The ‘integrity’ of the translated play-text

ABSTRACT

This article makes a case for reassessing the ‘integrity’ (meaning: completeness and condition of being unmarred) of stage-oriented translations as written texts. First, I argue that theatre translations can fully lend themselves to a literary analysis, which leads us to make a case for studying them with a diachronic perspective, and to consider them as historiographical tools. The idea of integrity of translated play-texts, however, faces a major obstacle: not only has the inseparability of text and performance been put forward by a prominent branch of semiotics, but this inseparability is argued to be a fundamental component of the translation process by critics and practitioners. The idea of an ‘integrity’ (meaning: completeness) of the target text is unquestionably negated in certain types of collaborative practices. After considering some of the main criticisms put forward, the article will envisage cases in which the textual integrity can still be validated. Without altogether refuting these objections, this article still maintains that, at least, the integrity (meaning: unmarred, unviolated) of the target text, in some cases, can be preserved through the processes of collaborative translation.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrity
• text
• theatre
• translation
• collaboration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Brodie’s recent work (2018a) show that literal translations are also worthy of close study.

2. One must nevertheless note that the collective book Theatre Translation in Performance (2013) devotes space for three essays on non-contemporary translations.

3. Lorna Hardwick’s scholarship is one of the notable exceptions. This reveals that diachronic study of different theatre translations tends to be limited to the field of reception studies, rather than involving the broader field of theatre translation. Brodie also proposes a welcome study of Harrison’s Hecuba ‘alongside a selection of differently authored versions of Hecuba in English translation’ (2014, 54) considering his work as ‘literature’.

4. See below note 10.

5. This was revealed by McGough in a public lecture given at the British library, London, in February 2016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cédric Ploix

Cédric Ploix is finishing his DPhil on English translations of seventeenth-century French theatre at the University of Oxford. His research interests include translation studies, multilingual theatre and Early Modern French literature.