ABSTRACT
Because they are necessarily “defective,” all translations are “reputed females.” In this neat equation, John Florio (1603) summarizes a heritage of double inferiority. Translators and women have historically been the weaker figures in their respective hierarchies: translators are handmaidens to authors, women inferior to men. This forced partnership finds contemporary resonance in Nicole Ward Jouve’s statement that the translator occupies a “(culturally speaking) female position” (Jouve 1991: 47). And Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood’s echoing self-definition: “I am a translation because I am a woman” (de Lotbinière-Harwood 1991: 95).
