not show any variation, from the very first to the very last draft. This could indicate that I felt at
ease translating the passages, and that my translation corresponded to what I perceived to be the
original meaning and effect. Of course, it does not mean that it contains no shifts. Indeed, the
equivalence of a given effect is sometimes not immediate in the translation, but achieved later in
the text. For instance, the allusion to male masturbation (“jerk off”) in “He jerked himself onto a
stool” (Apostolides, 2012: 41) is lost in my translation, “Il a grimpé lourdement sur un tabouret”
(Apostolides, 2015: 51), which focuses solely on the movement of sitting down with difficulty.
And I remember thinking at the time that it was an unavoidable loss, since I could find no verb
that could convey both actions at once. However, a few lines later, I compensated for said loss by
translating “The fabric parted for her fingers” (Apostolides, 2012: 41) as “Le tissu s’est entrouvert
pour laisser passer ses doigts.” (Apostolides, 2015: 51) Here, *laisser passer* evokes the expression
*se passer le doigt*, which alludes to female masturbation.

Of the four excerpts that do present changes during the “section by section” phrase, two mainly contain minor grammatical changes, such as the addition of pronouns and auxiliaries for a more fluid structure or a change of verb tense (from the descriptive “imparfait” to the active “passé composé”). The two other excerpts are worth further comments. The first concerns an enhancement of sexual connotation. This happened when I translated “I licked my lips which tingled with an unfamiliar wide-alive numbness” (Apostolides, 2012: 45), first as “Je me suis léché les lèvres, qui picotaient, prises d’un curieux engourdissement,” then as “Je me suis léché les lèvres; elles picotaient, prises d’un vif engourdissement jusqu’alors inconnu” (Apostolides, 2015: 56). First, the use of the semicolon helps focus on the lips, putting them “on the spot.” Then, the use of the adjective *prises* alludes to the sexual act (figurative meaning of *prendre*), which, coupled with the *vif engourdissement jusqu’alors inconnu* gives the impression of lips that are being “deflowered.”

The second excerpt concerns a passage about George, who invited Marianne over to his
brothel, saying “he could show me a good time” (Apostolides, 2012: 44). Curiously, right from
the first translation, I changed the narrative point of view of that segment, making Marianne
the active subject and trying to find equivalents for *show a good time*. On June 25, I hesitated
between “il s’assurerait que je passe un bon moment” and “il s’assurerait que j’allais bien me
divertir.” The next day, I opted for a solution that remained until publication: “me garantissant
que j’y prendrais du bon temps” (Apostolides, 2015: 55) instead of the more obvious “qu’il m’y
ferait prendre du bon temps.” I did something similar later in the text, with a passage that has
not changed at all from my first draft on June 28 up until publication. That excerpt consists
of a sexually charged interview with a prostitute. At one point, Marianne writes, “My breath
released—a small moan—and her contempt spread over me, thick” (Apostolides, 2012: 47).
Right from the first draft, I translated the last part as “et j’ai senti tout son mépris s’abattre sur
moi” (Apostolides, 2015: 60), which put the focus explicitly on Marianne’s feelings. The fact that
I did not notice those slight shifts until now is revealing. It suggests that I was unconsciously
putting myself in Marianne’s shoes, perceiving the original subject and myself as the new one,
as central to the story, so much so that I let her become, in French, the active subject of sentences
where she stayed passive in English.

In “Coming of Age,” most of the sex-related elements that I struggled with were translated
late, at the very end of the “section by section” stage (January 30 and 31), and they eventually
led to extensive changes during the next “grey” stage, so I will come back to them further on.
During the “section by section” stage per se, there are only three significant variations in the
relevant excerpts: the title, an onomatopoeia, and a riddle. The title refers to Marianne’s discov-
ery of sexuality: her own and that of others. In the two first drafts, I was considering calling it “L’initiation.” That choice, although it theoretically can allude to a sexual initiation, did not quite carry the original meaning. Indeed, Becky does not really “initiate” Marianne (she never touches her): she just opens her eyes to a new reality. That is when the possibility of calling it “L’éveil” (the awakening) appeared: it could also suggest something sexual, but more from the “revelation” side of it.

The onomatopoeia is in the following passage: “‘Uhn…’ a Mexican gardener grunted” (Apostolides, 2012: 122). In the first three drafts, I translated it literally as “Un jardinier mexicain a grommelé un ‘han’.” However, the *han* bothered me: although it does exist in French, it does not sound natural. Besides, the Mexican gardeners are depicted as very sexually aware beings in the story. So that *Unh* needed to sound more carnal. At the end of the “section by section” stage, I changed the *han* to a *cri d’effort*, but I still wasn’t satisfied. The final solution would have to wait for the “grey stage,” which I will come back to in the next section of this article.

For now, let us move on to the riddle: “‘What’s black and white and red all over?’ Her pelvis punched up three times: red—all—over. [...] A newspaper!” (Apostolides, 2012: 127) The riddle relies on what Ronald Landheer would call “spoken ambiguity” (1989: 34). Indeed, it is only when you hear it that there can be a confusion between the colour *red* and the past participle *read*. The riddle itself is barely funny, and contains, in fact, no sexual connotation. However, the way in which Becky tells it is sexually charged: she punches her pelvis upon saying “red all over,” giving the segment a whole new, lewd meaning. I wanted to find a simple, childish riddle that I could turn into something a little less innocent. On my first try, I came up with “Qu’est-ce qui peut aller partout en restant dans son coin? Elle a ponctué les derniers mots de trois coups de bassin : dans – son – coin. [...] Un timbre!” However, that sounded forced, especially the pelvic punches on “dans son coin.” I slept on it, and the next day, I went back to look for more riddles on Google, and found this, which ended up being my final solution: “Qu’est-ce qui fait le tour du bois sans jamais y pénétrer? Elle a ponctué le dernier mot de trois coups de bassin : pé – né – trer. [...] L’écorce!” (Apostolides, 2015: 167) What was fun here was that I had found a three-syllable long graphic verb for the pelvic punches: penetrate.

These few changes, especially in the title and riddle, reveal how aware I was of the sexual undertone of the story. That said, they are very real translation challenges: titles, onomatopoeia and riddles often have to be adapted. And that made me conscious of the need to deal with them adequately, as opposed to the passages I reworked during the “grey stage,” which contained less obvious, but no less tricky, challenges.

When I translated “Like a Cat,” there were virtually no changes made during the “section by section” draft, and three of the identified passages did not change at all and were published as such: they all relate to the last part of the story, which recounts Marianne’s last encounter with the married man, and have nothing to do with belly-dancing. A closer look at the drafts, however, clearly suggests that many sexually charged passages relating to belly-dancing caused me problems: no matter where they were in the original text (beginning, middle or end), I only translated them on May 16, the last day of the second stage, where I finally produced a full draft of the story. Also, I underscored three passages and put the English original in a footnote: this points to my dissatisfaction with my solutions and my desire to come back to them to make changes. Two of those three underscored passages, as well as a few others, would undergo significant edits during the following grey stage.
3.3.2. Stage 3: Grey Stage

The third stage (so-called “grey”) for the three stories took place while I was in residence at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, in June 2014. At that point, I had complete drafts of all three texts but was not ready to call them done. Each of the three translations was revised separately on June 9, shortly after I arrived, as a way for me to get back to work. “What We Do for Money” did not change, at least as far as the excerpts analyzed here are concerned. However, “Coming of Age” underwent significant changes in the draft dated June 19, and “Like a Cat” was heavily revised twice, on June 11 and 20.

As was said before, the first text was the one that made me want to translate the book, and it was also the one I had submitted as a sample of my work to be selected for the Banff residence program. It was the story I had felt most comfortable with, and the one I had spent most time revising. Moreover, I had had a few close friends and colleagues read it before I sent in my application. So by the time I finally got to Banff, that particular translation was finished. The two other stories are the ones I most pored over while in Banff. An expert literary translator acted as a mentor, reading them thoroughly and making some highly valuable comments, which prompted me to spend a lot of time retranslating some passages. Indeed, she identified significant problems in each story, namely the unconscious censoring of sexual connotations in “Coming of Age,” as well as overly technical or the purple-prose like descriptions in “Like a Cat,” which drifted away from the original allusions to sex.

In “Coming of Age,” all descriptions linked to the church grounds had a sexual undertone. In one passage, there is the “long-limbed churchman on hands-and-knees,” further described as “that lone churchman on all-fours” (Apostolides, 2012: 122). On January 30, I first translated those passages as “un homme d’église élancé qui était à quatre pattes” and “un religieux à quatre pattes qui s’affairait tout seul.” On the same day, I then changed the second passage for “un religieux tout seul dans son coin, en petit bonhomme.” In English, there is a true insistence on the man’s body, which is “long-limbed” and on the ground, in a submissive position. The problem with my solutions was that the man’s “limbs” had disappeared, and that he was basically just crouching. In a second passage, the church is described in a way that recalls the male sexual organ: “it rose erect,” its base being “where the bushes were most dense” (ibid.: 122). In my first translations, the spire (“flèche” in French) “se dressait bien droite” which is an accurate description, but devoid of sexual connotation. Further in the text is the Mexican gardener’s *uhn* I mentioned earlier, which I had translated as *han* and then as *cri d’effort*. The final example is taken from the paragraph where Marianne discovers a hidden place behind the bushes, which is vaguely reminiscent of the female sexual organ: “The place was pungent and hidden; it was cramped tight, the bushes tangled, unruly beside the shaft of the church” (ibid.: 123). I was uncomfortable with the description, but did not know why, and I was not conscious of the sexual undertones at the time. So I translated the words, but not their connotations: “C’était un endroit isolé qui dégageait une odeur âcre; on s’y sentait à l’étroit parmi les buissons enchevêtrés et rebelles qui longeaient l’église.” The French description was wordy, and watered down: it had lost its evocative power.

While in Banff, I showed this story to my mentor. I wanted her to take a look at how I had adapted the puns, riddles and swearwords, which I thought were the most challenging parts of the text. When I met with her to discuss my translation, she told me that the problem was not the translation of the puns per se, but that the French descriptions were not as sexually charged as in English. She also pointed out that in my French draft, Becky had panties on when masturbating, while the English text suggested that she had taken them off. “Did the scene make you
uncomfortable at all?” she asked me. Then, I realized that it had made me unconformable indeed. This awkward masturbation scene with same-sex undertones made me uncomfortable—very much so, and on an intimate level. Suffice to say that my mentor’s comment hit home: I had felt threatened by this scene, and this feeling had tinted my perception of the whole text. Up to that moment, I was not fully aware of my complete discomfort with it. I realized that it had made me leave out, quite unconsciously, some very important stylistic aspects of the text in my translation.

Then, once the grid that Meschonnic refers to had been uncovered, I was able to solve the problems. The churchman regained his limbs (“un homme d’église aux membres élancés”), working knees on the ground (“à genoux par terre”) and then literally on all-fours (“à quatre pattes”), and the Gothic spire “se dressait bien dure” (Apostolides, 2015: 160). As for the Mexican gardener, “[il] a poussé un long gémissement”, and the hidden place behind the bushes became “un lieu couvert qui sentait fort, enfoui sous les buissons enchevêtrés et rebelles autour de la flèche” (ibid.: 161-162). All those solutions were found on June 19, several days after having met with my Banff mentor, and they stayed the same until publication.

A similar thing happened when I showed the same mentor my translation of “Like a Cat,” the difference being that I was fully aware of how inadequate some of my descriptions were. I told her to pay special attention to the passages I had underscored. She focused on the following:

> I down-hip shimmy-walk toward a group of three boys, then I settle into a loose, fat shimmy – a motion that slowly constricts, still wet but gripping as the music heightens. [...] I muss my hair, shaking my head back-and-forth, my fingers soft and swirling. I close my eyes. My shimmy comes tighter, faster, till I slip into vibration; my legs now move in unison, convulsing the body [...] (Apostolides, 2012: 141)

She said that my translation did not do justice to the fact that the whole dance evoked a stimulated vulva and vagina as they progressed towards orgasm. It contained far too many adjectives making it overly mechanical, so that the image was lost. She added that I had been overly wordy in other places too, as when I had translated “I shimmy hard, with a playful pelvic thrust, up on the beat” (Apostolides, 2012: 140) as “Mon corps vibre à un rythme endiablé, et je bats la cadence de joyeux coups de bassin”; or like when I had translated “they like the grinds, the scoops, the deep undulations” (ibid.: 140) as “ils aiment les déhanchements lascifs, les coups de bassin, les ondulations profondes”. According to her, there were so many epithets that I was turning the text into purple prose. And she was right. “Keep it simple and effective,” she advised me. Once again, she had opened my eyes and enabled me to see past my own grid. In this case, my issue was not the sensuality of the text, but the technicality of the moves described. Teaching general translation for over 10 years has made me acutely aware of how important terminology is. But talking to my Banff mentor, I realized that exact terms did not matter in this case: it was all about carrying over the look and the feel of the scenes. I also realized that *reading* about sensuality/sexuality in private was not as threatening to me as having to *recreate* it for the public eye. Translating passages describing the female sex made me feel like I was being watched, and potentially judged. I was not being prude: I was just used to keeping secrets when it came to sexuality.

