Mylesean Titles: Intertextual Pleasures

Since the particular titles assigned to literary texts always implicitlychallenge readers to find ways of making them as interesting a component aspossible of the literary experience, readers are encouraged to identify as soonas possible what may seem to be the most appropriate approach to the text – eventhough the particular approach chosen may quite often turn out to be seriously inadequateor even quite wrong-headed. Translated titles may of course encourage asignificantly different approach. The present discussion focuses, first, onreaders' likely reactions to the original titles of the works of Brian O'Nolan,alias Flann O'Brien, alias Myles na gCopaleen, and, second, on the likelyreactions of target-language readers to the titles of some fifty translationsof those same works in a range of European languages.