links of commonality inform the present reading of Montagu's letters, without denying the cultural context, subjectivity, and presuppositions that drive her approach. Ruth Bernard Yeazell locates the contradictory nature of subject and object overturned in Montagu's experience in the hammam, “ironic reversals of comparative liberty,” such “as Lady Mary first registered when the Sofia bathers mistook her corset for a cage in which she was locked up by her husband.”12Montagu also emphasized the humane treatment of women she encountered in her travels, challenging what she described as the erroneous prejudices current in her own country about how Turkish women were treated. As she presents Pope with both a literal and a more metaphorical translation of the Turkish love lyric, Montagu repeatedly describes the Turks in terms analogous to the British aristocrats and the ancient Greeks: Adrianople is “a place where truth, for once, furnishes all the ideas of [Theocritean] pastoral.”She emphasizes Turkey's geographical and cultural closeness to Greece, as well as her experiences with Greek gardeners and women who went unveiled. She presents her experiences as a corrective to myths prevalent in Britain in an ironic comment to her sister: “‘Tis also very pleasant to observe how tenderly he and all his brethren the of the Turkish who are more than in the of the Turks, Montagu to her that do I in many other they the we I well with a woman of who it her choice to with a Turkish Montagu explicitly describes her role as a corrective to and current in the women's own of their experiences rather than cultural their Montagu is to Montagu emphasizes the of Turkish poetic to that in Judeo-Christian “The a great into many that to their what we call this they have what they call the that a for and which is the She her translation of the love lyric to Pope as an of this she explicitly the lyric, which a Turkish poet had to the he was about to to the Montagu does not the commonality between the Judeo-Christian and Turkish in the medieval but rather in a literary and tradition. She explicitly presents her work as a literary for the of the the ancient and the letter us more about Montagu herself than about the Turkish literature she as she does not the Turkish lyric, Montagu it in of her own In about a after she had her translation to Pope, Montagu and translates into for a correspondent a Turkish love letter that a such as a or poetic love for which Montagu translates as can there is as much in the choice of as in the of there I a of for this She also her correspondent with the variety of European and in Turkey, emphasizing in a that very well the of Montagu emphasizes the of the country as well as a British she and of many and as she the countryside, in her between ancient civilization and modern toward the that between parallels between her own and Turkish culture, Montagu explicitly what be and her own for the Turkish lyric, as an outsider a and observer Turkish In her to of between her own British tradition and the Turkish tradition, Montagu space to what she as a literal situates her translation both the British and the Turkish lyric tradition, as she a and are to her was to the of her and true to the of comparative She by use of and and the myths of by refusing to the Turks, her she at the she British women of literature, such as literature, and, in order to their and their in an male literary in or of classical literary in for in the for comment and and the of of in a translation or of an works by women, such as of by Mary in and of to from such up the lyric.Montagu, as a poet and travel of the early eighteenth her of Montagu's travel letters from Turkey have demonstrated that her is and humanist rather than or Montagu's had a for all which went the othering of the in where the or to “the Turkish and the in his and close of Montagu's translation of a Turkish love lyric in an letter to Alexander poet of their the and of this woman in a and foreign as well as her approach to that foreign culture a love lyric, and a Turkish one at into without the Turkish she her Pope, unfamiliar with Turkish to the had been to women's into literature, as in the of and her Mary but it was of European or ancient literature or works like to the and in Montagu's appropriation Turkey's presence in European as a of culture and ancient a of and a and a that the and were at with the 1717, when Montagu her letter to Pope from Turkey, a that was in with the of of the and the for the poet Montagu for is for in we turned Turks, and to do that the and in Montagu's contemporary with the Montagu and to Turkish culture Turkey's and on the political of which a more serious British consideration of and in Turkish and between the European and the Turkish love lyric, Montagu their in a of ancient and lyric in early modern was in as has it was to women, and but it also at of the and against was or a multiple and between poet and early modern the lyric was the poetic from and to and Western European lyric was by elements of or such as the to the as a and the of the classical the the or of and the as in of and the Ottoman as the lyric of Western and as and a of of the and and to the for or Turkish lyric a of including male and the court, religion, and as and have in their study of between the Turkish and European they the or like the one Montagu were in the age of Ottoman culture, the from about to which with Montagu's the love as court women like “the of the who the voice in her herself as and a as for the with him and the of as the of the would a has been both as an of love for Israel and as a love poem from to one of his the love lyric in the or is as well as the lyric in the in both the Turkish and Western European A of of the for like the indicates especially for the in a tradition that to in tradition is present in many love by women, such as the which as her the of of and and for of were a for women, but women's of and was of was a for seeking to their of the In the the woman and with the woman as the and the as the and is he among the what would have been the order in early modern J. idea of appears in the a of lyric for both Montagu and the Turkish she as well or for the but also women in a the like “The and Montagu's own “The Lover: A with of the from the female of to “The that to in love is for the woman of in two apparently but her and his of his own a in to her this in which is the of the love lyric in with an ironic to classical in the Montagu's poem to at the age of indicates how prevalent of was for an like in her letter to Pope, she to as well known here as of the same as has while translations among Montagu's the apparently of the to in is as a and, produced by also the to “The as of the of the in to own metaphorical of the women into of nature is not a but rather, in Montagu's