Baudelaire's rewriting of Poe : a para-textual critique of the translations

• Main Author: Wallaert, Ineke
• Published: University of Edinburgh 2004
• Subjects: 410
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.663413

In this thesis I present a critique of Baudelaire’s translations of Poe’s short fiction, applying the method of Translation Criticism proposed by Antoine Berman in <i>Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne </i>(Berman 1995). The post-structuralist theory of meaning which underlies Berman’s approach is elaborated, and its appropriateness for the description of translation products is explained by its perspective on translation as a form of rewriting, and by its recognition of the importance of para-text as a tool in Translation Criticism. The specific questions which Berman proposes for Translation Criticism are then applied to an analysis of the <i>translation </i>of Poe’s short fiction by Baudelaire. The story of these translations is first told through a series of pre-analytical enquires which form a hermeneutic construct of data concerning Baudelaire’s position as a language user and as a (re)writer, his stance as a translator, his project for the translation of Poe and the literary and translational horizon in which he was working. These pre-analytical enquiries are followed up by a detailed analysis of two stories in translation, “La chute de la Maison Usher” and “Le scarabée d’or,” which are assessed and compared to the originals in terms of the different readings which they produce. The divergences that can be observed are explained, whenever possible, with the data gathered during the pre-analytical enquiries. Baudelaire’s translation of “The Gold Bug” is also compared with a contemporary translation of Amédée Pichot, in order to help place the Baudelaire translations in their nineteenth-century context. This para-textual critique of the Baudelaire translations thus tells the story of these translations at a level of fine detail which provides a solid basis for the broader theoretical conclusions which I draw, including an assessment of the value of Baudelaire’s texts in the 21^st century.