I thus edited the passages. The first short segment became much more direct, focusing on the speaking subject: “Je vibre allèurement à un rythme endiablé, ponctué de coups de bassin” (Apostolides, 2015: 195). I also tightened up the second short segment: “ils aiment les déhanchements, les coups de bassin, les longues ondulations” (ibid.: 186). The long dance description, however, took days to fix. On 11 June, I was still struggling with the “loose fat shimmy” evoking the vagina, and was not ready to deal with it. Then, on June 20, I found the answer. I even posted a status on Facebook asking friends what they were reminded of when reading “une
ondulation molle et humide qui se contracte à mesure que monte la musique” (ibid.: 186). When one of them answered “Musical intercourse!” I knew I had finally succeeded in finding the right wording. Here is a comparative chart of how this passage evolved after I was made aware of its shortcomings:

<table><thead><tr><th>May 16 to June 9</th><th>June 11</th><th>June 20</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>J'avance vers un groupe de trois jeunes hommes en balançant une hanche de haut en bas, puis j'opte pour un shimmy plus relâché, plus langoureux – un lent mouvement de contraction toujours fluide mais de plus en plus vif à mesure que monte la musique. [...] Je mets les mains dans mes cheveux. Je les ébouriffe en tourbillonnant doucement des doigts et en me secouant la tête d'avant en arrière. Je ferme les yeux. Mon shimmy s'accélère, devient de plus en plus trépidant, jusqu'à ce que j'entre en mode vibration; mes jambe bougent maintenant à l'unisson, faisant trembler tout mon corps.</td><td>J'avance vers un groupe de trois jeunes hommes en balançant une hanche de haut en bas, puis j'opte pour un shimmy plus relâché, plus langoureux – une lente ondulation humide qui accélère et se resserre à mesure que monte la musique. [...] Je mets les mains dans mes cheveux. Je les ébouriffe en tourbillonnant doucement des doigts et en me secouant la tête d'avant en arrière. Je ferme les yeux. Mon shimmy s'accélère, devient de plus en plus trépidant, jusqu'à ce que j'entre en mode vibration; mes jambe bougent maintenant à l'unisson, faisant trembler tout mon corps.</td><td>J'avance vers un groupe de trois jeunes hommes en balançant les hanches, puis j'opte pour un shimmy plus langoureux – une ondulation molle et humide qui se contracte à mesure que monte la musique. [...] Je mets les mains dans mes cheveux. Je les ébouriffe doucement des doigts en secouant la tête. Je ferme les yeux. Mon shimmy s'accélère, de plus en plus trépidant, jusqu'à ce que j'entre en vibration, les jambes à l'unisson, tremblant de tout mon corps.</td></tr></tbody></table>

What this shows is how I went from a very wordy, somewhat literal, and exaggeratedly redundant description of the dance to a more compact, vivid one. By leaving out some neutral terms and concentrating on the most evocative ones, I could produce a much more effective and faithful image of the scene. Also, I was able to find a substantive (*ondulation*), adjectives (*molle* and *humide*) and a verb (*contracter*) that could apply both to the dance and to the female sex organ when it is aroused. I had achieved the desired effect: all new solutions found on June 20 stayed the same until publication.

### 3.2.3. Stages 4 and 5: from putting it together to polishing

In August 2014, I reread the whole book several times, preparing to hand in the manuscript. At that point, no significant changes were made to the chosen excerpts. This means that the fourth stage of “putting it together” did not involve challenges related to the translation of sexually charged passages: I had overcome the initial curveballs that my own subjectivity had thrown, or so I thought.

The two last drafts of each of the three texts correspond to the fifth and last stage (polishing): one (September 19) where I received corrections from the bilingual editor and the other (November 30), when I received the blueprints with last edits made by the publisher. As it turns out, one last revealing change was made during that fifth stage, in the story that made me most uncomfortable, “Coming of Age.”

During the bilingual editing process, the reviser made me aware of another passage I had euphemistically translated in “Coming of Age.” At one point in the text, twelve-year-old Marianne talks about her lack of understanding of two expressions: “oral sex” and “zipper fuck”
(Apostolides, 2012: 127). Now, *oral sex* is easy enough to understand, but the meaning of *zipper fuck* is not clear. The *Urban Dictionary* describes it as “inserting your penis on the zipper and zip up, causing massive devastation to your penis” (which it is not relevant to this particular story), or “Random sex for fun, but not having any regrets”<fnref n="9" />. When I asked, Marianne said she used it meaning a quick, casual and remorseless sexual encounter. Through all my versions, I had adapted it to “se faire peloter” (to be felt up), which is certainly sexual, but almost innocently so. I used it because I felt the meaning of the expression might have been hard to grasp for a young girl, especially since a *pelote* is a mere *ball of wool*. However, the bilingual editor, suggested that I dare use “faire une pipe” (give a blow job), because of the way it sounds. I had thought of it before but had not dared to use it. It must have been the last remnant of my discomfort with the text. I changed it to *faire une pipe* as soon as I read the editor’s comments. During stages 4 and 5, this was the only significant edit to any of the sexually charged passages, in all three stories combined. This shows just how powerfully my negative feelings impacted on my translation process of “Coming of Age,” as I needed not one, but two external wake up calls before I could produce a translation that would fully convey the effect of the original, one that could make its readers just as uncomfortable reading as I myself had been.

## Conclusion

At the results of this case-study show, the creative-critical divide had significant impacts on my translation process of the three selected stories of Apostolides’ *Voluptuous Pleasure*, especially during the “section-by-section” and “grey” stages, that is, the active translation phases. My own life experiences influenced how I read the texts, creating a discomfort that affected my translation of sexually charged passages. First, I proved to be creatively free as I translated the story I most liked, identifying with the narrator so much that I instinctively made her more active and empowered in French. Then, the story that generated most discomfort also caused cases of unconscious self-censorship, even until the polishing stage of the process. I needed outside help from a mentor to become aware of it so that I could overcome my unease at producing a translation that would make the reader just as uncomfortable as I had been. Finally, when I translated the story I felt “neutral” about, my focus was too cerebral and too little attuned to the text’s subtle sensuality. Again, the eye-opening comments of a mentor allowed me to acknowledge and address the shortcomings of my translation. As for the final, published versions of the stories, they contain no more traces of self-censorship.

While literary translators will always leave their mark in target texts, this case-study has shown how they can gain self-awareness during the translation process in order to stay true to the source text. It has also shown that unconscious self-censorship can be avoided before handing in the final manuscript, all the more so if the translator benefits from an objective, external reader. This incursion into possible applications, in the field of Translation Studies, of a research-creation framework and textual genetics methodologies has proven fruitful in opening a literary translator’s “black box.” It would thus be worth pursuing further, especially with regard to transgressive or subversive texts that can bring readers and translators alike out of their comfort zone.

<footnote n="9">9. See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zipper%20fuck.</footnote>
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<figure><img src="image_39.png" /></figure>

# La traduction au brouillon : une écriture à l'ouvrage

## RÉSUMÉ

L'attention que l'on porte aux manuscrits des écrivains diffère de celle que l'on accorde aux brouillons de traduction. Le traducteur travaille et retravaille son texte afin de n'en publier qu'une seule version, celle à laquelle il aboutit en dernier, toutes les étapes intermédiaires étant considérées comme nécessaires mais sans grand intérêt. Il semblerait que les manuscrits des écrivains donnent à voir l'élaboration d'une écriture, la construction d'une œuvre, alors que les brouillons de traduction ne constituent qu'une série de versions erronées dont les corrections successives n'intéressent pas la critique. Or les brouillons de traduction servent aussi l'interprétation d'une œuvre, et apportent à la traductologie des éléments clés sur les liens entre pratique et théorie. C'est ce que je montre dans cet article en prenant pour exemples mes propres brouillons de traduction du premier roman de Flann O'Brien, *At Swim-Two-Birds*. Consignés dans des carnets et partiellement reproduits dans ma thèse, ces brouillons révèlent différents états du texte traduit, résultat d'un travail expérimental qui rend compte de mes trouvailles comme de mes errances.

**Mots-clés** : Flann O'Brien, *At Swim-Two-Birds*, génétique des traductions, brouillons de traduction

## ABSTRACT

The attention given to writers' manuscripts differs from that given to translators' drafts. The translator works and writes his/her text in order to publish only one version, which (s)he ultimately completes; and all the intermediate steps that led to this final version are generally considered necessary but of little interest. It would thus seem that writers' manuscripts show the elaboration of a piece of writing, the construction of a piece of work, whereas translation drafts constitute only a series of erroneous versions whose successive corrections do not interest the critics. However, it turns out that translation drafts also serve to interpret a piece of work and provide translation studies with key elements on the links between practice and theory. This is what I show in this article, using as examples my own translation drafts of Flann O'Brien's first novel, *At Swim-Two-Birds*. Recorded in notebooks and partially reproduced in my thesis, these drafts reveal different states of the translated text and result from my experimental work, reflecting both my findings and my wanderings.

**Keywords** : Flann O'Brien, *At Swim-Two-Birds*, genetics of translation, translator's drafts
La critique génétique, en s’intéressant à l’avant-texte des œuvres, ouvre un espace d’interprétation qui refuse de figer les textes et de considérer leur publication comme leur ultime aboutissement. À partir des manuscrits, des brouillons des écrivains, les généticiens proposent de renvoyer l’œuvre publiée à toutes les autres œuvres qu’elle aurait pu être. Daniel Ferrer précise à cet égard : « Cette différence entre le début de l’œuvre et le commencement de l’écriture [...] ouvre une faille entre le temps de l’écrit et celui de l’inscription, entre l’espace de l’œuvre comme objet et l’espace de l’œuvre comme champ de travail – et c’est dans cette faille, dans cet espacement, que la critique génétique trouve son lieu. » (Ferrer, 2011 : 24-25) Or c’est aussi cette « faille » que le traducteur ouvre béante quand il s’attelle à la traduction d’une œuvre. Son travail consiste à lire l’œuvre et à en proposer une traduction, parmi d’autres possibles. La démarche du traducteur se rapproche en cela de celle du généticien, qui ne clôt pas l’œuvre sur une seule lecture possible mais la déplie. Cependant, cette similarité ne saurait nous faire oublier que les brouillons de traduction ne sont généralement pas étudiés au même titre que les brouillons d’écrivain<fnref n="1" />. En effet, la faille que le traducteur ouvre en traduisant une œuvre évoque aussi trop souvent la faute, la défaillance du geste de la traduction, comme si la traduction demeurait un geste subalterne soumis à l’autorité de l’œuvre originale. Je tenterai de montrer, en prenant mes propres brouillons pour exemples, que les brouillons de traduction donnent à voir l’œuvre autrement et font émerger des questions qui révèlent la dimension herméneutique de la traduction.

Les brouillons de traduction qui nous occupent ici ont servi d’objet d’étude dans ma thèse, « Traduire (en) plus d’une langue : *At Swim-Two-Birds* de Flann O’Brien<fnref n="2" /> ». Travaillant à une nouvelle traduction du premier roman de Flann O’Brien pour engager une réflexion théorique sur les enjeux traductologiques que soulève la traduction d’un telle œuvre, j’ai décidé de traiter ces documents comme partie constituante de mon travail. Collés dans des carnets, mes brouillons de traduction sont partiellement reproduits dans ma thèse sous forme de fac-similés, et rendent compte des partis pris adoptés devant les difficultés tant lexicales que stylistiques que présente le roman. Il faut préciser que je n’ai traduit que la première moitié du roman, et cela sans avoir lu les deux traductions existantes (celle de Henri Morisset, *Kermesse irlandaise*, publiée en 1964 chez Gallimard, et celle de Patrick Hersant, *Swim-Two-Birds*, publiée en 2002 aux Belles Lettres)<fnref n="3" />. Je m’intéressais en particulier au fait que Flann O’Brien mêle l’anglais et l’irlandais dans son roman et que la présence de ces deux langues rend sa traduction particulièrement difficile. Le roman m’incitait dès le départ à penser la traduction autrement que comme le passage d’une langue à une autre et j’ai rapidement émis l’hypothèse, fondée sur des faits biographiques et bibliographiques avérés, que l’écriture de ce roman s’apparentait à bien des égards à l’écriture d’une traduction. Je m’inscrivais donc dans une démarche qui prenait en considération l’œuvre publiée en 1939 aussi bien que l’œuvre en gestation avant cette date, sans compter l’œuvre toujours à traduire une fois

<footnote n="1">1. L’œuvre originale est généralement valorisée au détriment de l’œuvre traduite, et les brouillons de traduction ne présentent donc généralement pas le même intérêt que les brouillons d’écrivains. Comme le note Tiphaine Samoyault : « L’étude des brouillons de traducteurs est certes rendue délicate par leur rareté : le texte d’une traduction ne fait l’objet d’aucune sacralisation et il paraîtrait incongru, voire outrecuidant d’en conserver les différents états comme on le fait avec les œuvres originales. Une autre motivation psychologique à la destruction des brouillons d’une traduction tient aussi à la peur que peut ressentir le traducteur de se montrer vulnérable, de laisser voir ses erreurs ou ses fautes, comme si sa compétence pouvait être mise en cause dans cette “épreuve” au double sens du terme. » (Samoyault, 2014 : 59)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. Thèse soutenue en 2015 sous la direction de Tiphaine Samoyault.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. J’ai lu ces deux traductions une fois ma propre traduction terminée afin d’engager une analyse comparative et de nourrir le propos théorique de ma thèse.</footnote>
publiée. Je propose ici d'étudier certains de mes brouillons de traduction afin de retracer le mou-
vement de l'écriture dans ses errances mais aussi de montrer en quoi le geste de la traduction met
en lumière l'altérité et la vulnérabilité de l'œuvre dite originale.

