Congratulations to Eleoma Bodammer on the award of the Jack Medal 2024

Eleoma Bodammer (University of Edinburgh) was awarded the Jack Medal for the chapter ‘John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895): Translating Faust I in Scotland (1834),’ published in Deutsch-Britischer Kulturtransfer im Vormärz, (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2024) edited by Andrew Cusack, Department of German.

Statement: “I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded the 2024 Jack Medal for my chapter ‘John Stuart Blackie (1809-1895): Translating Faust I in Scotland (1834),’ which was published in the book Deutsch-britischer Kulturtransfer im Vormärz [German-British Cultural Transfer in the Vormärz], edited by Andrew Cusack (Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2024). At a time when Modern Languages departments across the UK are under the considerable pressure of cuts and closures, it seems timely that the 2024 Jack Medal committee has chosen to recognise research that focuses on the historical importance of language learning abroad, the significance of the knowledge of literature, culture, and history for the development of language and translation skills, the value of literary translation, and Scotland’s strong cultural connections with Europe.

My chapter focuses partly on the ways in which the Scottish Professor John Stuart Blackie introduced German literature to British readers, and partly on one of his most important achievements, his metrical English translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust I (1808), published in 1834. Blackie held the Chair of Greek at the University of Edinburgh (1852-1882) but had a life-long passion for the German language and German literature that originated while pursuing his studies as a young man at the universities in Göttingen and Berlin in Germany (1829-1830). Alongside Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Blackie became a prolific cultural mediator of German literature in Scotland, and published essays, translations and book reviews in British periodicals that created a significant context for the emerging academic field of German Studies in Scotland in the nineteenth century. A central focus in my chapter is Blackie’s contribution to nineteenth-century translation theories and I concentrate on his use of metaphors in his translator’s preface to Faust I in order to explain his translation approach. I draw on Rainer Guldin’s classification system for translation metaphors in order to interpret Blackie’s ideas about translation.

I would like to thank the British Academy for supporting this research in the form of a Small Research Grant, shared with Professor Essaka Joshua (University of Notre Dame), and the AHRC for awarding me a Research Fellowship to work on my project ‘Scottish-German Cultural Exchange’.”