Beyond Figures, Beings: Shakespeare and Yeats Translated by Yves Bonnefoy
This article celebrates Yves Bonnefoy’s conception of translation as a human experience and an empathic dialogue between the translator and the author of the original text. Through an analysis of Bonnefoy’s translations of Shakespeare and Yeats, it identifies what is at stake in such a dialogue. A parallel is drawn between the latter and the ideas of Meschonnic who, by focusing on the subjectivity of the literary text and on the “continuum” (continu) between a subject and his discourse, insists on the need for the translator to preserve this continuum. Similarly, according to Bonnefoy, poetry articulates existence and speech (parole), and the translator is only able to recreate this articulation by being present in his translation, in his choices of rhythm and selection of words. Form is tied to meaning in the original poem as well as in the translation; together, they make a poetic experience tangible. An ethical but also a poetical act, translation–as Bonnefoy practises it–restores the figure of the translator to its rightful place, thereby producing a new work of art, in accordance with Berman’s view. While trying to make Shakespeare’s or Yeats’ voice audible in the translation, Bonnefoy searches for his own voice. Translation, as a continual creation, is what enables the figure of the translator-poet to reveal itself.