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In his novela ejemplar "La española inglesa," Cervantes writes a world in which the apparently irreconcilable differences between English and Spanish, Anglican and Catholic are overcome by the power of love. It is a story that surprises with its tolerant view of England, and particularly of England's queen. Considering this positive portrayal of England, it is little wonder that the Spanish novela was translated into English, and one might expect that English readers were pleased to find such a favorable account of their homeland. Except that such could not have been the case; for the translation is significantly different from the original Spanish. James Mabbe, who published his collection of translated Exemplarie Novells in 1640, translated "La española inglesa" in far from straightforward fashion. His English version of the tale erases references to England and London, and to Britain more generally, leaving a strangely disordered geography. The world that Cervantes writes is overwritten in translation.
Mabbe's translation has long been noted for its obfuscation of England-rewriting not only the geography of the novela but also the religious, political, and socio-economic conflicts that lie at the heart of the story. Why does Mabbe translate "La española inglesa" with such sweeping changes? The most common answer to this question has been that Mabbe capitulated to ideological and political pressures, bowdlerizing Cervantes's novela in an effort to save himself from censorship or retaliation. Such an answer, however, begs further questions. Mabbe, who translates only six of the twelve Novelas ejemplares, chooses "La española inglesa" as one of them. If Mabbe's elisions and alterations are initially or primarily motivated by political anxieties, why choose to translate the novela at all? And if the changes are not an attempt to write out an ideologically deviant voice, why does Mabbe translate a story that is specifically about England only to remove England from the novela?1
In contrast to these readings of the changes as politically and ideologically conservative efforts by Mabbe, I argue that Mabbe's translational practice can best be understood by examining his treatment of other problematic Spanish texts. Analysis of Mabbe's translations of other Spanish texts provides insight into how and why he chose to translate "La española inglesa." In particular, a consideration of Mabbe's paratextual material, in which...