Les traces d'une tentative

*At Swim-Two-Birds* est écrit dans un anglais émaillé de termes irlandais. Autrement dit, l'auteur mêle les deux langues, soit de manière manifeste en insérant des termes irlandais (principalement des toponymes et anthroponymes) dans le texte anglais, soit en traduisant des expressions ou textes irlandais directement en anglais dans le texte. Ces termes ancrent le texte dans la langue irlandaise, c'est-à-dire dans son lien à la terre qu'elle désigne et à la littérature qu'elle a produite. La question de la traduction des toponymes et des anthroponymes n'est jamais une mince affaire dans le cas d'un texte irlandais. On sait en effet que la politique d'anglicisation des toponymes et anthroponymes en Irlande (lors du recensement topographique de 1833 par exemple<fnref n="4" />) relevait d'une démarche colonialiste visant à assimiler l'Irlande jusque dans son enracinement linguistique.

C'est pourquoi ma première intention n'était pas d'angliciser ces termes dans ma traduction,
ni évidemment de les éliminer, mais bien de les incorporer au mieux dans la langue française.
Sachant que l'irlandais entretient des liens nécessairement plus ténus avec l'anglais qu'avec le
français (pour des raisons historiques évidentes), j'ai voulu resserrer l'écart entre le français et
l'irlandais dans ma traduction. Pour ce faire, j'ai tenté de renforcer la spécificité de l'irlandais
dans le texte, afin de le rendre plus familier au lecteur francophone, en utilisant une typo-
graphie qui imite l'écriture « seanchló » des travaux calligraphiques des moines irlandais. Le
« seanchló » est aujourd'hui utilisé en Irlande pour embellir des panneaux routiers, des en-têtes
de documents, ou pour signifier aux touristes le caractère authentiquement irlandais des produits
ainsi signalés. Les brouillons de traduction reproduits ci-dessous rendent compte de cette propo-
sition, et l'on peut donc voir les termes irlandais du texte rendus plus saillants par la typographie
très particulière qu'est le « seanchló ». On remarque également différents codes de couleur (jaune
pour les questions de typographie, orange pour celles de vocabulaire, bleu pour les partis pris
de syntaxe et de style, violet pour les références culturelles, vert pour les néologismes) ainsi que
l'agencement adopté systématiquement dans tous les carnets (traduction sur la page de gauche,
commentaires sur celle de droite).

<footnote n="4">4. Brian Friel dépeint avec beaucoup de talent les enjeux politiques de cette entreprise dans sa pièce *Translations*.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_40.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 11.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 12.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 3 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 13.</figcaption></figure>

Les brouillons ci-dessus témoignent d'un état de ma traduction non retenu dans la version finale. Je n'ai pas conservé cette première proposition concernant la typographie « seanchló ». Les termes irlandais ainsi mis en évidence m'ont finalement paru outranciers ; ils n'apportaient rien au texte traduit, bien au contraire. Il m'a semblé, à la relecture, qu'en voulant valoriser la langue irlandaise je ne faisais que la repousser hors du corps du texte. L'altérité de l'irlandais, ainsi sou-lignée, exagérait l'écart entre le français et l'irlandais alors que je tentais de rapprocher, de mêler ces deux langues dans ma traduction. Ces brouillons révèlent mes égarements à un moment donné de mon travail. Ils donnent à voir des traces de l'écriture du traducteur en mouvement, à l'instar des brouillons d'écrivains qui révèlent une œuvre en construction. Daria Sinichkina sou-ligne ce parallèle en reprenant les propos de Jean Bellemin-Noël :

> De fait, si la création dans la pratique de la traduction est subordonnée à l'énoncé du texte original, cette étape d'exploration des possibles, qui confine à la destruction, se rapproche, par son caractère fondamentalement inachevé de l'écriture spontanée du brouillon d'écrivain. Tout comme le brouillon d'écrivain « nous renseigne sur ce que l'ouvrage [signifie à ses yeux] et plus largement ce que signifie pour lui l'acte d'écrire », celui du traducteur ici représenté nous renseigne en l'occurrence sur ce que signifie pour lui l'activité de traduire, autrement dit sur son « projet », au sens où l'a défini Antoine Berman. (Sinichkina, 2014 : 103)

Le parti pris d'un traducteur ou d'un écrivain consigné sur un brouillon révèle de fait les errances de l'écriture et déploie face à l'œuvre publiée un des détournements qu'elle a connus, ce que Daria Sinichkina nomme une « étape d'exploration des possibles ». Le brouillon, qu'il soit celui de l'écrivain ou du traducteur, dévoile la fabrique de l'œuvre en donnant à voir à celui qui l'examine et l'interprète des moments clés de son histoire. Et cette « exploration des possibles », même invisible dans l'œuvre ou le texte traduit une fois publiés, fait partie prenante de la fabrique de l'œuvre. Ainsi, j'ai très vite jugé que la typographie « seanchló » n'était pas un parti pris perti-
nent pour ma traduction ; avoir envisagé cette typographie comme une possibilité, toutefois, a indéniablement influencé toute mon entreprise. Il suffit de voir les brouillons de traduction de la suite du texte pour le constater. Tout en ayant décidé de laisser les toponymes et anthroponymes irlandais tels quels dans le texte, j'ai continué à souligner ces termes en jaune dans tout le reste de ma traduction, comme si la trace de l'attention particulière que je portais à ces termes devait perdurer.

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 4 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 23.</figcaption></figure>

Page après page, ces traits jaunes témoignent de la mise en suspens d'un autre texte mais aussi de son existence, de sa place dans la fabrique de ma traduction. Comme l'explique Jean Lavaillant, le brouillon est véritablement « l'autre du texte », il est cet « espace autre » :

[...] le brouillon n'est ni achevé, ni non plus inachevé : il est un espace autre. Le décalage entre lui et le texte n'est ni de l'ordre du progrès, ni de l'ordre de l'achèvement : il est de l'ordre de l'altérité, de la fondamentale différence entre écriture et texte. [...] Le brouillon ne raconte pas, il donne à voir : la violence des conflits, le coût des choix, les achèvements impossibles, la butée, la censure, la perte, l'émergence des intensités, tout ce que l'être entier écrit – et tout ce qu'il n'écrit pas. Le brouillon n'est plus la préparation, mais l'autre du texte. (Levaillant [dir.], 1982 : 13-15)

Cette altérité dont rendent compte les brouillons nous aide à comprendre l'œuvre, l'originale comme la traduite, non pas comme l'aboutissement d'un projet d'écriture mais comme un texte parmi d'autres, mené à terme au sens où il a été publié à un moment donné. Au prisme de la critique génétique, l'œuvre n'est donc pas envisagée d'un point de vue simplement chronologique mais selon des modèles nécessairement changeants :

> La génétique ne détruit pas les principes d'une poétique narrative. Mais elle mine l'assurance que pourrait donner le texte final, plus souvent qu'elle ne la confirme. Elle rend sensible, non seulement à la variation, mais, plus encore, et c'est en cela qu'il peut exister une poétique spécifiquement génétique, au(x) système(s) de variations. (Debray Genette, 1988 : 46)
Il ne s'agit plus, comme dans une perspective philologique, de considérer des « variantes », mais
bien des « variations » entre différentes versions.

Recomposer l'entreprise d'écriture

On remarquera sur mes brouillons un autre choix typographique qui, contrairement au « seanchló », sera adopté dans ma traduction finale. Ce choix consiste à insérer des traits d'union, ou à les conserver, pour transposer certains groupes nominaux dont la composition résiste à la syntaxe française. Il s'agit en fait de mots composés élaborés par Flann O'Brien dans une démarche stylistique créative. Contrairement aux mots composés usuels que l'on emploie communément en anglais, ces associations de mots proposés par l'auteur, qu'elles reposent sur des noms ou des adjectifs, ne constituent pas une composition stabilisée<fnref n="5" />. Le trait d'union qui les relie invite le lecteur à presser le pas, à trouver du sens dans ces assemblages, mais il ne donne pas à lire des expressions convenues ; il crée une nouvelle lexie. Sans pour autant brouiller le sens. En effet, la plasticité de l'anglais permet d'avancer dans le récit sans que le sens soit entravé par ces trouvailles langagières, qui restent somme toute très lisibles et compréhensibles. Il fallait donc trouver un moyen de rendre en français le décalage provoqué par ces combinaisons sans pour autant obscurcir le sens. La page ci-dessous montre que j'ai presque systématiquement gardé les traits d'union en français pour traduire ce que supposent les expressions anglaises « mad-gone », « stag-herds », « world-wide », « sky-vault », « fright-fraught », « eye-mad », « heart-quick », et « bird-quick ».

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 5 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 126.</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="5">5. Les compositions de Flann O'Brien jouent sur les sonorités et bousculent sans doute le rythme plus que le sens de la phrase. Contrairement aux « (dé)compositions d'adjectifs » du poète E.E. Cummings, dont rend compte Antoine Cazé dans son article « E.E. Cummings : (dé)composition d'adjectifs, inventivité linguistique et traduction », celles d'O'Brien s'inscrivent dans la tradition orale des conteurs irlandais qui renchérissent indéfiniment les descriptions qu'ils déploient, sans renverser la morphologie globale du texte. (Cazé, 2007 : 135-164)</footnote>
De la même manière, les mots composés abondent dans l'extrait qui correspond aux pages 11, 12 et 13 des brouillons mentionnés plus haut. La liste en est longue : « clean-cold », « loud-voiced », « echo-blow », « gull-cries », « surf-roar », « man-shouts », « cuckoo-call », « pig-grunting », « water-owls », « wing-beating », « cow-cries », « trout-spurt », « nettle-beds », « small-jays », « heart-pleasing », « red-necked », « land-rail », « bottle-tailed », « marsh-coot », « speckle-toed », « plough-gull », « long-eared », « bush-owl », « small-fowl », « bevil-beaked », « fish-tailed », « mud-piper », « sea-cock », « green-lidded », « bog-martin », « dove-tailed », « hill-bantam », « red-breasted », « black-bird », « wild-hogs ». Toutes ces expressions anglaises accumulées sur deux pages rythment le texte et lui donnent une forme très particulière que je souhaitais rendre en français. Là comme ailleurs, j'ai gardé les traits d'union autant que possible afin de transposer les motifs rythmiques et mélodiques du texte original.

Il m'a donc semblé évident que la musique des phrases gagnait en fluidité en proposant le trait d'union comme articulation. Cet apport stylistique était également motivé par l'importance de l'oralité dans le roman de Flann O'Brien. Les passages concernant Sweeney dans *At Swim-Two-Birds* sont en fait des strophes extraites de *Buile Suibhne* (*The Madness of Sweeny* en anglais), un poème écrit en moyen irlandais entre 1671 et 1674, que Flann O'Brien avait traduites pour sa thèse et qu'il reprend ici. Ce poème irlandais a connu bien des versions et s'est longtemps transmis à l'oral seulement – d'où la présence de répétitions, d'allitérations et de motifs récurrents tout au long du récit. Le trait d'union est un moyen de rendre compte de ce rythme particulier, même si c'est à l'écrit, sur la page. Il invite le lecteur à comprendre le texte dans une tradition qui englobe le roman lui-même.

La question « Faut-il garder les traits d'union ? » que l'on voit apparaître dans mes commentaires sur le brouillon ci-dessus Fig. 5) confirme bien que la traduction, en confrontant deux langues, ouvre l'œuvre à différents choix interprétatifs possibles. Conserver ici les traits d'union revient aussi bien à s'aligner sur le texte original qu'à l'inscrire dans une tradition littéraire orale. Les traits d'union créent des formes resserrées qui peuvent servir à figer une expression et à identifier un personnage, à la manière des épithètes associées au personnage d'Ulysse chez Homère, par exemple<fnref n="6" />. En préservant ces marques typographiques, je prends donc aussi en considération tout ce qui a contribué à construire l'œuvre, à forger le roman. La traduction renvoie à la genèse du roman et les brouillons de traduction en attestent.

