Scénographies de la pseudo-traduction I. Enjeux littéraires d’un dispositif marginal

Martens, David; Vanacker, Beatrijs

doi:10.1484/j.llr.1.103536

Cited by 4 publications

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“…The sheer ubiquity of these supposedly translated novels, which often featured a similar argumentation in their prefaces (e.g. the lost manuscript, the translator's liberties towards the original, …) was evidence enough for most of the readers not to take the translation claim at face value (Charles, 2013;Martens & Vanacker, 2013). And even | 87 VANACKER if a minority of them did exactly that, these 'naïve' readers were also used to the common practice of belles infidèles (Zuber, [1968(Zuber, [ ] 1995Mounin, 1994) in actual translations (Cointre & Rivara, 2006).…”

Section: Dang Ling Fi C Ti On S Lef T Un S I G Nedmentioning

confidence: 97%

Depicting imaginary authorship

Vanacker

2018

Orbis Litterarum

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Mimicking translational practice, pseudotranslations—original texts that present themselves as translations—hold the potential of laying bare some literary conventions that shaped the literary context in which they appear. This is also illustrated by the ambivalent nature of pseudotranslations—seen as translation by some, and as original by others—which challenges the idea of authorship in relation to modes of textual transfer. This article proposes to investigate the depiction of authorship in eighteenth‐century French pseudotranslations. The analysis will illustrate how their paratextual staging of both imaginary author and (pseudo‐)translator conveys a (meta)fictional commentary, based on a playful oscillation between construction and dismantlement. This hypothesis will be addressed through close‐readings of Mylord Stanley, ou le criminel vertueux (1747), Histoire de Miss Honora (1766) and Le philosophe anglois, ou histoire de Mr. Cleveland (1731). These novels, all part of the ‘Anglomania’ movement, critically engage with images of authorship and translatorship. A comparative reading of their paratexts will bring out the interplay between the imaginary author as an embodiment of the cultural authority of the source text and the creative impetus drawn from his alleged unreliability as an author (and narrator), as well as that of the translator.

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