Skip to main content
Open Book Publishers

6. Commissioning Political Sympathies: The British Council’s Translation of Jane Eyre in Greece

Chapter of: Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages(pp. 368–397)

Export Metadata

  • ONIX 3.0
    • Thoth
    • Project MUSE
      Cannot generate record: No BIC or BISAC subject code
    • OAPEN
    • JSTOR
      Cannot generate record: No BISAC subject code
    • Google Books
      Cannot generate record: No BIC, BISAC or LCC subject code
    • OverDrive
      Cannot generate record: No priced EPUB or PDF URL
  • ONIX 2.1
  • CSV
  • JSON
  • OCLC KBART
  • BibTeX
  • CrossRef DOI deposit
    Cannot generate record: This work does not have any ISBNs
  • MARC 21 Record
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
  • MARC 21 Markup
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
  • MARC 21 XML
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
Metadata
Title6. Commissioning Political Sympathies
SubtitleThe British Council’s Translation of Jane Eyre in Greece
ContributorEleni Philippou(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0319.10
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0319/chapters/10.11647/obp.0319.10
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightEleni Philippou
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2023-11-14
Long abstractThe first book translation of Jane Eyre was translated into Modern Greek by Ninila Papagiannē, and published in 1949 by Ikaros publishers under the aegis of the British Council in Greece. This translation, published at the end of the Greek Civil War, was part of a wider political and ideological strategy conducted by Britain to make Greece conducive to British influence. In the wake of the Cold War, Britain was conscious of Greece’s significant political and geographic importance, and adopted a policy of soft power that included the translation of English classics, such as Jane Eyre, to cultivate political sympathy towards Britain.
Page rangepp. 368–397
Print length30 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Eleni Philippou

(author)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Research Centre at University of Oxford
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0211-8673

Eleni Philippou is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Research Centre at the University of Oxford. She is also the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded Prismatic Jane Eyre Schools project, which follows on from her postdoctoral work on the OWRI-funded Creative Multilingualism project. Her monograph, Speaking Politically: Adorno and Postcolonial Fiction (2021), explores the implications of Adorno’s philosophy for literary studies, particularly in relation to texts that emerge from situations of political extremity. Her key research interests are postcolonial and world literature, contemporary poetry, critical theory, comparative literature, and translation studies. Furthermore, she is an award-winning poet, with a number of poems published in both British and international anthologies and journals.