Et si nous avons, avec Jean Levaillant et Raymonde Debray Genette, avancé l'idée que l'œuvre n'est pas le texte final, achevé et figé, qui s'oppose au texte initial et inachevé qu'est le manuscrit ou le brouillon, le généticien se gardera d'examiner le brouillon de traduction comme une étape uniquement *préalable* du texte traduit publié. Les brouillons de traduction ne prédisent rien de ce que la traduction finale va être ; ils en donnent seulement des signes. Fabienne Durand-Bogaert nous invite ainsi à les interpréter comme des « traces de l'activité de traduction » :

> Un brouillon de traduction, pris qu'il est entre le texte « original » et la version imprimée de la traduction, exige du généticien un effort particulier pour suspendre ses conclusions. Il est tentant, en effet, de se référer constamment aux deux bouts de la chaîne et ainsi de faire du brouillon une lecture déterminée par les points de départ et/ou d'arrivée. Dans l'idéal, le généticien devrait s'efforcer, pour un temps, d'oublier ces deux

<footnote n="6">6. Philippe Jaccottet, dans la postface de sa traduction de *L'Odyssée*, note ainsi : « Chacun sait d'Homère au moins cela, qu'il a le goût de l' épithète, de la formule et même du cliché ; Homère, dans la mémoire de tout homme cultivé, c'est d'abord « le divin Ulysse”, “Achille aux pieds légers”, “la sage Pénélope” ; et l'on n'a pas tout à fait tort. À chaque personnage important est lié un certain nombre d'épithètes plus ou moins synonymes, qui le définissent une bonne fois : Ulysse est dit rusé, patient, endurant, astucieux, ingénieux, subtil, industrieux, illustre... » (Homère, 2004 : 448)</footnote>
termes pour se concentrer exclusivement sur ce qui se passe dans l'espace du brouillon lui-même, autrement
dit les données identifiables comme traces de l'activité de traduction. (Durand-Bogaert, 2014 : 29)

C'est donc à partir des traces laissées dans les brouillons que l'on *retrace* l'activité de traduction. Cette activité s'inscrit dans un mouvement dont on ne sait rien sinon qu'il laisse des signes, des « traces » à examiner. Il serait tentant de les interpréter à rebours, selon un ordre chronologique et hiérarchique, qui nous inviterait à penser la version finale d'une traduction comme étant nécessairement la meilleure, la plus réussie. Ce serait une erreur. L'activité de traduction résulte de choix qui sont certes motivés par la volonté de traduire au mieux, mais qui relèvent d'une démarche visant la cohérence<fnref n="7" />, la justesse, et non le progrès<fnref n="8" />. C'est ce que montrent mes brouillons. En renonçant à garder la typographie « seanchló », je suis revenue à ma première traduction (qui n'apparaît d'ailleurs pas sur mes brouillons, elle n'existe que dans la mémoire de l'ordinateur). Ce retour à ma traduction initiale relève d'un mouvement qui ne s'apparente ni à un bond en avant, ni à un retour en arrière. En ce sens, il n'est ni progression ni régression. Revenir à ma première version, ce n'est pas revenir au même. En effet, le détour que j'ai emprunté a inscrit ma traduction dans une démarche singulière, imprévue et créatrice. Le texte que j'ai finalement conservé n'est donc pas identique au premier. Cette démarche créatrice s'apparente à celle de l'écrivain, même si le traducteur est l'auteur du texte qu'il traduit mais pas du texte qu'il a à traduire. Ainsi, l'écrivain peut hésiter lui aussi entre plusieurs termes avant de revenir au premier qu'il avait choisi. Daniel Ferrer, en parlant du manuscrit des *Trois contes* de Gustave Flaubert, explique : « [...] chaque état conserve la mémoire des états antérieurs sous la forme de traces laissées par les remaniements de l'équilibre du système qui ont dû être opérés au fil des ajustements successifs. » (Ferrer, 2011 : 113) Ces traces, que l'on peut examiner sur les brouillons, nous aident à reconstruire à tâtons les intentions qui ont guidé le mouvement de l'écriture, l'échafaudage du texte pour ainsi dire. Elles affichent des états du texte, en aucun cas des étapes obligées. L'œuvre originale, comme sa traduction, ne suit pas un chemin tracé ; elle laisse des traces de son cheminement au brouillon.

L'œuvre en déroute

En refusant l'image du sentier<fnref n="9" />, Daniel Ferrer nous invite également à nous dégager de la
vision binaire et très polarisée d'un texte original/source et de sa traduction/cible. La critique
génétique des brouillons de traduction montre que la traduction vient déstabiliser l'œuvre. La
traduction ne se contente pas de mener un texte d'une source à une cible, elle le déroute et révèle

<footnote n="7">7. Nous définissons ici la cohérence comme le fait Jean-Pierre Richard reprenant la ligne théorique d'Henri Meschonnic : « La cohérence n'est pas une donnée du texte ; elle advient, dans cette relance du sens pluriel qu'est une lecture critique ou une traduction, par l'intégration à une seule et même dynamique d'un maximum de composantes textuelles. Elle n'est pas non plus un résultat, une somme : le sens étant illimité, toute totalisation est impossible. La cohérence est une activité du texte : c'est ce qu'il fait. » (Richard, 2010 : 17)</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8. Ce n'est pas parce que le traducteur veut toujours mieux faire que son texte vise la perfection. Toutes ses tentatives pour parvenir à un texte abouti, et non un texte achevé et clos, s'accumulent et enrichissent la version finale. La lecture qu'Erri De Luca fait de la Genèse dans *Comme une langue au palais* offre un champ de réflexion intéressant : « Dieu a annulé sa première version de la vie. Moïse fera de même avec les premières Tables de la loi. La deuxième fois n'est pas meilleure que la première, elle est pourtant passée par la destruction et possède donc la valeur ajoutée de la restitution. » (De Luca, 2006 : 99)</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9. « Il faut corriger certaines fausses impressions qui pourraient être suggérées par l'image du sentier. L'œuvre n'est pas un mobile, se déplaçant comme un point immatériel repérable à chaque instant le long de la trajectoire représentée par la genèse, car l'œuvre, qu'il s'agisse d'un haïku ou d'un roman-fleuve, n'est ni ponctuelle ni instantanée. » (Ferrer, 2011 : 68)</footnote>
ainsi sa vulnérabilité. En mettant « l'œuvre en loques, en haillons<fnref n="10" /> », la traduction dévoile tout ce que l'œuvre dissimule, son caractère foncièrement irrésolu. De même qu'il serait erroné d'opposer l'achèvement de l'œuvre originale à l'inachèvement de son manuscrit, de même on aurait tort d'opposer la perfection de l'œuvre à l'imperfection du brouillon ou de la traduction ; ainsi Tiphaine Samoyault peut-elle écrire :

> Penser la traduction comme brouillon postérieur de l'œuvre, qui est l'hypothèse que je fais ici, permet de prendre en charge au moins deux questions : celle de l'imperfection des traductions, toujours à refaire, toujours reprises dans le temps, et celle de l'imperfection des œuvres elles-mêmes, rendues au multiple et à l'inachèvement. La vulnérabilité est ainsi d'abord celle de l'œuvre. La traduction la révèle. Puisque le texte peut être touché, déporté, transformé, éventuellement malmené, il est fragilisé par la traduction, qui place le même dans un état de différence. Et de différence continuée. L'un, l'original, laisse la place à la différence, moins pensée comme altérité éventuellement menaçante que comme état permanent de variations, d'hétérogénéités, d'hybridations. (Samoyault, 2014 : 57)

La traduction met à mal le texte original. Elle montre à quel point l'œuvre ne révèle qu'une partie de tout le travail créatif qui lui a donné forme. Les brouillons d'écrivain rendent compte de tout ce qui a porté l'œuvre dans sa confection et font résonner l'œuvre avec toutes les autres œuvres qu'elle aurait pu être. Julien Gracq souligne la richesse de ce phénomène :

> À chaque tournant du livre, un autre livre, possible et même souvent probable, a été rejeté au néant. Un livre sensiblement différent non seulement dans ceci de superficiel qu'est son intrigue, mais dans ceci de fondamental qu'est son registre, son timbre, sa tonalité. Et ces livres dissipés à mesure, [...] ces livres qui n'ont pas vu le jour de l'écriture, d'une certaine manière ils comptent, ils n'ont pas disparu tout entiers. Pendant des pages, des chapitres entiers, c'est leur fantasme qui a tiré, halé l'écrivain, excité sa soif, fouetté son énergie – c'est dans leur lumière que des parties entières du livre, parfois, ont été écrites. (Gracq, 1967 : 30-31)

La lecture du brouillon de traduction redouble ce phénomène. Il en ressort ce que Tiphaine Samoyault nomme une « contre-genèse<fnref n="11" /> ». En proposant une traduction de l'œuvre, le traducteur renverse la genèse de l'œuvre puisqu'il la recrée. Et l'œuvre connaît une nouvelle vie à chacune de ses retraductions.

Dans le cas qui nous occupe, celui de ma propre retraduction du roman de Flann O'Brien, le texte avait déjà été traduit deux fois. En décidant de retraduire *At Swim-Two-Birds*, j'ai donc envisagé en quelque sorte une autre version possible du roman. À ceci près, comme le montrent mes brouillons, que chaque choix de traduction, comme chaque trait dans l'écriture du roman, vient infléchir le mouvement général de création du texte. Ainsi, chaque état du texte que l'on peut lire ou élaborer sur un brouillon ne résulte pas d'une trajectoire prédéterminée ; il suit un cheminement qui répond à la nécessité de garder dans l'élaboration de l'écriture du texte une certaine structuration, une stabilité. Cela est d'autant plus vrai en traduction que le texte traduit suit la cohérence du texte original, quelle que soit la lecture que l'on en fait.

Pour illustrer ce point, je prendrai un autre exemple de ma traduction, celui du terme *plain* dans l'expression « A pint of plain is your only man », qui clôt chaque strophe du poème de Jem Casey récité par Shanahan dans *At-Swim-Two-Birds*. Ce terme fait référence au « porter », c'est-à-dire à la bière brune typiquement irlandaise. Flann O'Brien ne désigne jamais cette bière par

<footnote n="10">10. « La traduction met l'œuvre en loques, en haillons. L'analyse des pratiques peut sans doute contribuer à la réflexion théorique, en l'illustrant ou en la déplaçant. » (Samoyault, 2014 : 59)</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11. « Ce qui ressort de la lecture des brouillons, c'est bien l'opération d'une contre-genèse. Il y a certes une genèse, qui est celle de la traduction elle-même, mais elle se fait au prix de la mise en pièces de l'original, dont ce dernier ne ressort pas indemne, ni dans la traduction, ni même dans sa propre langue. » (Samoyault, 2014 : 67)</footnote>
le terme « beer » mais alternativement par les termes « plain », « porter », ou « stout » (page 32). J'ai traduit le vers en question par « Une pinte de brune, voilà ton homme », pour des raisons très précises, d'ordre tant stylistique que sémantique. Mais ce qui nous intéresse ici est de constater l'équilibre qui s'est joué entre les différents termes traduits. Car c'est finalement la traduction de l'expression « A pint of plain is your only man » qui a déterminé ma traduction des autres occurrences de « plain » de « porter » ou « stout » dans le texte.

Le choix consistant à traduire « plain » par « brune » ne me posait pas de problème en soi, car en lisant « une pinte de brune », on devine facilement qu'il s'agit de bière. Mais le mot « porter » apparaît bien avant le poème de Jem Casey dans le roman et il fallait donc introduire le mot « brune » pour désigner la bière brune dont il est question. On peut donc voir à la page 28 que j'ai décidé de traduire la première occurrence de « porter » par « bière brune » et la deuxième par « brune ». De cette façon, le lien entre « bière » et « brune » est établi et rendu clair pour le lecteur francophone. Les références aux termes du texte original, ainsi que les commentaires en marge de ma traduction ci-dessous rendent compte de mon intention et de ma démarche.

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 6 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 28.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_46.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 7 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 31.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 8 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 32.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_48.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 9 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 35.</figcaption></figure>

Même si un texte peut être remanié et que les brouillons des différents états de ce texte en témoignent, il ne l’est donc pas impunément. La voie/voix dans laquelle s’engage l’écrivain (ou le traducteur) ne détermine pas son écriture mais l’oriente, ou la désoriente, nécessairement. Pour citer Daniel Ferrer :

> La critique génétique retiendra cette idée d'un contexte perpétuellement changeant remettant en cause à chaque instant les choix qui se justifiaient à l'instant précédent. Mais elle retiendra aussi l'idée d'un certain coût du changement qui justifie une certaine stabilité des choix. Pour un créateur, la notion de coût est difficile à définir. Ce qui coûte à l'un peut être un gain pour l'autre. [...] Si le prix que chaque créateur est prêt à payer varie considérablement, il n'est toutefois jamais illimité. Et au-delà même de ce coût psychique ou de la dépense de temps, il y a un coût structural qui fait qu'on ne peut pas retrancher ou modifier ce qui a été introduit sans rompre une multitude de liens qui sont apparus, sans avoir été nécessairement prévus [...]. Il y a une inertie du déjà-écrit, plus ou moins grande selon les cas, mais toujours présente. (Ferrer, 2011 : 67)

## Les pertes estimées

Quand Daniel Ferrer parle de « coût », de « perte » et de « gain », il nous incite à revisiter ces notions traditionnellement convoquées dans le domaine de la traduction. En considérant que tout créateur paie un prix pour les changements qu'il inflige à son texte, il revalorise le geste de la traduction puisque le traducteur n'est plus le seul à éprouver la perte en écriture. La traduction a souvent été considérée comme une pratique ancillaire, exercée en pure perte. Rapporter les notions de gain et de perte à l'écriture en général, et non à la traduction en particulier, permet de reconsidérer la traduction comme un geste créatif à part entière<fnref n="12" />.

<footnote n="12">12. Bernard Simeone parle très éloquemment de la dimension créatrice de la traduction en ces termes : « Traduire consiste</footnote>
Je prendrai un dernier exemple pour illustrer en quoi la pratique de la traduction tend vers un équilibre entre gain et perte, équilibre que la critique génétique met en évidence. Les brouillons ci-dessous montrent le changement d'orientation que j'ai adopté afin d'établir un texte plus proche de l'original. Le mot certainly apparaît à plusieurs reprises dans le roman. Cette récurrence ne m'avait pas frappée à la première lecture puisque j'avais d'abord traduit ce mot par « Et comment » (on peut le constater sur les brouillons ci-dessous page 98), puis par « Bien évidemment » et « pour sûr » (tous deux raturés page 100).

