<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Thanks Stuart. I look forward to reading your article but enjoyed what you pointed out. The problem is how ambiguous these statements are in English, as you note. I recently read Kate Briggs’ <i class="">This Little Art </i>where she struggles with issues of translation, especially her own translations of Barthes last lectures, and difficulties translating Thomas Mann into English, among other things. Briggs would argue that a translated work, is to some extent, a new creation because of the impossibility of achieving a one-to-one correspondence or mere transcription between languages. It’s great when we can get more than one translation of a work. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The use of the word “black” as a personal descriptor in English is interesting. I think of Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park described as “black,” when (apparently) he is not racially black, simply dark-haired and eyed. Of course, this all points up how arbitrary race is. <br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 29, 2018, at 6:26 AM, Adolphe Haberer via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" class="">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Dear Stuart,<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">You surprisingly forgot to mention the first "black woman" in <i class="">Jacob's Room</i>, even though she turns out to be a rock: "A large black woman was sitting on the sand. He ran towards her." (Ch. I)<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Also, there exists another translation of the book into French, done by Agnès Desarthe, Paris: Stock, 2008.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Thank you for your contribution to the list.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Best<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Ado<br class=""></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all" class=""><div class=""><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class="">==<br class="">Adolphe Haberer<br class="">Professeur émérite à l'Université Lumière Lyon 2<br class="">1 route de Saint-Antoine 69380 Chazay d'Azergues<br class=""><a href="mailto:Adolphe.Haberer@univ-lyon2.fr" target="_blank" class="">Adolphe.Haberer@univ-lyon2.fr</a><br class=""><a href="mailto:ado@haberer.fr" target="_blank" class="">ado@haberer.fr</a><br class="">33 (0) 4 78 43 65 24<br class="">33 (0) 6 63 57 95 91<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></div></div></div>
<br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">2018-04-28 14:01 GMT+02:00 Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" target="_blank" class="">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>></span>:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div class="">This is the title of an article of mine in VWM81* & VWB37. It
suddenly occurred to me to wonder what translators have made of the problem,
and, if I am right, more black people are appearing in translations. My
knowledge of foreign languages is limited, and the examples I’m choosing from
“Jacob’s Room” are another problem, since generally it was not one of the first
of Woolf’s books to be translated. The only complete translation to appear
in her lifetime was Swedish (selections appeared in French in journals).
And of course, I don’t have all the translations.</div>
<div class="">*<a title="https://virginiawoolfmiscellany.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/vwm81spring2012.pdf" href="https://virginiawoolfmiscellany.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/vwm81spring2012.pdf" target="_blank" class="">https://<wbr class="">virginiawoolfmiscellany.files.<wbr class="">wordpress.com/2013/09/<wbr class="">vwm81spring2012.pdf</a></div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class=""><span class="">Ch.
VI: Out she swept, the black woman with <span class="">the
dancing feather in her hat.</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class="">Ch.
XII: <span class="">Italy
is all fierceness, bareness, exposure, and black priests shuffling along the
roads. </span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class="">FRENCH</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class="">Jean
Talva, 1942: “la femme en noir”; “prêtres” [no adjective!].</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class="">Magali
Merle, 1993: “la femme en noir”; “noire prêtraille” [an obscure word to me,
which I am guessing means clergy].</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class="">Adolphe
Haberer, 2012: “la femme noire”; “prêtres noirs”.</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class="">PORTUGUESE</span></span></div>
<div class=""><span class=""><span class=""></span></span> </div>
<div class="">Maria Teresa Guerreiro, 1989 (Brazil): “a mulher negra”; “padres de
preto”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Lucília Rodrigues, 1992 (Portugal): “a mulher negra”; “padres
negros”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">ITALIAN</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Anna Banti, 1950: “la donna in nero”; “neri preti”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Mirella Billi, 1994: “la donna vestita di nero”; “preti neri”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">GERMAN</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Gustav K. Kemperdick, 1981: “die schwarze Frau”; “schwarze Priester”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Heidi Zerning, 1998: “die schwarze Frau”; “schwarze Priester”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">SWEDISH</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Siri Thorngren-Olin, 1927: “den mörka kvinnan”; “svarta präster”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Siri Thorngren-Olin (revised by unknown), 2007: “den mörka kvinnan”;
“svarta präster”.</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">I think the tendency is there, although these examples are not
conclusive. However, translators should not make a book simpler for their
readers than it is for the (English) native speaker. If the word seems
more ambiguous (or even more misleading) now than it did in 1922, to what extent
should the translator use a contemporary word or interpretation? Yet, I
don’t want to read Dante in English, where the English seems
incomprehensible:</div>
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Now had the sun to that horizon reached,</div>
<div class="">That covers, with the most exalted point</div>
<div class="">Of its meridian circle, Salem’s walls,</div>
<div class="">And night, that opposite to him her orb</div>
<div class="">Rounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,</div>
<div class="">Holding the scales, that from her hands are dropped</div>
<div class="">When she reigns highest ...</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888" class="">
<div class=""> </div>
<div class="">Stuart</div></font></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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