Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Turkish Embassy Letters: Gardens and Gardeners in Transcultural Mediation

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Pages: 47-56
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/XWYK3532

Abstract:

This article uses as its basis an article by Ludmilla Kostova, “Acts of Intercultural and Interlingual Mediation in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters” (VTU, 2020), in which Kostova addresses the representation of translation and the role of the interpreter in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s 1763 publication, The Turkish Embassy Letters. Gardens and natural landscapes were prevalent in Wortley Montagu’s writing throughout her life, and this article proposes that gardens may also be regarded as a mode of communication, one in which symbolism and cultural and religious reference feature frequently. Drawing on Kostova’s presentation of Wortley Montagu as a “mediator” of Turkish culture, which uses Debrix and Weber’s conceptualisation of the act of intercultural translation, I suggest that Wortley Montagu’s depiction of various garden spaces in Adrianople (now Edirne), both illuminates and obscures aspects of the culture and society she attempts to depict.

Keywords:

women’s travel writing, eighteenth-century, gardens, Turkey, interpretation

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