FrançaisConference : The contradictions of the globalisation of the publishing industry
Translating/adapting the classics of American 'popular' literature into French or on the art of 'making new out of the old'
Author/s : Jean-Marc Gouanvic
The current French book market reflects a common practice today of foreign literature publishers republishing, with small if any modifications, various works of translations/adaptations done immediately after the original foreign work was published. This practice is not without consequences, both for the works themselves or for the source and target societies. Serving to highlight this point are specific cases taken from within American literature: The Last of the Mohicans (1826, James F. Cooper), Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe), and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884, Mark Twain). We will analyse some of the effects that republishing these novels have generated through the translations of A.-J.-B. Defauconpret (Cooper; 1826), Louis Énault (H.B. Stowe, 1853), and André Bay (Twain, 1960) [the latter translation was proceded by one by Suzanne Nétillard in 1948]. This recycling operation is based on the implicit belief (even though publishers view this as an economic opportunity to distribute foreign literature at the least cost) that nineteenth-century translators translate approximately like those of today. This fuels the idea that translation of the classics has to be read within a certain historical distance, like the originals. All this, however, is not self-evident. We will ask what it means to 'read a classic in translation' and explore how contemporary issues of globalisation are articulated within the scope of reading the classics.
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Meetings
« ESSE » Network
January 9th-10th, 2009 - Intellectual space in Europe (19th-21st c.)
Dir. G. Sapiro, F. Schultheis, V. Dubois
Publications & activities
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