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 10 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O'Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 98.</figcaption></figure>

d'abord – comme acte singulier du traducteur, en sa solitude – à découper, dans le temps et l'espace de cette prolifération, le temps et l'espace d'une lecture approfondie, acceptée et pensée comme une expérience et comme un risque : une lecture qui devra rendre compte de son objet et d'elle-même au moyen du texte qu'elle produira dans une autre langue et de lui seul. Par ce désir de répondre à l'inscription originale au moyen d'une autre inscription, d'égale dignité, la traduction refuse de transformer la question de l'essentiel en une simple circulation de sens, et n'obtempère pas aux divers diktats d'un monde dominé par les phénomènes de surface et de vitesse. Elle radicalise la rupture temporelle que toute lecture opère dans le continuum environnant et pose à nouveau, *da capo*, la question du texte et de la forme. Son apparente sujétion d'écriture “seconde”, voire sa servilité, deviennent, opposées au contexte dans lequel elle s'élabore, un gage paradoxal de liberté créatrice. » (Simeone, 2014 : 33)
<figure><img src="image_50.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 11 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 101.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_51.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 12 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 101.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_52.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 13 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 104.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_53.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 14 – Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, traduction de Flann O’Brien, *At-Swim-Two-Birds*, dactylographie annotée, 2013, p. 110.</figcaption></figure>

J’ai très vite remplacé ces deux dernières traductions et choisi de répéter « Et comment » dans les deux cas, afin de transposer la répétition en français et de recréer ce que j’ai nommé dans mes
commentaires un « motif récurrent ». Le terme apparaît sur mes brouillons aux pages 101, 104 et 110. C'est pour ne rien perdre de cet écho interne que j'ai choisi de reprendre la même expression en français. Le coût de cette répétition est tout à fait envisageable puisque la syntaxe française peut l'accepter ici sans dommage et qu'elle permet de transposer au mieux le texte original. C'est du moins ce qu'il m'a semblé. J'ai orienté ma traduction dans une direction qui me semblait s'accorder au texte original, reproduire ce que « fait le texte<fnref n="13" /> ».

Mes brouillons de traduction m'ont ainsi permis d'illustrer la manière dont j'ai lu, et donc traduit, le roman de Flann O'Brien *At Swim-Two-Birds*. Ils exposent sur le papier les traces du geste de traduction qui fut le mien. Ces traces que je me suis efforcée d'interpréter éclairent également le geste de la traduction en général et confirment la pertinence d'une perspective génétique appliquée au domaine de la traduction.

Nous pourrions conclure en reprenant les termes de Nicole Brossard qui considère la traduction comme « un acte de réécriture désorientant » (Godard, 2004 : 18). L'auteurcréateur/traducteur oriente et désoriente son texte au fil de l'entreprise d'écriture qui est la sienne puisqu'il doit faire des choix et qu'il procède toujours contre<fnref n="14" /> la version précédente de ce qu'il a écrit. Barbara Godard, traductrice de Godard, conclut ainsi le journal qu'elle a tenu pour *Picture Theory* :

> Aucune version finale du texte n'est jamais réalisable. Il y a seulement des approximations qui doivent être actualisées à l'intérieur des conditions de différents échanges énonciatifs. En tant que telle, la traduction n'est pas une question de « langues cibles » et de conditions d'« arrivée » mais la façon de donner un ordre aux relations entre langues et cultures. La traduction est un art de l'approche. (Godard, 1995 : 81)

Si la traduction est un « art de l'approche », les brouillons de traduction en donnent à voir la dimension expérimentale et créatrice. Ce qu'ils dévoilent, révèlent de la fabrique du texte, même partiellement, nous permet d'envisager l'œuvre autrement. Leur interprétation exige quelques précautions, mais elle permet néanmoins d'ouvrir l'œuvre à d'autres lectures possibles. C'est dans cette altérité que loge le texte, en suspens, irrésolu.

Bibliographie

CAZÉ, Antoine, 2007, « E. E. Cummings : (dé)composition d'adjectifs, inventivité linguistique et traduction », *Palimpsestes*, n° 19, « La traduction de l'adjectif composé », Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.

BERMAN, Antoine, 1984, *L'Épreuve de l'étranger, Culture et tradition dans l'Allemagne romantique*, Paris, Gallimard.

DE BIASI, Pierre-Marc, 2011, *Génétique des textes*, Paris, CNRS Éditions.

DEBRAY GENETTE, Raymonde, 1988, *Métamorphoses du récit. Autour de Flaubert*, Paris, Le Seuil.

DE LUCA, Erri, 2006, *Comme une langue au palais*, Paris, Gallimard.

<footnote n="13">13. Nous reprenons ici les termes d'Henri Meschonnic : « Traduire est une pratique du langage particulière, qui ne se confondra jamais avec l'écriture, pas plus qu'avec son texte, mais qui doit faire ce que fait le texte » (Meschonnic, 1999 : 203).</footnote>

<footnote n="14">14. « C'est bien connu, on écrit toujours *contre* ; le nouveau s'écrit en réaction à ce qui vient avant mais aussi depuis une position qui intègre implicitement, pour la dépasser, la position précédente. C'est ce dialogisme de fond qui devrait nous fournir le meilleur modèle du rapport de l'œuvre à sa genèse. » (Ferrer, 2011 : 118)</footnote>
DURAND-BOGAERT, Fabienne, 2014, « Les deux corps du texte », *Genesis*, n° 38, p. 11-33, http://journals.openedition.org/genesis/995.

FERRER, Daniel, 2011, *Logiques du brouillon*, Paris, Le Seuil.

GODARD, Barbara, 1995, « A Translator's Journal », in Sherry Simon (dir.), *Culture in Transit: Translating the Literature of Quebec*, Montréal, Véhicule Press.

—, 2004, « Introduction: The Moving Intimacy of Language », in Nicole Bossard, 2004, *Intimate Journal*, trad. Barbara Godard, Toronto, Mercury Press.

GRACQ, Julien, 1967, *Lettrines*, Paris, José Corti.

HOMÈRE, 2004, *L'Odyssée*, trad. Philippe Jaccottet, Paris, La Découverte.

LEVAILLANT, Jean (dir.), 1982, *Écriture et génétique textuelle. Valéry à l'œuvre*, Presses universitaires de Lille.

MESCHONNIC, Henri, 1999, *Poétique du traduire*, Lagrasse, Verdier.

MONTINI, Chiara (dir.), 2016, *Traduire, Genèse du choix*, Paris, Archives contemporaines.

MUNDAY, Jeremy, 2013, « The role of archival and manuscript research in the investigation of translator decision-making », *Target*, vol. 25, n° 1, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company.

O'BRIEN, Flann, 1939, *At Swim-Two-Birds*, Londres, Penguin Books.

—, 1964, *Kermesse irlandaise*, trad. Henri Morisset, Paris, Gallimard.

—, 2002, *Swim-Two-Birds*, trad. Patrick Hersant, Paris, Les Belles Lettres.

RICHARD, Jean-Pierre, 2010, « L'épreuve du rythme : le “poème” d'Henri Meschonnic fait-il ce qu'il dit ? », *Palimpsestes*, n° 23, Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.

SAMOYault, Tiphaine, 2014, « Vulnérabilité de l'œuvre en traduction », *Genesis*, n° 38, « Traduire », Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne.

SIMEONE, Bernard, 2014, *Écrire, traduire, en métamorphose*, Lagrasse, Verdier.

SINICHKINA, Daria, 2014, « L'expérience de la Fabrique des Traducteurs : les brouillons de traduction comme espace de confrontation et de réappropriation », *Genesis*, n° 38, « Traduire », Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne.
<figure><img src="image_54.png" /></figure>

# Tophoven's dream: a prototype for genetic translation studies

## ABSTRACT

This article examines a neglected chapter in the history of translation: the formulation and promotion of “la traduction transparente”, Elmar Tophoven’s *transparent translation*. It charts the history of this form of translation process research, born from Tophoven’s own translation practice and his collaboration with linguists in the late 1960s-1970s, which grew into a vision, inspired by the so-called “Toledo School”, of a pan-European network of residences, where translators would work collaboratively, producing their own translation research by reflecting upon their strategies, problem solving and creativity. Tophoven emerges here with a central project to emancipate translators from a vicious cycle of anonymity, lack of scientific recognition and poor working conditions; he capitalizes upon the most significant technological innovation of his time, the microcomputer. If his method did not ultimately achieve the level of adoption that would have guaranteed its enduring relevance, his efforts to achieve his goal remain an important moment in the history of translation and a foundational chapter in the field known today as genetic translation studies.

**Keywords** : Elmar Tophoven, Gideon Toury, transparent translation, Nathalie Sarraute, School of Toledo

## RÉSUMÉ

Cet article examine un chapitre méconnu de l'histoire de la traduction : la conception et la promotion de la « traduction transparente » par Elmar Tophoven. Il retrace l'histoire de cette méthode d'auto-observation et d'analyse depuis sa naissance, à la fin des années 1960, jusqu'à l'idée (inspirée par l'« école de Tolède ») d'un réseau transeuropéen de résidences dans les années 1980 où des traducteurs travailleraient ensemble à l'application de cette méthode. Nous verrons que Tophoven entendait libérer le traducteur du cercle vicieux où le plongent l'anonymat, le manque de reconnaissance scientifique et de mauvaises conditions de travail, et que son rapport à la technologie lui a permis de tirer parti de l'avènement du micro-ordinateur. Si la « traduction transparente », faute d'être adoptée par un nombre suffisant de traducteurs, n'a jamais acquis une pertinence durable, le projet de Tophoven constitue un moment important dans l'histoire de la traduction et un chapitre fondateur dans la sous-discipline aujourd'hui connue sous le nom de génétique de la traduction.

**Mots-clés** : Elmar Tophoven, Gideon Toury, traduction transparente, Nathalie Sarraute, École de Tolède
The eminent German translator Elmar Tophoven (1923-1989) makes a cameo in the footnotes to the first edition of Gideon Toury's classic *Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond* (1995). In the chapter "Studying Interim Solutions", one of the earliest attempts—after Tophoven's—to devise a methodology for the use of archival materials (pre-publication manuscripts and type-scripts) in translation process research, Toury contemplates the impact of computing on this diachronic approach. He notes that while the emergence of electronic text appears to sound the death knell of such research, effacing the printed materials that are the bread and butter of archi-val approaches, on the other hand the capacity for micro-computers to save every draft or stage of a translation's genesis, combined with the fact that translators are likely to make more changes than if they were committing their thoughts to paper, will in fact increase the quantity of data for the researcher. But Toury checks his enthusiasm, suggesting that because translators would be no more willing to have their electronic versions scrutinized than their paper equivalents, techno-logical advances do not guarantee a shift in the status quo, and translators will be no more likely to care for preserving their drafts. He then adds a footnote:

> In this connection, mention should be made of an idea of the late German translator Elmar Tophoven, the founder of the "Europäische Übersetzer Kollegium" in Straelen; namely, to connect all the terminals in the rooms used by the translators to a mainframe computer where all the versions they produce will be kept for strictly scholarly purposes. (1995: 185)

Toury goes on to mention Tophoven’s “preliminary studies” before registering a note of disappointment: “Other than that, very little seems to have come out of this interesting idea” (1995: 185).

In the second edition of his blueprint for a descriptive translation studies, Toury changes the content of this footnote, with all reference to Tophoven erased. The footnote now reads:

> One program which captures every keystroke has become quite popular in the last decade. I have in mind TRANSLOG (see e.g. Jakobsen and Schou 1999; Jakobsen 2006). This program can be combined with other ways of measuring human behaviour such as Eye-tracking and Electro-Encephalography, to yield much more elaborate research projects. A combination of those three methods is now being tested in a multi-national experimental project called EYEto-IT [...]. (Toury, 2012: 217)

Clearly, the consolidation of empirically-based cognitive translation studies between 1995 and 2012 offered Toury a more compelling example for the potential of the computer to generate both an increase in the information for the study of a translation and “much more elaborate research projects”. Before the 1980s, translation theory was focused largely on the products of translation (texts) and the competence of translators (evaluation). Research into the translation process is regularly dated as beginning in the mid-1980s, thus skipping over Tophoven’s informal (not scientifically rigorous) experimentation, to the advent of empirical, often psycho-linguistic studies of process and performance in translation (cf. Gerloff, 1988; Jääskeläinen, 1990; Jakobsen and Schou, 1999; Jakobsen, 2006; Krings, 1986; Lörscher, 1991, 1992; Séguinot [dir.], 1989; Tirkkonen-Condit [dir.], 1991). This new landscape of translation process research is the backdrop against which Toury edits the sentence upon which his new footnote is hung. The question of whether “translators would be *willing* to have all the *versions* they have produced *retained***” (1995: 185, first emphasis is the author’s) becomes one of “translators *willing* to have their *activities tapped***” (2012: 217; first emphasis is the author’s), a revision that gestures towards
the contemporary use of TAPs (think-aloud protocols) in empirical research, where a translator voices simultaneously or retrospectively the thought processes that inform her decisions. The shift in focus from *versions*, the traditional term for the production of translated texts in one's L1, to plugging into *activities*, underscores Toury's attempt to connect his own studies of translators' papers to the observation of live, working subjects. While the translators within his sentence first “did not care to keep their drafts” (1995: 185), nearly two decades later they “did not care to keep their interim decisions” (2012: 217), which generates a further shift away from the materiality of manuscripts to the possibility of alternative media or methods that register decisions (as he details in his revised footnote).

These revisions show Toury making subtle efforts to bring his earlier manuscript research into conversation with the newly-emerged empirical and cognitivist paradigms, sacrificing Tophoven in the process. This erasure is unfortunate because not only did Tophoven's early document-based process research anticipate some of the methods later honed by cognitive and empirical TS scholars, but the scale of the project to which he was working surpasses the kinds of experiments seen in cognitive translation studies to date. The image that Toury offers, of a group of translators plugged into a mainframe computer that records their work, is not quite accurate. The idea was not to link together all translators working in the EÜK but to stock in a central memory bank (*Speicher*) their discoveries and solutions to translation problems and lexical difficulties. It was a late phase in a project that spanned three decades to foster among peers a collaborative reflection upon the specificity of their own writing. Tophoven's dream, the goal to which he was working before his life was cut short at the age of 66, was in fact one where translators, at work or at translation residencies across Europe—like the European Translators’ College in Straelen, Germany to which Toury refers—would contribute to a global dataset by apportioning part of their working day to document and analyse their processes using his method of “transparentes Übersetzen” (*la traduction transparente* or transparent translation).