References
  1. Arapoglou, Eleftheria, ‘“The Art of the Novel”: Henry James’s Reception in Greece’, in The Reception of Henry James in Europe, ed. by Annick Duperray (New York: Continuum, 2006), pp. 225–34.
  2. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 10, Memorandum British Council Work in Greece: 1945/6.
  3. Brontë, Charlotte, Jane Eyre [Tzeēn Eyr], trans. by Ninila Papagiannē (Athens, Ikaros, 1949).
  4. ——, Jane Eyre [Tzeēn Eyr], trans. by Dimitris Kikizas (Athens, Smili, 1997).
  5. Coleman, J.A, Dictionary of Mythology (London: Arcturus, 2007).
  6. Dalpanagioti, Dimitra, ‘The Translation of William Shakespeare’s Plays and the Changing Concept of Womanhood in Greece (1875–1955)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, November 2020).
  7. Denisi, Sophia, The Translation of Novels and Novellas 1830–1880: An Introductory Study and Record, [Metafrasis Mithistorimatōn kai Diēgēmatōn 1830–1880: Eisagōgiki Meletē kai Katagrafē] (Athens: Periplus, 1995).
  8. Drinkwater, Derek, ‘Leeper, Sir Reginald Wildig Allen [Rex] (1888–1968)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/55366
  9. Farinou-Malamatari, Georgia, ‘Ninila Papagiannē: A Hidden Presence’ in Modern Greek Literature of the Twentieth-century. A volume in honour of Eris Stavropoulou [Themata Neoellinikēs Logotechnias tou eikostoy aiōna. Timētikos tomos gia tēn Eri Stavropoulou], ed. by T. Agathos, L, Iaokeimidou, G. Ksourias. (Athens, Gutenberg, 2020), pp. 578–88.
  10. Iatrides, John O, “Britain, The United States, and Greece, 1945–9” in The Greek Civil War, 1943–1950: Studies of Polarization, ed. by David Close (London: Routledge, 1993) pp. 190–213.
  11. Kasinēs, K. G, Bibliography of Greek Translations of Foreign Literature, 19th–20th Centuries (Volume I)1801–1900, [Vivliographia Tōn Hellēnikōn Metaphraseōn Tēs Xenēs Logotechnias 19.-20. Ai. Prōtos Tomos] Autoteleis ekdoseis (Athēnai: Syllogos Pros Diadosin Ōphelimōn Vivliōn, 2006).
  12. ——, Bibliography of Greek Translations of Foreign Literature, 19th–20th Centuries (Volume II) 1901–1950, [Vivliographia Tōn Hellēnikōn Metaphraseōn Tēs Xenēs Logotechnias 19.-20. Ai. Deyphteros Tomos 1901–1950] Autoteleis ekdoseis (Athēnai: Syllogos Pros Diadosin Ōphelimōn Vivliōn, 2013).
  13. Kitsi-Mitakou, Katerina, and Maria Vara, ‘The Reception of Jane Austen in Greece’, in The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe, ed. by Anthony Mandal and Brian Southam (London: Continuum, 2007), pp. 225–39.
  14. Koutsopanagou, Gioula, ‘“To Cast Our Net Very Much Wider”: The Re-Opening of the British Council in Athens and Its Cultural Activities in Greece’, in The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955, ed. by Peter Mackridge and David Ricks (London and New York: Routledge, 2018) pp. 39–68.
  15. MacDonald, Charlotte, ‘Jane Eyre at Home and Abroad’, in Ten Books That Shaped the British Empire: Creating an Imperial Commons, ed. by Antoinette Burton and Isabel Hofmeyr (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), pp. 50–70.
  16. Mackridge, Peter, ‘Introduction’, in British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955, ed. by Peter Mackridge and David Ricks (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 1–20.
  17. Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44. (New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, 2001).
  18. Muir, Augustus, ‘Famous English Women Novelists’, Anglo-Greek Review [Anglo-Hellēnikē Epitheōrēsē], 4 (1949), 8–11.
  19. Pierce – American College of Greece, ‘Founding and Development’, https://www.pierce.gr/en/founding-development/
  20. Philippou, Eleni, ‘Perennial Penelope and Lingering Lotus-Eaters: Revaluing Mythological Figures in the Poetry of the Greek Financial Crisis’, Dibur Literary Journal, 5 (2018), 71–86.
  21. ——, ‘“Reader, I went through a wedding ceremony with him”: Translating Jane Eyre’, Creative Multilingualism, 7 Dec. 2017, https://creativeml.ox.ac.uk/blog/exploring-multilingualism/reader-i-went-through-wedding-ceremony-him-translating-jane-eyre/index.html
  22. Sahinis, Apostolos, ‘The English Novel’, Anglo-Greek Review [Anglo-Hellēnikē Epitheōrēsē], 5 (1951), 157–58.
  23. Tziovas, Dimitris. ‘Between Propaganda and Modernism: The Anglo-Greek Review and the Discovery of Greece’, The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945–1955, ed. by Peter Mackridge and David Ricks (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 123–54.
  24. Venuti, Lawrence. Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice (London; New York: Routledge, 2013).
  25. Vulliamy, Ed and Helena Smith, “Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret”, The Guardian, 30 Nov 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret
  26. Zacharia, Sofia-Konstantina. ‘Domestication and Foreignization in Jane Eyre’ (Unpublished doctoral thesis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, March 2022).
  27. Γ.Ν.Α., ‘Review of Lawrence Hanson’s The Four Brontës (1950)’, Nea Estia, 50 (1951), 1327.
  28. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 20, British Institute Athens Annual Report 1947–48.
  29. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 20, Annual Report 1948/49, Books & Publications Department.
  30. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 20, Annual Report 1949/50, Books & Publications Department.
  31. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 25, Annual Report of Functional Officer (1951).
  32. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 25, Representative’s Annual Report 1951–1952.
  33. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 25, Representative’s Annual Report 1952–1953.
  34. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 30, Representative’s Annual Report 1955–1956.
  35. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 20, Annual Report of the British Institute of Salonica 1948/49.
  36. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 30, Annual Library Report 1950.
  37. Kew, National Archives, box 34, folder 25, Representative’s Annual Report 1954–1955.