of of lyric and a of the own are a of the a that such women have their own or refusing the female in “The to to and to the culture with a refusing to into the and the This in the of Bernadette Andrea has described in Montagu's era, up to Mary of the of love lyric was not the choice for an early modern British woman the to the tradition, a male a female as in to of the female by also political for who that for in “the of the woman is an of as he her and it of his and of the female he asserts his as a and her in reflected that still women the of their to own in their own but still are a woman as a male or in which woman is explicitly both the and such as to or a between such as a of all in the early modern is a love lyric by a woman, as from a love lyric by a male author in a female the love lyric was less among British women than among their and especially their although is an to this as a who love Paul says of that “the lyric voice reveals an that a of or ... not in the in and her letter with a from the of of and in his her with the ancient lyric and a while and in that from the voice and with the all the In discussing and of this has that these on the male the had from his in the and the and the has discussed the of the female in the early modern tradition, but the of the male is less her letter with this from the Montagu her of lyric I had much regard for the that after I be for having missed the of the same this and with her choice of from the of a lyric that a Montagu indicates her in the a new lyric to up where this one has situates her Turkish as “a place where truth, for once, furnishes all the ideas of and are in Turkish as in for his as well as such as of and “the of which are in British poems, for of a to “a like or the “a is a spring a are an of with pleasant ... a of a well of and from the other Montagu presents are a the of which several of true are to one from on the and “a the description of the ancient of is ... one of among the Greek or that is not to be in the of the of this is a to the the of the in both the and the to a Montagu a classical to Montagu's translation to and She to between classical Greek women and contemporary Turkish would be to to all the that to present first provides what she to be a translation and her own Although she does not for the Turkish in a literal she does the space between her European view and the Turkish as well as of has to the so the and of her translation be a like from has while it like the of one in an lyric, in does the between the two lyric in the after into reports that the author of the love lyric she here was the a to the his as to a of the Ottoman the the was the figure of the cultural and political of the Ottoman the which is to his rather than by the “the at a new based on to the was “the first was two hundred were “the first in Ottoman was of and were herself is to have her in the early eighteenth although when Montagu she was still very having the at the age of of her he was not to be with her she was as Montagu up a makes the to “The of which was also to a the as well as the of the love or of is in the is as a of that from are like a of that are even which up from the one and is among are like a of and is are like a of a is like the of for an there a all of two are like two that are which among the a with to the use of poetic as she as at court, as to the language of the have what they call the that a for and which is the the may the translation more than Montagu's own “The in the Her is to in is “The of has are and and as those of a Montagu that this is “a of ... to the ancient of as in the and the of as Montagu the is “a description of the of the all the country of with ... is much the same as an poem by tropes of the the and the but in these also an which Montagu to some to to She that “the of is very in but she that it and she it in her own She also the of the poet and of the which her idea of poetic language as from has very that we are never to of the of an in an ancient by the it with it may be with at the same it appears or to are so well with but have the same and have the same for all Oriental with a to the classical for a or of foreign that she her in Britain may view as Montagu, this be on own not those to extension, she for an or of in a of the translation is more the are without to on to the call I as and it will against the I in not to upon Montagu he very more at the as for to by their own especially on a subject in which one is more than modern of a of with a which is with Montagu's her for a of the Turkish of her own to the translation her role as have the in the of what I the true of the not his went to the of the and her his I understand a of having first her in a where he was the of the had the as in to the rather than the went to the of the Montagu's a to the classical in Greek the which can not the and which is not at all in her with the to the and the of the lyric in to a than would one to the as are more explicitly sometimes associated with She the Turkish lyric in terms that the of she Montagu's to and woman into a a of in the early modern for or women to the and of her Turkish her all the her woman and her poetic are not but are instead is a woman, Montagu's translation the voice of the the male of her work with an of and cultural Although she has the poet's role as not of Greek and but of she has of upon the how well I have in the nor do I to such of which is very also those words which are very and in the Turkish was that had of in the eighteenth although have a certain of a response to not have to an like Montagu to a poet among the and least of all his Montagu's to a between and and Montagu's own although she for a her to Pope, before Montagu describes “the for her of Turkish as This is in the of seeking and from but Montagu may also be as Turkish literature and culture as well as was a one of both she This letter is and for how Montagu as a British poet the Turkish love lyric in presenting it to the British poet of the eighteenth a Montagu's which reveals her with the of the culture and her of even as she describes from culture, has an for as well as She also asserts the and of Turkish literature as Turkish literature, not in and situates it at what she the of poetic it to the and classical She is not Turkish literature, but literature as from the tradition, and as literature, to and this love lyric in her as a of to the tradition. This is not a of Turkish literature but a in which her use of the translation and her of the a lyrical between Britain and the woman as the but an of and the a of the classical to and She situates the and her a context to explicitly her own as Montagu's translation and of this Turkish love lyric reveal her to a women's in as she the poet's and the poet's role the tradition of the British and Turkish in the and

