El ciclo de fa!bulas de animales del "e;Panchatantra"e;, compilado en sa!nscrito hace casi dos mil aaAos, reaAne los relatos hindaAes ma!s difundidos a lo largo de los siglos por todo el mundo, desde China hasta EtiopaA-a. "e;Kalila y Dimna"e; forma parte del ciclo de fa!bulas de animales del "e;Panchatantra"e;, y es sin duda una de las obras ma!s populares de la literatura universal. En Europa circulaA traducida del a!rabe, a partir del siglo XIII, y su influencia va desde Ramon Llull, Chaucer, Boccacio o Cervantes hasta La Fontaine. Esta formidable versiaAn de Ramsay Wood no saAlo moderniza los antiguos relatos Acomo antaaAo hicieron las traducciones medievalesA, sino que combina las principales versiones del sa!nscrito, el persa, el a!rabe e incluso el inglaA(c)s antiguo. Narradas por Wood A--y magnaA-ficamente ilustradas--A, las fa!bulas del sabio Bidpai recobran los brillantes colores de los tapices hindaAes y se nos revelan de nuevo como una obra maestra: el jovial relato de las aventuras de animales nobles a veces, paA-caros a menudo, pero siempre esponta!neos, nos devuelve la imagen de las pasiones humanas en toda su ambivalencia."e;Una obra que se nos presenta limpia de polvo arqueolaAgico, en un sabroso castellano contempora!neo (gran versiaAn de Nicole d'Amonville AlegraA-a), que a su vez trabaja sobre una modaA(c)lica traducciaAn moderna inglesa. AQuaA(c) nos maravilla hoy mismo en tan remoto libro? Su fresca fantasaA-a, la sabiduraA-a moral que esconde, la juguetona astucia con que cuenta los avatares de leopardos cornejas, camellos o chinches, y la condiciaAn oral que procura siempre mantener, y que permite que el argumento ofrezca deliciosos quiebros y sorpresas"e; Carles Barba, La Vanguardia Culturas

Esta publicación recoge las ponencias plenarias y las comunicaciones presentadas y leídas en el VII Simposio Internacional de la SEDLL, que con el título Canon, literatura infantil y juvenil y otras literaturas, fue asumido por la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha y se celebró en Ciudad Real, en diciembre de 2001. Aparecen aquí recogidas también las actividades relacionadas con los estudios mencionadas arriba: talleres y seminarios que suscitaron provechosas discusiones, sugerencias y debates. Como dice Alfredo Rodríguez López-Vázquez en la Presentación: La celebración del VII Simposio con su doble concreción en el título, del objeto de estudio, y de su relación con el canon, ha venido a representar un hito importante. Este Simposio pretendía, ya desde su diseño por parte del Comité Científico, un nuevo planteamiento de orientaciones críticas y metodológicas en el ámbito de la educación y de la investigación en torno a la literatura que leen los niños y los jóvenes de hoy en día en el contexto de la sociedad tecnológica moderna. Creemos que esta publicación permite afirmar que se ha cumplido con los objetivos previstos para cada una de las áreas temáticas.

The masterpieces of medieval Spanish literature have come to be known and loved by Hispanists, and more recently by others throughout the world. But the brilliant illuminations with which the original manuscripts were illustrated have remained almost totally unknown on the shelves of the great European libraries. To redress this woeful neglect, two noted scholars here present a generous selection from this great visual treasury including many examples never before reproduced. John E. Keller and Richard P. Kinkade have chosen five representative works, dating from the mid-thirteenth century to the late fifteenth, to illustrate the richness of early Spanish narrative art. Together, these five works encompass the entire range of narrative techniques and iconography to be found in medieval Spain, and reflect both foreign and native Spanish artistic tendencies. The authors' analyses of the relation between verbalizations and visualizations will provide students of medieval art and literature a wealth of new information expanding our knowledge of this fascinating period. The beauty of many of the illuminations speaks for itself.

KALILA AND DIMNA or The Panchatantra (also known in Europe since 1481 as The Fables of Bidpai) is a multi-layered, inter-connected and variable arrangement of animal stories, with one story leading into another, sometimes three or four deep. These arrangements have contributed to world literature for over 2000 years, migrating across ancient cultures in a multitude of written and oral formats. All our beast fables from Aesop and the Buddhist Jataka Tales through La Fontaine to Uncle Remus owe this strange, shape-shifting 'book' a huge debt. In its original Arabic format, Kalila and Dimna (The Panchatantra being its Sanskrit precursor), ostensibly constitutes a handbook for rulers, a so-called 'Mirror for Princes' illustrating indirectly, through a cascade of teaching stories and verse, how to (and how not to!) run the kingdom of your life. In their slyly profound grasp of human nature at its best (and worst!) these animal fables, usually avoiding any moralistic human criticism, serve up digestible wise counsel for us all. Based on his collation of scholarly translations from key Sanskrit, Syriac, Arabic and Persian texts, as well as the 1570 English rendition by Thomas North, this is the first uncompromisingly modern re-telling in either the East or West for over 400 years. In Ramsay Wood's version the profound meanings behind these ancient fables shine forth as he captures a great world classic, making it fresh, relevant, fascinating and hugely readable. His second volume of fables from KALILA AND DIMNA picks up where the first, Fables of Friendship and Betrayal, left off - covering deceit, political skullduggery, murder, enemies, deadly monsters, kings, bees, princesses, monkeys, lions, crocodiles and how we all live and die together in peace or conflict. This is a book full of outrageously behaved animals and humans doing the most delightfully awful (yet sometimes gentle) things to each other. These are joyous, sad, amusing and sometimes brutal stories; their function being to educate both king and commoner alike in the ways of the world, the harsh realities that can often lurk beneath the surface of our cozy, everyday subjectivity.

First recorded 1500 years ago, but taking its origins from a far earlier oral tradition, the Pancatantra is ascribed by legend to the celebrated, half-mythical teacher Visnu Sarma. Asked by a great king to awaken the dulled intelligence of his three idle sons, the aging Sarma is said to have composed the great work as a series of entertaining and edifying fables narrated by a wide range of humans and animals, and together intended to provide the young princes with vital guidance for life. Since first leaving India before AD 570, the Pancatantra has been widely translated and has influenced a cast number of works in India, the Arab world and Europe, including the Arabian Nights, the Canterbury Tales and the Fables of La Fontaine. Enduring and profound, it is among the earliest and most popular of all books of fables.

The volume explores distinctive issues involved in translating political and social thought. Thirteen contributors consider problems arising from the study of translation and cultural transfers of texts, in particular in terms of translation studies, and the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte).