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Jonatan Pettersson

Research projects

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Models of Change in Medieval Textual Culture

    2025. .

    Book (ed)

    Change is a matter of central concern and interest in the study of history, and it has been approached with various methodological and theoretical means in different historical disciplines. The concept is, however, rarely addressed per se, despite its fundamental role for historical insight. This book addresses different kinds of change in medieval textual culture as examples or models of change. A model can take different forms: it consists of abstract representations, like a flowchart or a series of stages within a development, it might be a concept, like paradigm shift, or a single, but telling historical example. In their different forms, models serve as conceptual tools to enlighten historical instances of change.

    The contributions of this volume gather cases from a series of aspects of medieval textual culture which are subject to change: physical books, the acoustics of performed text, textualized worlds, scribes and authorship, genre, the choice of language in texts, and paleographic variance. The book also addresses problems of thinking in models and metaphors of change, as they also – as idols of the market – have the power to lead us astray if not carefully meditated.

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  • Den fornsvenska Apostlagärningarna i den svenska bibelöversättningens historia.

    2024. Jonatan Pettersson. Arkiv för nordisk filologi 139, 121-158

    Article

    An Old Swedish translation of Acts of the Apostles is preserved in MS Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, A 110, which was written the year 1385 or some years afterin the newly established birgittine Vadstena monastery. One part of Chapter 9, in which Saul is struck to the ground by God on his way to Damascus, also appears in two fifteenthcentury manuscripts in a collection of legends, most of them derived from Legenda aurea. This legend text has been believed to have been copied from the Acts translation (Ståhle1940),  but a close study reveals that the legend text likely predated the Acts translation and was incorporated in it. The time and place of of the Acts translation is discussed from various perspectives and it is suggested, in line with Anderssons’s (2001) interpretation of the MS A 110, that it was carried out for the use within the Vadstena monastery, inaugurated in 1384.

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  • Från Skånske lov till Vasabrev: Stockholmsstudier i östnordisk filologi

    2023. .

    Book (ed)

    De konferensbidrag som publiceras i Från Skånske lov till Vasabrev visar på den bredd som är östnordisk filologi. Artiklarna är baserade på föredrag vid Sällskap för östnordisk filologis femte konferens som hölls 2021, och de spänner tidsmässigt över en period från det tidiga 1200-talets Skånske lov och Jyske lov fram till tidigmodern tid med Vasakvinnornas brev och Johannes Bureus marginalanteckningar. Undersökningarna omfattar handskriftsnära analyser, stemmatologiska utredningar, texthistoriska undersökningar, olika slags språkhistoriska analyser och sociolingvistiska och historiska kontextualiseringar. Författarnas bakgrunder speglar samma bredd, från Oslo till Osaka. 

    Bidragen är skrivna på svenska, danska och engelska.

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  • The Old Swedish Pentateuch Translation and its Reflective Model Reader

    2023. Jonatan Pettersson. Medieval Translations and their Readers, 65-86

    Conference

    Artikeln behandlar den fornsvenska översättningen av Moseböckerna med ett särskilt fokus på de kommentarer som löpande är inflikade i översättningen i syfte att klarlägga egenskaper hos textens förväntade läsare, modelläsaren. Analysen visar att det finns exempel på kommentarer som ansluter till alla de fyra nivåerna av bibelutläggning (historisk, moralisk, typologisk och anagogisk), men att det också finns andra som snarare är inriktade på att ta ansvar för vilka slutsatser som läsaren kan komma att dra av olika händelser. Den förväntade läsaren kan sägas vara en ganska självständig läsare som skulle kunna göra en självständig och kritisk läsning moraliskt och juridiskt problematiska ställen i bibeltexten. Avslutningsvis förs resonemang om var de verkliga, empiriska läsarna skulle kunna stå att finna, och det argumenteras för att adelskretsarna kring kung Magnus Eriksson är en sannolik tilltänkt mottagargrupp.

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  • The Relation between Gotfred of Ghemen's two editions of Flores og Blanseflor

    2023. Jonatan Pettersson. Från Skånske lov till Vasabrev, 55-80

    Chapter

    The Danish verse tale Flores og Blanseflor was printed in Copenhagen twice by the printer Gotfred of Ghemen in the first decade of the fifteenth century. One edition (LN 66) is not dated and only fragmentarily preserved, while the other (LN 67) was printed 1509 and remains in one complete copy. It has been suggested that the 1509 edition was based on the text of the fragment edition. In the article the relation between the two is investigated in detail, and the conclusion is that it is very unlikely that the 1509 edition was a reprint based on the fragment. Instead, both seem to be independently worked out from the same manuscript source. The redactional work in each edition seems to have a different character: the redactor of the fragment edition has exchanged some words in the original for others that are closely related semantically, while the 1509 edition redactor has made changes that affect how characters’ perspectives are expressed and to some extent soften the conflicts between the protagonists.

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  • Flores og Blanseflor – Romance in East Scandinavia an the Introduction of Printed Book Culture in Denmark

    2021. Jonatan Pettersson. Die Dänischen Eufemiaviser und die Rezeption höfischer Kultur im spätmittelalterlichen Dänemark - The Eufemiaviser and the Reception of Courtly Culture in Late Medieval Denmark, 57-89

    Chapter

    The article addresses the question of what happened to the genre of romance when printing technology was taken into use in the late 15th and early 16th century Denmark, at a time when hand-written manuscripts still were being produced. East Scandinavian Romance had a history from the beginning of the 14th century in Sweden, when the three Eufemiavisor was created, and they continued to attract interest in Late Middle Ages up to the beginning of the 16th century. They appear in Danish manuscripts in the last decades of 15th century, but when the printing technology is introduced, they seem to play a less prominent role, as only one text, Flores and Blanseflor survives in the first phase of printing. In the article, it is argued that the choice to print this particular text probably lies in its ability to respond to Late Medieval currents and the new urban literary market, but also that it perhaps should be understood within the context of a Late Medieval religious reading of romances.

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  • De teologiska utredningarna i Medeltidens bibelarbeten 1.

    2019. Jonatan Pettersson. Arkiv för nordisk filologi 134, 49-102

    Article

    The collection of texts that usually are called Medeltidens bibelarbeten 1 (Medieval Bible Works 1, MB 1) contains a commented translation of the Pentateuch and some supporting texts, all probably from the first half of the fourteenth century. Among the supporting texts are two collections of theological expositions in the Old Swedish vernacular, which appear before and after the Pentateuch translation in the manuscripts. The first deals with questions of the creation and the original sin, the other one with the Old Law, and they are mainly translations of excerpts from Thomas of Aquinas’ Summa theologiæ. The investigations show clear indications of that it was the same person who translated and created the theological expositions and the Pentateuch translation, something that has been previously assumed but never investigated closely. The theme of the second theological exposition relates closely to an important feature of the translation method in the Pentateuch and there are close connections between the expositions and the comments of the Bible translation. From an investigation of metatextual comments it is argued that the Pentateuch translation was carried out first and the expositions later. Altogether, the connection between the supplementary texts and the Pentateuch translation improves our opportunities to discuss MB 1 as a work, what kind of reader MB 1 was intended for, and its place in the Swedish and Nordic text history of the fourteenth century in general.

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  • Textforskningen och översättningarna

    2012. Jonatan Pettersson. Språk och stil 22 (1), 162-186

    Article

    Translations have often been treated as texts of less interest and importance within text research, more often considered a problem rather than a resource. This article discusses the potential of both the translation process and the translated texts for different kinds of text research. The role of translations and translation theory within text historical research is first discussed, with focus on the

    Swedish Sakprosa project. Secondly, conceptions of translation among text users are treated and connections are drawn to text ethnographic and genre oriented research. Thirdly, the focus is placed on to the text producer and the writing process, and the article turns to discussing how knowledge of the translation process might be helpful when investigating other kinds of writing processes. Translation is then discussed within a systemic-functional theoretical perspective and the article points out how a discussion of translation might be valuable for the theoretical description and understanding of different kinds of text processing. The article draws the conclusion that text research should not consider translation and translations a problem but rather as potential resources for deepening our knowledge of texts and writing in general.

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  • Fri översättning i det medeltida Västnorden

    2009. Jonatan Pettersson (et al.).

    Thesis (Doc)

    In this thesis, medieval free translation is explored as a text-producing practice as it appears in Alexanders saga, a 13th century Old Norse translation of the medieval Latin epic Alexandreis. The practice is investigated through analyses of (1) the rendering of the source text and (2) the translator’s role in making the target text. The rendering is analyzed through a systematic comparison between source and target text using a method of analysis based on systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Contrary to what was assumed previously, the rendering pro­ves to be consistent in the text, but a surprising result is that the rendering in chapters 2–4 and in chapters 1 and 6–10 respectively represent two significantly dif­ferent patterns, the former being closer to the source text than the latter, pre­sumably due to two different translators. The investigation further confirms an observation in previous research on Old Norse free translation that the rendering of parts in direct speech are closer to the source than that of narrative and descriptive discourse. The rendering is closest where the translator indicates that he is quoting the author of the source text. These patterns are found in both groups of chapters, and as they are confirmed in other Old Norse translations, they might be interpreted as a translation norm. The conceptions of translation are further investigated by examining what kind of text-producing role the translator assumes. It is claimed that, despite the freedom in free ren­dering, the translator assumes the role of intermediary between the source text and the receivers of the target text rather than the role of independent text pro­ducer. From an analysis of the translator’s metatextual additions, it seems as though this is also what the translator assumes the receivers of the text expect him to do.

    The results indicate the presence of certain conceptions of how translation was to be carried out in West Nordic society. The ”free” translation strategies did not mean freedom from or obliviousness to translation norms, but rather re­late to a specific text-producing practice.

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  • Translators and narrators. The translation of subjectivity in Old Norse literature.

    2009. Jonatan Pettersson. Translation an the (Trans)formation of Identities., 1-17

    Conference

    The medieval, indigenous narratives of Iceland and Norway, the sagas, are generally recognised for their objective style. However, in 13th century West Nordic texts, explicit subjectivity as a literary strategy appears, e.g. through the use of an active narrator in the story. The translation of courtly literature seems to have played an important role in the introduction of the subjective features, and the new strategies challenged the objectivity of the indigenous texts. In this paper, it is argued that different ways of handling subjectivity by translators in Norway and Iceland might be explained by the differences between the two societies, if we use the polysystem theory of Even-Zohar (1990) as a theoretical framework.

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Lecturer, Associate professor in Scandinavian languages

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