Medievalist forgery? Editions, adaptations, and translations of Kudrun in the nineteenth century

This ‘terms of art’ essay considers whether, and how far, the term forgery can usefully be applied to the study of translations and adaptations in the context of Anglo-German nineteenth-century medievalism, with a particular focus on the reception of the thirteenth-century epic, Kudrun. It addresses the importance of intention and purpose on the part of the editor, translator, or adapter, and considers whether a reader might experience a text as a forgery even when the text itself cannot reasonably be identified as such. As revealed by analysis of Martin Anton Niendorf’s German translation of Kudrun (1855) and Emma Letherbrow’s English prose adaptation (1863), the language of forgery has more to contribute to the discussion of translations and adaptations than of editions, not because translations or adaptations are inherently in any sense forgeries, but because such works offer greater opportunities for their authors to conceal their purposes and interventions.