The purpose of this article is to reintroduce into the history of international (Anglophone) Translation Studies Tophoven's efforts from the late 1960s to 1989 to define and promote this method of translation process research<fnref n="1" />. It offers a critical analysis of the method's strengths and limitations, charting its emergence from Tophoven's personal practice and his collaboration with linguists in the late 1960s-1970s, into his vision of a so-called “Toledo School”, where translators would work collaboratively, producing their own translation research through self-observation and analysis. He emerges in this account as a skilful rhetorician, mobilizing myths of both singular and collaborative translation to advance his central project of emancipating translators from a vicious cycle of anonymity, lack of scientific recognition and poor working conditions. This article considers, finally, Tophoven's relationship to technology and his response to the most significant technological innovation of his time, the microcomputer. It concludes that while his method did not ultimately achieve the level of adoption that would have guaranteed its enduring relevance, his efforts to achieve his goal remain an important moment in the history of translation and a foundational chapter in what is known today as genetic translation studies.

<footnote n="1">1. Tophoven is regularly evoked in discussions of translation in Germany, although his method does not have wide recognition. In France his work was the focus of a 1995 issue of *Translittérature*; the landmark issue of *Genesis* in 2014 devoted to translation contained a study by Lebrave of Tophoven's method when translating Alain Robbe-Grillet's *La Jalousie*; and Solange Arber, who is completing a doctorate on Tophoven, has examined Tophoven's treatment of particular linguistic aspects of the *nouveau roman* (Arber, 2016), analysed his metaphor of transparency (Arber 2018a), and explored the Tophoven Archives to detail his method of translating Nathalie Sarraute's "disent les imbéciles" and *Vous les entendez?* (Arber, 2018b) as well as Robbe-Grillet's *Djinn* (Arber, forthcoming).</footnote>
Transparent translation: a new paradigm for process research

By any teaching or research metric, in the 1960s the discipline of Translation Studies was a tiny
fraction of its current size, and in France, where Tophoven lived and worked from 1949, it was
virtually non-existent, but a fledgling branch of linguistics. Before moving to Paris, Tophoven
had served as a soldier in World War II, when he was imprisoned in France by the US army, and,
after returning to Germany to finish his studies, he became *lecteur* in German at the Sorbonne.
From 1952 he worked as a freelance literary translator, an occupation that he combined with
teaching translation from 1970 when he filled the position of *lecteur* in German vacated by Paul
Celan at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure de Paris. In the 1950s Tophoven developed
a close, collaborative working relationship with Samuel Beckett, for whom he—and, later, in
partnership with his wife Erika Tophoven—became the exclusive translator into German. It
is for this long collaboration and its prodigious output that he is best-known today, and the
Anglophone world remains largely ignorant of the fact that not only did Tophoven introduce a
whole generation of (other) post-war *nouveau roman* authors to the German public (such as Alain
Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras), and that he translated over
100 titles into French (from Molière and Rabelais to Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal, E.M.
Cioran, Eugène Ionesco and Claude Mauriac), but that he was also passionately and wholeheart-
edly engaged in working towards improving the working conditions of translators by promoting
the scientific recognition of their work. Outside of the Continent, few translation scholars are
aware of the pioneering translation process research that he began at a time when very little such
research existed in writing or literary studies, let alone Translation Studies. His disappearance
from the definitive edition of Toury's monograph, one of the foundational texts of modern inter-
national Translation Studies, further occludes this work and its method of self-reflexive observa-
tion upon the translation process.

*La traduction transparente* required translators to document their thought processes while translating, noting the sequence of solutions to a particular translation problem, and then reflect upon their strategies and solutions. Tophoven's use of the metaphor of transparency differs from that of Georges Mounin (2016: 74), for whom translators are like windows that are either “clear” or “tainted/coloured”, or Lawrence Venuti, whose well-known formulation contrasts invisible, hence transparent, translators whose fluent texts hide all traces of their translatedness versus those that do not—rather, it resembles the discourse of *transparency* in contemporary political discourse, the making visible to the public of obscure or mysterious mechanisms that are otherwise hidden from view (Arber, 2018a: 3). It evidently suggests the opening of a window onto obscure cognitive processes (translation's infamous “black box” problem): “The passage from one expression to another, the work of transmutation accomplished above all in the head, the representation of these subtle procedures is what one may term ‘transparent translation’” (Tophoven, 1995: 19)<fnref n="2" />. Yet Tophoven does not claim to represent all aspects of translating, rather he encourages translators to adopt a problem-centred approach, to reflect upon moments of difficulty or blockage in their translating, to note the sequence of solutions tested until a satisfactory solution is found, and then to classify and generalise the problem. As with talk-aloud protocols, which empirical research methodology acknowledges to be imperfect because the act of verbalisation already changes the nature of the object described, the absolute “transparency” of this self-reflection is never absolute or guaranteed. Yet the import of Tophoven's method was to create an evolving and growing archive (and later, an electronic dataset) of translation process

<footnote n="2">2. All unattributed translations are mine.</footnote>
research made by translators themselves. This work towards a genetics of translation emerged concurrently with the birth of *critique génétique* in France, which focussed upon the material manuscripts (avant-textes) of modern authors, but—unlike Tophoven—genetic critics had not yet considered techniques of empirical process research that were emerging from the field of psychology. However, until Lebrave’s article in the 2014 issue of *Genesis* devoted to translation, outside of Beckett studies Tophoven’s work had not been considered within the context of *critique génétique*.

In his 1974 contribution to the translation review *Babel* Tophoven recalls that he first heard of the possibilities for cooperation between translators in the context of professional associations in April 1965, at the International Congress for Literary Translators of Hamburg. The event made him aware of the need, firstly, to defend translators’ rights collectively and, secondly, to develop a close working relationship with the university sector, which would be crucial for the recognition of translators’ work. The conference resolved to create a college for literary translators and researchers to work together within the university system. While this college did not come to fruition, cooperation between these parties continued through the “Esslinger Gespräche”, the “Esslingen Conferences” that began in 1968.

At the conference the following year, located at Bad Boll near Göppingen, the group of French-German translators worked with a group of linguists to reflect upon the criteria with which to analyse the translation problems that arise during the composition of a text. They focussed on some 200 notes made during a session translating Nathalie Sarraute’s novel *Entre la vie et la mort*. The University of Salzburg Professor of Linguistics Mario Wandruszka played an important role in this process and was to become a key influence on Tophoven’s linguistic approach to the classification of translation problems. Wandruszka had published a study of the distinctive “genius” of the French tongue (1959), and at the time he and Tophoven met he had recently completed a study into the capacity for comparative translation analysis to reveal the unique features of a given language and the limits of comparability between different languages (1969). Working with Wandruszka, the translators grouped their translation problems into a number of categories: semantic, lexicological, grammatical, syntactic, rhythmical, prosodic (Tophoven, 1974: 7). Tophoven integrated these insights into the note-taking method that he had begun while translating Beckett’s *Watt* in 1968, when he had underlined words of the source text with different colours to keep track of the relationships between “the play of sounds and their balancing” (Tophoven, 1973: 8). In his subsequent note-taking, he devised a system whereby translation problems were recorded onto cards that were coded with one of three colours: red for lexis or semantics; blue for syntax; green for rhythm, prosody and sound (Tophoven, Erika, 2011: 111-113). The Tophoven Archive in Straelen, Germany contains thousands of such cards made by the translator over his career, in addition to manuscripts, typescripts, letters and materials relating to the German reception of the authors he translated. This invaluable resource for genetic translation research remains underexploited, and although it is not the purpose of this article to provide such an analysis of any one text, an example will illustrate Tophoven’s self-reflective method.
<figure><img src="image_55.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1 – Box of cards produced by Elmar Tophoven during the translation of Nathalie Sarraute’s “disent les imbéciles” (1976). Tophoven Archive, Straelen. Reproduced with the permission of Erika Tophoven.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_56.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2 – Colour-coded card produced by Elmar Tophoven during the translation of Nathalie Sarraute’s *Vous les entendez* (1972). Reproduced with the permission of Erika Tophoven.</figcaption></figure>
In the early 1970s, for Tophoven, translating transparently involved noting on cards problems that arose at the time of translating. Not all these cards recorded the thought processes that led to the solution, though most contain a commentary upon the logic of the translation. The outcome of what might be termed a retrospective *writing-aloud protocol*, or in Tophoven's words "translating with an open hand" (1987: 96), the cards reveal the attempts by the translator to "list the difficulties, establish the stages of their solution, accord each its weight within the organic and coherent whole, so as to draw out their reusable conclusions" (1973: 8). Cross-referenced to the text, the translator recorded his thought processes relative to a difficulty, respecting their sequence, and attributed to them linguistic categories. Of the more than 1200 cards he produced while translating Sarraute's 223-page novel *Vous les entendez*, Tophoven estimates that some 50% will be reusable because they reveal the "rhetorical micro-structures" (figures) that reflect the "mechanism of the act of writing" (1973: 8). Fig. 2 shows one such example, Sarraute's "des oreilles ennemies nous écoutent, des yeux ennemis nous épient" (Sarraute, 1996: 755) at "47/6", meaning page 47, line 6. Tophoven's commentary, "Parallelismus [...] Assonanzen-Rettung" registers his attempt to find a *parallel* structure to *save the assonances* and so match the sonic pattern of the French, whose sharp "i"s (encircled) pierce through the soundscape like two eyes that pin their prey. The translator's solution "belauschen... belauern..." achieves this objective with a pleasing sonority, but also with a refinement at the semantic level (hence both the green and red lines scored across the corners of the card). The standard French verb for listening, écouter, is rendered with *belauschen*, an eavesdropping that renders the scene more precisely. Tophoven's other commentary upon his decision, "Muster 'Feind hört mit' unbrauchbar", affirms that in this case the model or stock phrase, "the enemy is listening [to us]" is inappropriate. Indeed for the German reader this standard translation would resonate with the discourse of the Nazi regime and the Second World War, which would be entirely misplaced in the context, and particularly unfortunate in the work of Jewish author who was forced into hiding during the Vichy regime<fnref n="3" />. The translator's discovery of this *Parallelismus* is but one of the hundreds of "rhetorical micro-structures" he comments upon over the course of the writing, and reflecting on the process of balancing these individual decisions, he evokes Jakobson's notion of "dynamic synchronicity": his cards allow him to monitor features of his translation that have implications for the coherence of the text as a whole; they allow him to coordinate the morphology, connotations, sensory factors, rhythm, musicality of his writing when he is forced to privilege one or more of these features at any one time (1973: 8); and, as a record of this process, they are like an "x-ray of interlingual metamorphoses" (1985: 144).

## The translator as scientist

Since the late 1960s, Tophoven had been staking out a bold remit for the labour of translation and its social as well as scientific value. In his 1987 article for the journal *Protée*, he posed the question directly: should the analysis of the data from this transparent translation be analysed by linguists or could translators themselves “harvest the fruits of their own labour, namely all that they learn—all they must learn—day after day faced with texts that present problems that at first sight sometimes appear unresolvable” (1987: 95). Jean-Louis Lebrave finds an affinity between Tophoven’s conception of translation and the nature of genetic criticism itself (2014: 55). Tophoven encouraged translators to develop a genetic mindset. He believed that by retracing

<footnote n="3">3. I am grateful to Jonas Tophoven for pointing this out to me.</footnote>
the process that lead to the solution, and then by reflecting upon the *reusability* of the record of that process, translators would prevent the disappearance of their hard-won professional knowledge. Practising this method would contribute to the development of each translator's scientific *esprit* by requiring them to comprehend the paradigmatic and generalizable aspects of translating, beyond the personal, the ephemeral or the particular. As he contemplated his notes from translating Claude Simon's *Histoire*, Tophoven affirms that such documents attest to the unique experience of each translator and the capacity of each to generate new forms of knowledge that surpass their relevance to the individual. With an eye to future researchers—like today's generation of scholars interested in translation genetics—as much as to members of his own profession, Tophoven writes that these forms of knowledge “may in the future constitute an inexhaustible collection guaranteeing an ongoing dialogue between colleagues” (1987: 99).

It is important to situate Tophoven's criteria for translation evaluation within their context. Arber has used Tophoven's avant-textes to document a translator “obsessed by the orality of the text” (forthcoming) and shown that this heightened regard for the rhythm, musicality and sound of words could led him be more flexible with their semantics (Arber, 2018b). Nonetheless, his methodology for transparent translation employs the traditional criteria of equivalence when attempting to recreate meaning or poetics between source and translation. At the time, the product-focused approach remained fixed upon the diabolical problem of equivalence between source and target text comparisons (Koller, 1978; 1979; 1983: 95; 1989; Ladmiral, 1981: 393). Competence models focussed on the skills and strategies of translators, but they were theoretical and speculative for they did not rely on accumulated data or systematic observation of translators at work (Toury, 1980: 41). The new form of process research that Tophoven practised or oversaw from the late 1960s to the 1980s adapted both the contemporary models of equivalence and the contrastive linguistic approach developed by his principal scientific collaborator, Mario Wandruszka, to his unsystematized, but intuitive and practice-based (professional) view of translator competence. His linguistic categorization of translation problems in the early 1970s predates the introduction into translation studies of discourse analysis or models derived from cognitive-linguistics and socio-linguistics, and it was to remain unaffected by new linguistic paradigms, such as Juliane House's (1977) application of Halliday's systemic functional grammar to translation analysis. Rarely lifting its gaze from the individual, Tophoven's approach never engaged with the systems-based approaches to translation that began to emerge in the late 1970s with the work of Even-Zohar (1978) and Toury (1980), which consider the role of translation within dynamic literary “polysystems” and interrogate not only why some texts are destined to be translated but also *how* they will be translated. Yet, Tophoven may have been no more or less informed of these developments than most translation specialists at the time, for as Snell-Hornby has pointed out, before Theo Herman's important 1985 collection *The Manipulation of Literature*, which gathered together many authors advocating a departure from studying how the translation renders the linguistic features of its source to analysis of its *function* in the target culture, “for outsiders much of it [polysystems theory] remained virtually inaccessible” (Snell-Hornby, 2006: 48). That is because proceedings of the legendary conference on “Literature and Translation” held at Leuven (Belgium) in 1976 (Holmes et al. [dir.], 1978) went out of print a few years after publication, and much of this research was then published only in Dutch<fnref n="4" /> and Hebrew, or in limited edition monographs and local publications, or unpublished theses.

