Desfontaines in Drag: an "English Lady" translates The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1743)
Desfontaines travesti examines specific elements of the paratext of the first French translation of a work by Henry Fielding, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1743), to show how “censure,” as the polysemic word was understood and used in eighteenth-century France, influenced not only the practice of, but also the discourse on, translation. The article considers Joseph Andrews’ paratext as a whole and explores its relation to the mechanisms of political and literary censorship – both criticism and the banning of a work – in the context of France’s Proscription. The adoption of a persona, “Une Dame Angloise,” allowed translator Pierre-François Guyot Desfontaines to address these issues critically; her “notes” and her “Letter” are at once critical of Fielding’s text and of the customs of Desfontaines’ contemporaries, whereas such commentaries normally serve to defend the translated text against morally rigid criticism and attacks from target censorship.