Images are the result of an interaction between a reader and a text. Often these images are the result of interpretation or they can develop as a result of reading secondary source material. Different interpretations yield different points of view or perspectives, and as a result the image is refracted under the influence of interpretation. In translation theory, refraction can also be understood as rewriting. The most liberal understanding of rewriting encompasses anything produced as a result of a particular author and his or her text. A rewriting can therefore be defined as literary history, reference works,
anthologies, criticism, editions and translations. The problem with such a wide-ranging definition is that everything is a rewriting, therefore the idea of an “original” text does not exist. I would like to propose a more straight forward approach, or at least convey how I will use the term. According to Andre Lefevere, a translation is “the most obviously recognizable type of rewriting and . . . it is potentially the most influential because it is able to project the image of an author and/or a (series of) work(s) in another culture . . .” (9). A translation is executed in such a way that it is read by a target language reader in a manner which introduces a foreign cultural object into the dominant language of a particular target group whether it appears as an authentic foreign object or parades as an authentic domestic object. Regardless of the method in which a translation is made, it is tacitly informed with cultural information. Rewritings, however, verbally acknowledge that their work in some way impacts a readers understanding of the author and text or deepens their knowledge of it, as in the case of criticism. For example, when one reads Dirk Mosig’s “H. P. Lovecraft: Myth-Maker,” they are reading Mosig’s rewriting of
HPL, i.e. his interpretation of how a specific text or group of texts come together to represent “Lovecraft’s Mythos” and to differentiate it from “Derleth’s Mythos.” When the French edition of Démons et merveilles includes Jacques Bergier’s preface, “Ce grand génie venu d’ailleurs,” the reader is informed by Bergier’s interpretation of HPL’s life and how it influenced his writing. The goal of this section is to reveal two separate communities of Lovecraft “rewriters” so that a formal understanding of the similarities and differences between the two can help us read a synchronistic understanding of H. P. Lovecraft. In consideration of the broad range of texts encompassed within rewritings, rewriters have the possibility to influence how a text is received within a given literary system. André Lefevere notes the wide-ranging influence of rewriters (critics, editors, anthologists, publishers) because they create “images of a writer, a work, a period, a genre, sometimes even a whole literature. These images [exist] side by side with the realities they [compete] with, but the images always [tend] to reach more people than the corresponding realities . . .” (Lefevere 5). The image is directly affected by the ideology of the translator and the poetics dominant in the receiving literary system at the time of the translation.
Translations and rewritings are loaded with ideological significance. Translators and “rewriters manipulate the originals they work with to some extent, usually to make them fit in with the dominant, or one of the dominant ideological and poetological currents of their time” (Lefevere 8). In this sense, translation is a cultural phenomenon. Literary systems are a product of culture and can be understood to operate in a similar manner. Within a given literary system, one type of genre dominates a system while moving out from the center are other genres arranged in a hierarchical manner. The
further a genre is situated from the epicenter the lesser its status within the system. This is the case with modernist novels and their ascendance over pulp fiction in the early 20th century American literary system. A spoil of victory can be seen in the annals of canonization. The authors who most closely embody the zeitgeist of the dominant ideology of a particular time period are canonized, while those who do so on a marginal level are forgotten by time. Within literary systems, translation holds a variable presence. If the literary system is robust and “dominant,” as of France post WWII then translation plays a minimal role overall. However, if the literary system is young, translation plays a large part in the literary system. In other words, the strength of a literary system can be determined by the role translation plays. Regardless of the strength or position of a literary system, translation fills a void in the target literary system. This can be observed in the introduction of H. P. Lovecraft into the French literary system post-WWII. There was a void in the system due to Nazi Germany’s occupation of France. When the war was over, publishers like Denoël and Deux-Rives recognized a hole in the system. I would argue the contrary, the rapid influx of American Sci-Fi and other pulp fiction genres represents perfectly the role translation plays in a major literary system. This is also when American detective fiction became known in France which was introduced by the
publisher Gallimard.
Translation and rewritings have the potential to
deeply affect the interpretation of literary systems, not just by projecting the image of one writer or work in another literature or by failing to do so . . ., but also by introducing new devices into the inventory component of a
poetics and paving the way to change in its functional component (Lefevere 38).
Translations and rewritings are the result of a network of variables, each of which lends to the overall finished product. The following variables which influence the
translation/rewriting are as follows: the status of the author/text, the poetics and/or ideology of the dominant literary group, the patron of the translator/rewriter, the skopos (the aim) of the patron/translator/rewriter, the particular needs of a literary system.
The particular needs and demands of the literary system are the foremost important factors when consideration for translation or rewriting occurs. If a literary system is particularly strong in a certain genre, then it is unlikely that translation will introduce more texts of this genre from foreign sources. The American literary system is rather robust in its production of Sci-Fi, certainly in the time period between the 1920s- 1950s—thus there was no need for foreign sci-fi texts to be introduced into the American literary system. It is for this reason that the major francophone Sci-Fi writers of the same time period (previously mentioned in this chapter) have received little attention from American publishing houses.
The overall status of the author/text in the source culture generally plays a big part in the selection of whom to translate and what. Many times an author who is already influential in the source culture is “outsourced” via translation relatively more quickly than a marginal author of the same culture. Despite HPL’s popularity within the specific weird fiction milieu of pulp magazines, he was virtually unknown (or ignored) by mainstream critics and readers. As a result modernist writers who were his
contemporaries, were translated while HPL’s texts were not translated into other languages until the 1950s.
The poetics and/or ideology of the dominant group is highly important because this determines even further which texts will be translated and for what purpose. The poetics can be understood as literary cultural norms, which are acceptable in a given culture at a specific point in time. In this respect, certain parts of texts may be edited, or simply eliminated to suit the cultural sensitivites and expectations. Ideology also affects the choice of text and author—a text whose ideology is opposite that of a particular group will not be chosen because it may be thought to undermine the ideals upheld by certain groups. At its most reduced form a censor or an editor embodies a certain poetics and/or ideology and will perform their duties within these bounds. But translation can also play the radical role of introducing newness and change, thus translation can be utilized by either group (“dominant” or “subaltern” for their own means.
The patron of a translation/rewriting can be a person, a publishing house or any other entity which requests a translation or rewriting for a specific purpose or aim (skopos, as used by Hans Vermeer). Often, the skopos either challenges or supports the poetics/Ideology of the dominant group. When Denoël started its series Présence du futur, their skopos for choosing translated texts was specifically oriented towards
American Sci-Fi texts for the 1950s French public. Any text chosen was then subjected to editors or censures who checked the contents of the text and whether or not it adhered to cultural sensitivities or not.
In consideration of the above, the next section will explore the different ways in which translators (Jacques Bergier et al.) and rewriters (August Derleth et co.) impacted
and controlled the image of HPL in both France and the United States. What are the consequences of these images on the field as a whole? What was the precedent set by Poe and his translator, Baudelaire?