The Prismatic Jane Eyre Schools Project (2021–2022), an AHRC-funded joint project between the University of Oxford and the Stephen Spender Trust, and led by Dr Eleni Philippou, has now come to a close. The Project drew on translation as an educational tool to explore how Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel has been translated since its publication in 1847 and how its plots and themes can be used as a springboard for new creative works. The project comprised of three core activities: a series of translation workshops; a nation-wide translation competition; and a bank of resources for teachers and pupils.
The bank of resources aims to allow more young people to enjoy creative translation activities based on Jane Eyre. Initially developed to support entries to the competition, these resources now provide a lasting legacy for the Project.
Three types of resources are available:
1)A handout that outlines an approach to creating a poem from a passage of prose (all languages)
2)PowerPoint workshops for teachers to deliver in school with accompanying worksheets (Arabic, French, Polish, Spanish)
3)Pupil-led activity worksheets (Arabic, French, Polish, Spanish).
The Project’s resources are available here and here. To accompany these resources, the PJE team created a short video explaining what creative translation is, and why it’s important. The video is available here.
The Project’s creative translation competition was launched on 30 September 2021 – International Translation Day. Young people from across the UK were asked to compose a poem in another language inspired by a selected passage from Jane Eyre. The competition accepted submissions in any language, and all entries needed to be accompanied by a literal translation into English.
Some of the competition’s best entries have been included in an anthology. To celebrate the launch of the anthology and International Translation Day 2022, we asked three young writers to read their excellent poems and translations in this video, and tell us a little about their work.