<footnote n="4">4. Even if Tophoven knew Dutch well enough to translate it, theoretical texts on translation in that language were not well known beyond the Dutch-speaking community of researchers.</footnote>
One must remember that Tophoven was first and foremost a professional literary translator and a teacher of literary translation, not a translation researcher. His linguistic criteria for the assessment of translation problems were determined by personal and historical circumstances, yet he nonetheless imagined an enlarged role for the translator as a researcher of socio-cultural and linguistic phenomena, a “point of convergence between diverse disciplines” (Tophoven, 1973: 9). Such ideas, although familiar to us today through notions of the translator’s “interculture” (Pym, 1998: 181) and the idea of translation studies as an interdiscipline (Snell-Hornby, Pöchhacker, Kaindl, 1994), were nascent and largely unformulated in the 1970s and early 1980s. Furthermore, anticipating contemporary debates about the agency of the translator, Tophoven states clearly that he regards the act of translation as at once a complex “art” but also a “rewriting” under constraints (1973: 8). He affirms that his method’s critical self-reflection allows the translator “to penetrate deeper and deeper into that subtle mechanism that we call ‘the intuition’” by rendering “transparent” the translator’s literary poetics, like, for instance, when the phonic qualities of translated words are so apt as to generate a “surplus of prosodic value” with respect to their source (1974: 8).

As early as 1973 he affirmed that the translator's efforts to document translation processes would ideally be reproduced as marginal notes to the published text in order to facilitate comparative study (1973: 8). The product of transparent translation would thus counteract the invisibility of the translator in national or global publishing regimes and supply the published work with a new *translatorial* dimension. He therefore saw his method as offering a new framework with which to interrogate the singularity of the translation within the culture of reception and its traditions of literary criticism. In his 1984 discourse at the very first *Assises de la traduction littéraire* at Arles, France, he commented that if he were asked how he translated the particularities of an author's style, he could point to his notes and reveal the secrets of that author's tongue, and, indeed, "It is in this domain that the translators' notes attain their greatest exchange value" (1985: 145). Furthermore, with its penetrating but self-critical regard, as it looks back towards the source text such visible translating fractures the authority of the original, revealing it to be contingent upon ways of reading and processes of transmission with multiple, competing significations. Not only does Tophoven's proposition for including the translator's own research with the published text attest to his intuitions as a genetic scholar, it shows his perception that translation can be an analytical tool to interrogate the *œuvre*—reversing the habitual perspective in which the translation is held to account by the authority of the *œuvre*—a view that has gained traction in comparative literature studies (Apter, 2006, 2013) as much as global literature studies (Walkowitz, 2015).

## Tophoven's Toledo: from myth to reality

Toury's 1995 monograph mentions the “Europäische Übersetzer Kollegium” in Straelen, Germany, the European Translators' College that Tophoven set up with Klaus Birkenhauer in 1978 and which moved to its current premises in 1985. Tophoven would pass away just four years later, too early to see its flourishing into its current size, the largest residence for literary translators in the world. Straelen established a model that has been replicated across Europe, at the Collège International des Traducteurs Littéraires, Arles (France), the Casa del Traductor, Tarazona (Spain), the Collège Européen des Traducteurs Littéraires de Seneffe (Belgium), not to mention other centres within the Réseau Européen de Centres de Traduction Littéraire (RECIT), a network of residencies in locations such as Antwerp (Belgium), Sofia
(Bulgaria), Berlin (Germany), Tallinn (Estonia), Balatonfüred (Hungary), Rome (Italy), Ventspils (Latvia), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Looren (Switzerland), Visby (Sweden) and Norwich (United Kingdom).

Tophoven often wrote or spoke of the fact that his inspiration for his idea of translators'
residencies was the twelfth-century School of Toledo (eg. 1986: 30, 1995: 24), a multilingual
centre that attracted many translators from the Muslim, Hebraic and Christian traditions, and
where Don Raimondo gathered a group to translate from Arabic into Latin many important
philosophical and scientific texts, including Greek texts previously lost to the West. The Toledo-
Tophoven link is oft-repeated (eg. Wintzen, 1997) but somewhat romanticized, and it is cer-
tainly ironic, given that in recent years, during the period in which Tophoven's model has gone
global—see for instance the establishment of the Literary Translation Centre, in Banff, Alberta
(Canada), the Dar Al-Ma'mûn residency in Marrakech (Morocco), or newly created Translator-
in-residence positions at the British Library or in the USA at, for instance, the University of
Iowa or Princeton—the very existence of the celebrated “Toledo School” has been proven to be
a myth. Much translation happened in and around 12-13th century Toledo, but there was never
a coherent school (for an overview see Santoyo, 2011). From myth to reality, the emergence of
translation centres inspired by his initiative at Straelen was a source of hope for Tophoven; he
believed that by using his method there and beyond, translators would collectively sustain future
research and help improve their own standing (eg. 1987: 100)<fnref n="5" />. In 1987 he wrote of such efforts
already underway at Straelen, underlining once again one of its principal objectives:

> The files accumulated over many years, which remain unexploited, witnessed the efforts of translators to free themselves from a vicious circle, from a fatal necessity, whereby inappropriate levels of remuneration increase time pressures on work and do not allow translators the downtime they need to draw out the lessons from their own work, which would have allowed them to secure better conditions, etc. (1995: 24)

The use of his method was never a condition or an enforced dogma for work at Straelen, and
many translators declined to participate because, with little remuneration for their work and
pressure to meet deadlines, they did not have the time to participate in translation research<fnref n="6" />.
Tophoven's passing away so early in the College's history stymied momentum for this aspect
of its activities. Yet one begins to appreciate the scale of Tophoven's vision when one considers
that it has been claimed that at Straelen alone, by 2002 over 15000 texts had been translated
(Giersberg, 2003), and that he was promoting the use of his method for all the translation centres
emerging across Europe.

The creation of translation residences in the image of the mythical Toledo School was the
expression of Tophoven's emancipatory program for translators.

> Setting down these traces [of translation] could help free literary translators from the disgrace of the forger
> as much as the aura of the sorcerer. It might tear the silent majority of lone individuals from their incapacity
> to speak and accord them a greater right to intervene by allowing them to discover themselves. (1995: 22)

Here and elsewhere, he reiterates that the aim to emancipate the lonely translator motivates his
development of both the method of transparent translation and the spaces where it can be put into
practice. This characterisation of the translator may be interrogated in light of recent work done
in sociologically-informed translation studies that highlights, following Latour, the “agency” that

<footnote n="5">5. This idea is repeated often in speeches that Tophoven delivered, the manuscripts of which may be consulted at the Tophoven Archives at Straelen.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6. Personal interview with Erika Tophoven, 9 May 2019.</footnote>
translators may exercise within their professional networks. In Bourdieusian terms, this agency
is always a function of one's *habitus* and for a translator this is determined, usually, by levels of
capital that are less economic than cultural (education, professional standing), social (networks of
contacts) or symbolic (prestige, reputation, honour, fame). As the principal German translator of
a group of *nouveau roman* authors who had emerged by the late 1960s as one of the major liter-
ary movements of post-war France, Tophoven had earned for himself a large portion of cultural,
social and symbolic capital. In particular, the attribution of the Nobel prize to Samuel Beckett
in 1969 served to guarantee, validate and augment this symbolic capital—in the following year,
and after Paul Celan's death freed the post that Tophoven had been occupying temporarily since
1964, he was appointed *lecteur* in German at the École Normale Supérieure, the most elite
*grande école* for the humanities in France. His embodied *habitus* gave him the confidence, per-
sonally and publically, to speak for this “silent majority of lone individuals”, to work towards
their emancipation. Yet Tophoven was well aware, firstly, that not all translators toiled in loneli-
ness (his own career was established in the 1950s through a practice of collaborative translation
with Samuel Beckett, and he later co-translated with his wife Erika) and, secondly, that transl-
tors play an essential role within the literary field as promotors of authors and, in today's jargon,
as agents of cultural translation.

Rather, Tophoven's claim that his method could give a voice to "the silent majority of lone individuals" skilfully exploits a powerful rhetorical discourse around the singularity of the translator that had evolved since the Renaissance to elide the benefits of the historical practice of team translation and impose a model of singular authorship which the translator was to emulate, and that in the post-Romantic period pressured translators to aspire to an ideal of authorship based upon the myth of singular genius, which—most perversely—because it was equated with notions of originality, they could never attain (Cordingley and Frigau, 2017). On the other hand, Tophoven aimed to prove through scientifically documented and verifiable means the inherent literary creativity of the translator and thus to challenge the presumed inferiority of the translator's writing. To render observable the complexity of the writing of translation is to allow for it to be appreciated on its own terms, as its own "art" (Tophoven, 1973: 8), and therefore to be no longer equated with models of original authorship, which, somewhat ironically in the wake of Stillinger's (1991) work on multiple authorship in the Romantic period, have themselves been proven to wilfully occlude the dynamics of collaboration and sustain the myth of singular genius. Yet Tophoven was also a product of his time, one when the recognition of the translator's agency had only begun. The translator's style was not for him a research object of equal value to that of discovering the author's style (1985: 144-45), and for the translator as researcher, "the most important point [...] is to determine the particularities of each individual's style", by which he means that the highest goal of *transparent translation* is to comprehend the author's style, to render *it* transparent. Attaining this goal will justify, finally, the translator's place among the ranks of real scientists (1995: 26-7, cf. 1985).

Translating transparently and collaboratively

In his 1987 article in *Protée* Tophoven reflects on the benefits of his method for future research
into the processes of collaborative translation. Discussing his translating of Beckett's *Company*
with the author, he explains that he proceeded by typing into his computer each English phrase,
then on the line below he entered Beckett's published French translation, under which he recorded
the course of his own translating until he arrived at his final proposition. He cites an example of
his rendition of Beckett’s “What does this mean?” as “... was bedeutet das?” But when revising
his translation with the author, who had a fine grasp of German, Beckett suggested a formulation
that paid homage to Heinrich Heine, drawn from *Die Lorelei*, and which the translator recorded
next to his own phrase: “S.B.: Was soll das bedeuten? (H.H.)...”. Recalling this process Tophoven
surmises that “one can imagine that traces of the author’s interventions give a supplementary
value to documents that report the processes of translation” (1987: 97). Indeed, Tophoven was
perhaps the first to intuit the scientific value of recording not just the outcome but also the pro-
cesses of author-translator collaboration.

Furthermore, he saw another benefit for documenting author-translator collaboration in the
use that could be made of the “protocole de travail” (1987: 97; working protocol) during negoti-
ations with one’s editor. He notes that the record or protocol of his translation of *Mal vu mal dit*
that was revised in collaboration with Beckett shows where Beckett objected to certain, perhaps
more obvious, translations, and introduced nuances or departures that the translator would nor-
mally be reluctant to make. Tophoven generally accorded Beckett the last word in such matters,
and he writes that when he sent his text to his German editor he also sent the entire protocol of
the translation process. This, he affirms, facilitated the editor’s verification of his translation and
served to “simplify correspondence about ‘blind spots’ or ‘unclear passages’” (1987: 89). This
tongue in cheek comment acknowledges that translators can use the translation “protocol” to
turn to their own advantage the editor’s inherent bias towards the author, who is often (dubiously)
assumed to be the best reader of his or her own text, and thus negate the tedious and sometimes
difficult requirement to justify their own translation decisions (often with someone who does not
know the source language). Indeed, extending Tophoven’s logic one can see that not only may
proof of the author’s intervention be called upon to justify a translation decision but the absence
of the author’s censure elsewhere implicitly supports every other decision the translator makes.

Translating transparently on computers

Antoine Berman credits Elmar Tophoven with having been “the first to perceive the marvel-
lous potential that computing offered literary translators” (1995: 17). Tophoven was an early
adopter; he integrated computers into his reflection upon *transparent translating* from the late
1960s-early 1970s, and he used a microcomputer from 1980. Rather than being anxious that
translators would be superseded by technology, he saw the potential for computers to register
and communicate the complexity of translation, to retain and share each translator’s professional
knowledge and to possibly increase efficiency by allowing each to build upon the work of their
peers. In his 1973 interview in *La Quinzaine Littéraire*, he was already imagining how to incor-
porate computing into the research process, sketching a vision of translators, university research-
ers and publishers cooperating in “a kind of international institute for literary translation”, where
translators would work in residency, practising his method and recording their reflections into in
“a great electronic dictionary” (1973: 9).

