A game of English make-believe: Reading eighteenth-century French pseudotranslations

ABSTRACT

Recent research on pseudotranslations demonstrates the aesthetic, political and socio-cultural purposes these texts served throughout history; yet their recurrent metafictional play on reading has not been addressed before. This article argues that it is precisely by looking at the paratextual discourse on “reading” – and how it is received by both critics and translators – that one gains a better insight into the specific functioning of pseudotranslation within a given historical context. The various forms and functions of this self-reflective discourse are analysed by examining, firstly, how it was staged in the paratextual framework of two eighteenth-century novels; and secondly, how (French) critics and (German and English) translators playfully picked up on the make-believe. The sometimes conflicting paratextual markers set out through the staging of various forms of reading and interpretation thus reveal a literary context where texts could be presented as originals and translations, allowing the reader to navigate freely between both.

KEYWORDS:

• Pseudotranslation
• reading
• eighteenth-century prose fiction
• paratext
• metafiction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Beatrijs Vanacker is an FWO (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek/Research Foundation) postdoctoral research fellow at KU Leuven, Belgium, where she conducts research on the transnational spread of the novel in the eighteenth century, with a focus on literary (pseudo)translation and women writers. Her book Altérité et identité dans les “Histoires anglaises” au dix-huitième siècle: contexte(s), réception et discours was published by Brill in 2016. She co-edited special issues on pseudotranslation in Les Lettres Romanes, Interférences Littéraires and Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. She published articles on eighteenth-century women's writing and literary translation in Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Studi Francesi, Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft and Les Lettres Romanes.

Notes

1. All translations are the author's, unless stated otherwise.

2. In his monograph, Jenn refers to this specific case to illustrate the inapplicability of Toury's “emancipation through (pseudo)translation” theory to any literary system prior to the “compartmentalism” (cloisonnement), when literature was created in a context of openness and constant mutation (2013, 22).

3. See Martens (2010) for an analysis of this specific case.

4. See Martens (2010, 75): “Ce traducteur pourrait préserver le dispositif paratextuel propre à une traduction en annotant les notes qui accompagnent l’original et le citer dans sa langue pour crédibiliser la supercherie. Mais à travers une telle stratégie, il transgresserait la loi économique de la traduction en redoublant un jeu de notes marquant déjà – bien que sur le mode du simulacre – l’échec – ou du moins le caractère factice – de la traduction au sens strict.” [This translator could preserve the paratext, characteristic of translation, by annotating the notes that accompany the original and quoting it in his language to add credit to the mystification. But by using this strategy, he would transgress the economic law of translation, by doubling a game of notes that already marked – even if in the mode of a simulacrum – the failure – or at least the factitious character – of translation as such.]

5. For an overview of these authentication strategies, see also Hakim (2012, 114–119).

6. See also Lettres de Miss Elisabeth Auréli, petite-nièce du célèbre docteur Swift, traduites de l’anglois (1765), where the reading scene is staged in the intimate setting of the translator's bedroom: “Sur le champ, elle tire un paquet de sa poche: je vous en fais présent, me dit-elle, mais j’exige que vous les traduisiez dans votre langue. Je ne fus pas plutôt monté dans ma chambre, que j’ouvris le paquet pour voir ce que ces Lettres renfermoient” (pp. xiii–xiv) [She immediately took a bundle of letters out of her pocket; I offer them as a present, she said to me, but I demand that you translate them into your own language. As soon as I had gone up to my room, I opened the bundle to see what the Letters contained.]

7. For a thorough analysis of aesthetical discourse in eighteenth century France, see Kremer (2011).

8. In his unpublished doctoral dissertation (1999), Benoît Léger provides a detailed analysis of the paratextual framework at play in Le nouveau Gulliver. Although he hints at the possibility of the different paratexts functioning as “mode de lecture” (181), this is not a central motif in his argumentation.

9. As for Le nouveau Gulliver, all English quotations are taken from the English translation as far as they provide a translation of the French paratext.

10. See, for instance, La Bibliothèque Belgique: “Ce n’est pas ici, selon l’auteur, un roman […] Il est difficile de le persuader à ceux qui en ont fait lecture; même le simple titre semble être un préservatif contre la crédulité. Un fils naturel de Cromwell paraît un objet trop chimérique, et trop opposé à la vraisemblance historique, pour qu’une personne de tant soit peu de lecture et de bon sens puisse être la dupe de cette invention.” (Sermain 2006, 281) [This is not, according to the author, a novel […] It is difficult to convince those who have read it that it is not. A natural son of Cromwell seems too unrealistic a subject and too opposed to historical probability for a well-read and sensible person to be the victim of this invention].

11. Even decades later, in a review on Lettres écossaises (1765) in Le Mercure de France, the reviewer wittingly refers to the double reading contract that takes form through the paratextual framework: “L’éditeur anglois, ou plutôt l’auteur de ces lettres, les donne comme une copie de celles de Miss Elisabeth Auréli, petite nièce du célèbre docteur Swift, écrivait pendant ses voyages […] Sans doute qu’il laisse à ses lecteurs la liberté d’ajouter ou de ne pas ajouter foi à ce cadre ingénieux” (1777, 109) [The English editor, or rather author of these letters, presents them as a copy of those written by Miss Elisabeth Auréli, grand-niece of the famous doctor Swift, during her travels (…). He probably allows his readers to decide whether or not to add faith to this ingenious framework].

12. See also, for instance, a review on Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni's Lettres de Mistriss Fanny Butlerd (1757) in the Mercure de France: “La première édition de ces lettres a paru il y a trois ans. Malgré l’air de traduction qu’on a voulu leur donner, elles ont un caractère national sur lequel le Public ne s’est pas mépris” (1760, 93) [The first edition of these letters was published three years ago. Despite the air of translation which was attributed to these letters, they hold a national character by which the public will not be deceived].

13. This comment could, of course, also refer to the English version of the novel, published shortly before the French version (see below), yet the actual order of both languages (first English, then French) at least subscribes to the general idea of English being the original language.

14. See also Deloffre (1994, 290): “Curieusement, il semble avoir fait une apparition discrète dans la préface anglaise sous le masque du ‘gentilhomme français’ connaissant fort bien l’anglais, dont l’existence ne correspond, semble-t-il, à aucune nécessité” [Curiously, he seems to have made a discreet appearance in the English preface under the guise of a ‘French gentleman’ very fluent in English, but whose existence seems unnecessary].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [grant number 12A1213N].