Life and Death of the Translator: From the Ancien Régime to the Second Empire (1727-1857)
This paper addresses the fact that it is impossible in the France of the Ancien Régime to separate the translated author from the translating one, especially when ancient authors were concerned. The lack of a clear distinction between original authors and their translators, from the perspective both of the latter and of contemporary critics, challenges the modern reading of texts produced before 1857 that qualifies them as belles infidèles. Like Perrot d’Ablancourt before them, 18th-century French translators saw themselves simultaneously as authors and translators. Thus, the issue of a so-called fidelity or faithfulness is irrelevant. The opposition between translating authors (who produced the initial French translations of their contemporaries) and scientific translators (who offered yet another rendering of a canonical text) is maintained in France until the 1850s when Dante became “the” author to translate.