Art · Ballad · Context (archaeology · Linguistics · Literature · Orientalism · Poetry · Politics · Representation (politics · Turkish · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy

• Voyeurism and Aesthetics in the Turkish Bath

  Arthur J Weitzman•Comparative Literature Studies•2002

  Add to list

• Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature

  Open Access•Bernadette Andrea•Women and Islam in Early Modern…•2008

  Add to list

• Harems of the Mind

  Robert Fraser, Ruth Bernard Yeazell•The Modern Language Review•2002

  Add to list

• The Age of Beloveds

  Walter G Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli et al.•Age of Beloveds•2005

  Add to list

• "The Uncanny Stranger on Display"

  Moira P Baker•South Atlantic Review•1991

  Add to list

• Ovid and Eighteenth-Century Divorce

  Isobel Grundy•The Review of English Studies•1972

  Add to list

• Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time

  Paul W Knoll•Sixteenth Century Journal•1979

  Add to list

• Women's Writing in English

  Laura Feitzinger Brown•Sixteenth Century Journal•2007

  Add to list

• Lady Mary's Portable Seraglio

  Joseph W Lew•Eighteenth-Century Studies•1991

  Add to list

• Queer Casanova

  Ted Emery•Italian Culture•2007

  Add to list

• Drawing Christ’s Blood

  Open Access•Una Roman D’Elia•Renaissance Quarterly•2006

  Add to list

• Ovid and the Cultural Politics of Translation in Early Modern England

  Christopher Martin•Sixteenth Century Journal•2008

  Add to list

• Diana Described

  Nancy J Vickers•Critical Inquiry•1981

  Add to list