The prospect of an electronic reference work that would make translators’ work reusable for
future generations continued to develop in Tophoven’s mind over the next decade. By the early
1980s he had used a personal computer while translating Robbe-Grillet’s *Djinn*, when he alter-
nated between manuscript, typewriter and computer (Arber, forthcoming), and he practised his
method of critical self-reflection when translating directly into his computer Beckett’s prose
pieces *Company/Compagnie* (Tophoven, 1983), and *Mal Vu Mal Dit* (Tophoven, Erika, 2011: 111–
13, 227). When he turned to Sarraute’s short piece of 1972 “Le Bonheur des hommes” (1984),
for each translation problem he entered the sentences or fragments of sentences from the source text into the computer; he then recorded the sequence of attempts to translate it until arriving at the final proposition; finally, he commented upon the resolution of the problem and the “lesson” derived from it (1987: 97-99). Over a fifth of these notes were judged worthy of transferring to electronic *banques* (banks<fnref n="7" />) that recorded words, syntagms and prosodic phenomena. It is not exactly clear how these word and phrase banks were structured—only some glossaries remain after the translation memories at Straelen were destroyed in 1989 by a fatal crash—although from his 1987 (26-7) discourse in Berlin it appears that the system he developed when translating transparently onto cards was replicated, each problem felling under one or more of his three headings (lexis, syntax, prosody). These categories were used by the group of translators who sorted and classified the hundreds of observations made during the translation of Nathalie Sarraute’s *Enfance*. Tophoven refers to “glossaires” and the recording of lexical features, but also to the “much more complex phenomena” of syntax and prosody, which they reduced to over 300 entries.

Tophoven explains that in 1980 at the College at Straelen computers were used for “translators who wanted to learn from one another” (1995: 25). A kind of informal experiment was set up to translate into French the novels of the German author Theodor Fontane. The text to translate would appear on the screen and the translator would then offer a solution, which if not to his or her liking, would not be erased but rather the new solution would be recorded on the line below, and so on until the translator was satisfied. Next to the solution in a separate field the translator could add a commentary, and if appropriate the “lesson” to be learned. The program could generate a final translated text that did not contain the commentaries. The objective was to analyse the different solutions offered by different translators and it would appear that he also hoped to be able to reuse their solutions in future texts that presented the same translation problems. With palpable enthusiasm, in the same breath that he connects the “Toledo School” with the translator residencies recently set up or emerging across Europe, he calls for translators to be sponsored to “work in a permanent fashion to constitute a stock of linguistic equivalents for the benefit of all translators” (1995: 27).

## The future of transparent translation and process research technologies

Tophoven’s program for the use of technology in transparent translation remained embryonic, like the emerging technology it harnessed. Yet he was evidently working towards something that resembles the way a modern translation memory operates within a computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool. Clearly, he would be impressed by the technologies at our disposal today, and he is unique in having anticipated their potential as pedagogical tools for literary translators and as instruments to valorize the work of translation for current and future peers, as well as for translation process research. Translation memories are generally not used in literary translation today because, firstly, the translator usually aspires to produce a thoroughly new translation, and secondly, literary texts do not generally contain enough word sequences that have been used before in the past to warrant the use of a translation memory. However, they may be very useful in the case of retranslation, where a translator wants to revise an existing translation or to have it present for verification as she or he translates a new version. This does not invalidate Tophoven’s ambition, rather it shows how it was limited by the nascent technologies of his time. In fact,

<footnote n="7">7. I hesitate calling each a single “banque” a *file*, because I do not know how the data was structured and archived, or a *database*, which implies an architecture that may well be more complex than the one used.</footnote>
today’s CAT tools, and other tools that facilitate the mark-up of text, offer literary translators
the capacity to record and comment on the geneses of their translations, and to share effortlessly
these reflections with each other in a way unimaginable to Tophoven.

Yet he was far from ignorant of the emerging paradigm for translation process research in the
1980s. In his 1987 article entitled “La Traduction Transparente”, he expresses his admiration for
Hans-Peter Krings’ *Was in den Köpfen von Übersetzern vorgeht* (What goes on in the heads of
translators), published only the year before, a landmark study using think-aloud protocols, which
filled some five hundred pages with minute analyses of the work of eight translators working on
texts of no more than two pages; Tophoven called it a “veritable ‘computer-tomography’” (1987:
26). However, the use of TAPs in translation research generated a number of subsequent criti-
cisms. Research demonstrated that participants’ versions of what happened during their trans-
lating did not accord with what actually happened; subjects also changed their behaviour when
they knew they were being observed, the tasks of translating and verbalizing interfering with one
another, as well as the flow of writing; and the method offered little by way of accessing uncon-
scious or automatic (non-verbalized) processes (see Fraser, 1996; Hurtado Albir & Alves, 2009:
69). In the chronology for process research proposed by Hurtado Albir et al. (2015: 5-7) this first
phase ended in the mid-1990s with the introduction of more systematic approaches that sought
to “triangulate” multiple viewpoints, combining different methods of observation, notably with
the introduction of key-logging software *Translog* (Jakobsen & Schou, 1999), a technique that
was extended by programs such as Proxy or Camtasia that capture all the translator’s activity on
the screen. In this period, Dragsted (2004) profited from the development of translation memory
systems to observe translator behaviour, especially the effects of text segmentation upon writing.

In the third and now the fourth phase of such process research, according to the dating pro-
posed by Hurtado Albir et al. (ibid.) as such techniques become more and more sophisticated,
reliable and accurate, it is worth asking whether *transparent translation* has a place in this field
at all. Or is it only a curiosity, an erased footnote from a larger story? The scientific validity of
a translator’s retrospection within Tophoven’s model appears today to be questionable, if, that
is, one is aiming to know what happens in the mind of a translator at the moment of writing.
However, as I have demonstrated above, Tophoven pursued his method to foster better working
conditions for translators; to do so, he believed they must become empowered to understand their
own artistry and not remain passive subjects, forever subservient to authors, or the monkeys
of more refined, scientific minds. On the contrary, he would have urged translators to adopt
and master the new technologies and methodologies that have become available to researchers,
imploring translators to appropriate them and to continue to translate transparently. His dream
of a working-researching community of translators, communicating with each other across the
borders of Europe and beyond has failed to materialize. Despite the exponential growth of trans-
lation studies, and the fashionable celebration of translator “creativity”, remuneration for liter-
ary translators has dropped in real terms from the 1970s and 80s. Industry-wide developments
beyond the literary domain are pressuring translators to use CAT tools and translation memories,
and to post-edit machine translation, but for translators there is no silver lining to technologi-
cal advance. On the other hand, those who appear to profit most from the boom in translation
process research that technology has facilitated are the researchers themselves. For the wider
community of literary translators today conditions are as challenging as ever in living memory.

In this context, it is worth remembering Antoine Berman’s definition of transparent translation:
Elmar Tophoven is finally, and perhaps above all, the promotor of a new way of translating [...] Of a translating that, constantly reflecting upon itself, recording its steps, its phases, its processes, is a back-up of itself, and can thus, at once promote—for perhaps the first time in History—a fertile exchange between translators, a transmission of experience, and, beyond that, allow, also for the first time, a concrete and systematic teaching of literary translation. (1989: 9)

Berman stresses that the value of the method's archival function (recording processes) is dependent upon its self-reflexive function (the subject's heightened self-understanding), a combination that opens up the potential for an enriched, productive communication and a flourishing pedagogy. Unlike Borges, who conjured up Funes, the character who could effortlessly learn English, French, Portuguese and Latin but was paralysed by his total memory—Funes “was not very good at thinking” (Borges, 1998: 136)—Tophoven never dreamed of hypermnesic sheep. His ideal translators privilege the selection and analysis of translation problems at every step, working towards their solution at once individually and in community; they refine their capacity for critical self-analysis and communication in a constant, dialogic process of self-improvement, for themselves and for the recognition of their own art.

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<figure><img src="image_57.png" /></figure>

## Ont collaboré à ce numéro

### Ludivine BOUTON-KELLY

Ludivine Bouton-Kelly est professeure agrégée d'anglais, docteure en littérature générale et comparée et traductrice professionnelle. Son travail de recherche porte sur l'articulation entre théorie et pratique d'écriture en traduction ainsi que sur la notion de retraduction et le bilin-guisme d'écriture. Parmi ses dernières traductions publiées : *Killarney Blues* de Colin O'Sullivan (Rivages, 2017) et *Bezimena* de Nina Bunjevac (Ici Même, 2018).

### Anthony CORDINGLEY

Anthony Cordingley est maître de conférences à l'université Paris 8 – Vincennes-Saint-Denis, actuellement en détachement à l'université de Sydney en qualité de *Robinson Fellow*. Ses recherches portent sur la littérature anglophone et la traduction. Spécialiste de Samuel Beckett, il a publié *Samuel Beckett's "How It Is": Philosophy in Translation* (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), dirigé *Self-translation: Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture* (Bloomsbury, 2013) et codirigé *Collaborative Translation: from the Renaissance to the Digital Age* (Bloomsbury, 2017) ainsi que deux numéros de revue : *Linguistica Antverpiensia*, « Towards a Genetics of Translation » (2015) et *Meta*, « Translation Archives » (2021). Entre 2020 et 2022, il conduira le projet de recherche « Genetic Translation Studies » au Centre for Translation Studies (CETRA) à KU Leuven, dans le cadre d'un Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship.

### Flavie ÉPIÉ

Flavie Épié est agrégée d'anglais et doctorante à l'université Bordeaux-Montaigne, en cotutelle internationale avec l'université d'Anvers. Elle enseigne la littérature, la traduction et la traductologie, et prépare une thèse consacrée aux deux traductions françaises de l'*Ulysse* de James Joyce.

### María Constanza GUZMÁN

María Constanza Guzmán enseigne à la faculté de Traduction et au département d'Études his-paniques de l'université York (Toronto, Canada). Outre de nombreux articles en traductologie, elle a notamment publié *Gregory Rabassa's Latin American Literature* (Bucknell UP, 2008) et cotraduit (avec Joshua Price) un roman de José Pablo Feinmann, *Heidegger's Shadow* (Texas Tech UP, 2016). Elle a récemment dirigé un numéro sur la traduction en revue dans *Translation and Interprating Studies* (John Benjamins, 2019), et publié *Mapping Spaces of Translation in Twentieth-Century Latin American Print Culture* (Routledge, 2020).
### Esa Christine HARTMANN

Esa Christine Hartmann enseigne la littérature allemande et la traduction à l'université de Strasbourg. Ses recherches actuelles sont consacrées à l'approche génétique de la traductologie et de la création plurilingue. Elle a publié *Les Manuscrits de Saint-John Perse. Pour une poétique vivante* (Paris, L'Harmattan, 2007), ainsi que de nombreux articles de critique génétique portant sur le processus créateur de Saint-John Perse et de ses traducteurs anglais, américains et allemands. Elle est membre du « Groupe d'études sur le plurilinguisme européen » du laboratoire LiPA de l'université de Strasbourg et membre associé de l'équipe « Multilinguisme, traduction, création » de l'ITEM/CNRS.

### Patrick HERSANT

Maître de conférences en littérature anglaise et traduction à l'université Paris 8, il a consacré de nombreux articles à la traduction de la poésie britannique, établi et co-traduit trois anthologies bilingues, édité un recueil de quinze traductions de S. T. Coleridge, et publié des traductions de poésie – notamment Edward Lear (Ombres), Rupert Brooke (La Différence), Philip Sidney, Francis S. Fitzgerald, R. L. Stevenson (Les Belles Lettres), Hannah Sullivan (La Table ronde) et Seamus Heaney (Gallimard). Il a récemment publié *Au miroir de la traduction : avant-texte, intratexte, parataxte* (co-dir. Esa Hartmann, *Archives contemporaines*, 2019) et *Traduire avec l'auteur* (dir., Sorbonne université Presses, 2020).

### Enora LESSINGER

Ancienne élève de l'École normale supérieure (Lyon), Enora Lessinger a soutenu en 2019 une thèse de traductologie à la Sorbonne Nouvelle. Son sujet de thèse, « Translating Silence in Kazuo Ishiguro's novels: Testing the Explicitation Hypothesis on Unreliable Narratives », croise narratologie et traductologie à partir d'un corpus en six langues. Elle a enseigné le français à Cambridge et l'anglais à la Sorbonne Nouvelle.

### Chiara MONTINI

Chiara Montini, traductrice et chercheuse associée à l'ITEM (CNRS-ENS), a enseigné la littérature comparée en France et en Italie. Elle a consacré de nombreux articles à Samuel Beckett et l'autotraduction, au multilinguisme, et à la génétique des textes et de la traduction ; elle a traduit en italien *Mercier et Camier* de Samuel Beckett (Einaudi 2015) et un recueil d'essais de Vladimir Nabokov. Elle a notamment publié *La lingua spaesata. Il multilinguismo oggi* (BUP, 2014) ; *Traduire : Genèse du choix* (Archives contemporaines, 2015) ; « Genetic Translation Studies: an Emerging Discipline » (co-dir. Anthony Cordingley, *Linguistica Antverpiensia*, n° 14, 2015) ; *I Nabokov si traducono. A Cloudless collaboration* (Mucchi, 2020).

### Madeleine STRATFORD

Madeleine Stratford est traductrice et professeure agrégée à l'Université du Québec en Outaouais. Elle a publié plusieurs articles dans des revues scientifiques, dont *TTR, Meta* et la *Revue d'études canadiennes*. Membre de l'Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada, elle a aussi signé plusieurs traductions littéraires, dont *Elle nage* de Marianne Apostolides, finaliste en 2016 au prix du Gouverneur général.
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