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 original is replaced by an appreciation of the creative developments
by which translations grant texts a genealogy. Furthermore, since
         
4
 C est donc dans le rapport entre texte-cible et texte-source que résiderait la
spécificité de la traduction de soi et non pas dans la structure interne du texte-cible.
C est le caractère de l intertextualité qui serait ici en jeu ( L intra-intertextualité
98).
5
 Can one go so far as to re-conceptualize a translation as an extension or
amplification of the original? The exploration of Beckett as self-translator, specifi-
cally of his poetry, serves to elucidate this notion of the translation as parallel text
(260).
6
 This kind of bilingual writing is only possible through self-translation (90).
60 FLS, Vol. XXXVI, 2009
changes, choices, and developments are inherent to any translation, by
abandoning the authorization of the author in favor of the play of the
text, translation is able to reconnect with its excluded others  imita-
tion, paraphrase, and adaptation. This expansive, liberating vision of
translation is one of the most important consequences of using self-
translation to redefine translation.
To examine more fully the question of what has been called lib-
eral or free translation, consider an example from one of Huston s
most extreme experiments in self-translation: her 1998 bilingual text
Limbes/Limbo: Un hommage à Samuel Beckett. Here we have two
texts, one French, one English, not in separate volumes, but face to
face on the page, with all the gaps, elisions, leaps, additions, and
extensions of the translation plain to see. Through this innovative pub-
lishing decision, Huston expressed the euphoria, liberties, and excite-
ment of living and writing in two languages, along with a testimony of
crisis, of tensions and angst, precipitated by linguistic complexity. The
following quote demonstrates the asymmetries between the two texts,
as well as the extent to which the languages interact at both semantic
and phonetic levels:
Let s admit we have a head. Admettons donc qu au premier chef...
(Grumble grumble grumble) (Marmonne, bougonne, marmotte.)
Or at least that we want to get a head. Ou que, du moins, derechef... (42-43)
Even given the French stylistic abhorrence for repetition, the use of a
single word in English for three different words in French borders on a
form of resistant parody that Huston explores to the limits in this text.
The slight volume opens with a striking translation that precedes a ter-
rifying linguistic diatribe, very reminiscent of Beckett s nihilism:
Feeling (rotten word, feeling) so close Me sens (sale mot, sentir) si proche du
to old Sam Beckett these days. Close vieux Sam ces jours-ci. Proche...
the way Miss Muffet is close to the comme le Petit Chaperon rouge est
spider. proche du loup. (8-9)
While this example might be acceptable within the strict confines of
self-translation, as a translation it might be classed as paraphrase or
adaptation, rather than translation proper. Yet this process is at work
in all translation; I point this out to explode the current category of
translation and thereby allow for greater movement in both the origi-
Shread 61
nal and the translation. For, of course, Huston s greatest challenge to
traditional models of translation is simply to refuse to identify one text
as the original by presenting both simultaneously.
The conventional strategy of subordinating self-translation to the
dominant model of translation is based largely on the assumption of
the self-identity of the author/self-translator. Indeed, self-translation is
often viewed as  privileged (Tanqueiro 59) precisely because of an
assumed self-knowledge. Tanqueiro ascribes perfect self-transparency
to the author of the creative act and thereby distinguishes self-transla-
tors from translators:
In terms of subjectivity there will be no gap between the author and trans-
lator; he will never unwittingly misinterpret his own work [...]. [H]e will
know with utmost certainty when he is justified in departing from the origi-
nal text and when he is not, since he knows perfectly just how he originally
concretized his thoughts through words. (59)
Tanqueiro s approach articulates the widespread notion of the author
as autonomous creator, brushing aside collaborative approaches along
with the unconscious and other non-rational processes involved in
creativity. In stark contrast, in his article  Against Self-Translation,
Whyte expresses the poststructuralist view that:  There is no such
thing as  the real meaning of a text. The author has no special author-
ity [...]. [I]t is not certain that its constructor uses it better than the next
man (68). Man or woman, the argument I am interested in making
about the unruly practice of self-translation combines a poststructural- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]