‘La prefazione alla versione anglosassone dei Soliloquia’

The preface to the Old English version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquia is one of the most important documents produced by the alfredian circle. Conceived as an introduction to a work gleaned from various patristic texts, the preface illustrates metaphorically the translator’s technique, especially with reference to the free rendering of the multiple sources of the final book. In the wood of the Fathers mentioned in the preface Augustine’s dialogue and other sources are hidden: other men are invited to continue the author’s work, developing themes and sections of the sources he wasn’t able to deal with. Thus, gathering wood from the forest can be interpreted as an allegory of how the translator works on his scholarly project by arranging the literary text exactly as the woodsman collects his raw materials.