Los diccionarios en la traducción de la literatura española durante el siglo XVII: Francia e Italia

Abstract

The literary relationships between Spain, France and Italy were strong during the 17th and 18th centuries. The interest in their respective literary works promoted many translations with the aim of making them accessible to interested readers. Dictionaries became a fundamental tool to facilitate understanding of confusing expressions and ambiguous words, both for native speakers and for translators. This paper focuses on the relationships between literature and lexicography and particularly on how the vocabulary of Cervantes’ works is presented in some of the most important monolingual and bilingual dictionaries in the 17th century: Covarrubias (1611), Oudin (1607) and Franciosini (1620). Bilingual lexicographic repertoires contained long explanations and not only a sequence of equivalent words. They included extensive definitions, information about idiomatic expressions, examples and proverbs which helped to understand the literary texts.