i 
Traces In and Out: A Deconstructionist 
Reading of English translations of Jacques 
Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947)  
 
 
 
Diane Malabo  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Translation Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, 
University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the 
degree of Master of Arts in Translation 
 
 
 
Johannesburg, August 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 
 
 
Abstract 
 
This study is a comparative analysis of selected poems from Jacques Pr?vert?s 
Paroles (1946/1947). It is an application of a mainstreamed theoretical paradigm 
comprising deconstruction, hermeneutics and relevance. The overall aim is to show 
how each translator of Jacques Pr?vert derived latent and relatively obvious semantic 
possibilities from the ST. This objective is attained through a descriptive analysis of 
the translation process, and an attempt to interpret the findings thereby revealed, 
primarily according to the tenets of deconstruction, and according to the tenets of 
hermeneutics and relevance if possible. 
 
The theoretical model that grounds the study is a non-reductionist, non-prescriptivist 
and non-evaluative. That is the reason why the traditional terminology associated with 
some of the theoretical aspects mainstreamed in the model have been adapted to fit in 
with the general aim of the study.  
 
Actual reading experiences hardly entail a consecutive reading of more than one text. 
But this research is like a laboratory experiment; it tests the applicability of integrated 
[theoretical] formulae to a hypothetical case, the consecutive reading of selected 
poems from Paroles (1946/1947) and their English translations. 
 
 
 
 
Key words 
A priori, diff?rence, diff?rance, deconstruction, semantic multiplicity, interpretation, 
clues, post modern theories, text analysis, texts? afterlives, trace. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iii 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Declaration 
 
I hereby declare that this Research report is my own, unaided work. It is submitted in 
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Translation 
at the University of the Witwatersrand, School of literature and Language Studies. It 
has not been submitted before for any degree or examination in any other university. 
 
 
 
Annette Diane Malabo (0712123D) 
 
 
Johannesburg, the                   day of                              2009 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iv 
 
Acknowledgments 
 
The completion of this research report would not have been possible without the 
direct support and the understanding of my supervisor, Associate Professor Judith 
Inggs. The drafting circumstances of the report were unusual, but she was very 
accommodating. She often had to read my work overnight. I also wish to thank my 
HOD, Dr Libby Meintjes. This report ends an edifying training cycle that started two 
years ago.  I am grateful to have been provided with enabling tools during my 
learning experience in the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies. 
 
I owe a special gratitude to Prof Anthony Pym who made available his time and his 
writing resources for me. His chapter on ?Uncertainty? from a forthcoming book was 
very insightful with respect to deconstruction. It really equipped me for the framing of 
an integrated theoretical model. 
 
I am very grateful to John Rety, the owner of Hearing Eye Publications, as well as to 
Sarah Lawson the translator. My research was considerably held back by the loss of 
important books, and John sent me one of those at no cost. And notwithstanding the 
fact that the book was never delivered, he offered to type some of the poems and 
email them to me. I should specially thank you Sarah, for your valuable insight and 
your availability all through the process.  
 
I thank Fiona Horne for her support, as well Dr V?ronique Tadjo who offered her help 
whenever possible.  
 
I would seize this opportunity to also thank my parents for their support, love and 
affection when I needed it the most. Special thanks to my loving mother whose moral 
support has been inestimable. 
 
Last but not least, I thank God for His Grace because the finalization of this research 
report can be equated with the outcome of a serious fight against odds of all sorts. At 
times doubts and discouragement invaded my mind.  If at the end I made it still, I owe 
it most to God who renewed my strength and my hopes each time. 
 v 
 
Table of contents 
 
Abstract??????????????????????????????ii 
Declaration????????????????????????????...iii 
Acknowledgements?????????????????????????. iv 
Table of contents??????????????????????????...v 
Abbreviations???????????????????????????.. vii 
 
Chapter 1: Introduction??????????????????????.1 
1.0 Introductory note 
1.1 Introductory note??????????????????????..1 
1.2  Rationale?????????????????????????..3 
1.3 Methodology???????????????....................................4 
 
Chapter 2:  Literature review???????????????????....6 
2.0 General aspects: books reviewed 
 
Chapter 3: Theoretical aspects of the study?????????????15 
3.0 Introductory note 
3.1 Deconstruction??????????????????????...15 
3.2  DTS and derived theory???????????????????17 
3.3  Relevance theory?????????????????????...20 
3.4  Hermeneutics???????????????????????.23 
 
Chapter 4: The context of Paroles and its translations?????????25 
4.0 Introductory note 
4.1 Important historical and literary facts ???????????..25 
4.1.1 Prevailing trends in French literature during the 1940-50s  
4.1.2 Prevailing trends in American literature during the 1950-
 60s  
4.1.3 Prevailing trends in Contemporary American Literature 
4.1.4 Prevailing trends in Contemporary English Literature 
 
 vi 
4.2  Background information on Pr?vert and his translators????29 
4.2.1  Jacques Pr?vert: biography and literature 
4.2.1.1 Pr?vert: his literature 
4.2.1.2 Paroles  
 
4.2.2 Lawrence Ferlinghetti: biographical information 
4.2.3 Sarah Lawson: biographical information 
4.2.4 Amiel Bowers:  background information 
 
Chapter 5: Descriptive and comparative analysis???????????40 
5.0 Introductory note 
5.1  Descriptive analysis of ST poems??????????????..40 
5.1.1 Descriptive analysis of ?La p?che ? la baleine? 
5.1.2 Descriptive analysis of  ?L?accent grave? 
5.1.3 Descriptive analysis of ?Barbara? 
 
5.2 Descriptive and comparative analysis of TT poems and ST poems??55 
5.2.1 Descriptive and comparative analysis of ?La p?che ? la 
baleine? 
5.2.1.1 Macroanalysis 
5.2.1.2 Microanalysis 
 
5.2.2 Descriptive and comparative analysis of  ?L?accent grave? 
5.2.2.1 Macroanalysis 
5.2.2.2 Microanalysis 
 
5.2.3 Descriptive and comparative analysis of ?Barbara? 
5.2.3.1 Macroanalysis 
5.2.3.2 Microanalysis 
 
5.3 Interpretative phase 
Conclusion????????????????????????????...83 
Appendices????????????????????????????..85
 References????????????????????????????...97 
 vii 
 
 
 
 
Abbreviations 
 
 
DTS: Descriptive Translation Studies 
SL: Source Language 
ST: Source Text 
TL: Target Language 
TT: Target Text 
 
 1 
 
Chapter 1: Introduction 
 
Selected poems from Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947) have been available to English 
readers since 1958, when Ferlinghetti published his version. Although ?Barbara? appeared in 
the 1958?s collection, several other translations of ?Barbara? in English were later published; 
Sarah Lawson?s translation of ?Barbara? was published in 2002 (Selected poems: 2002).  
 
The same applies to the translations of  ?L?accent grave? and ?La p?che ? la baleine? by 
Sarah Lawson (2002) which coexist with several other translations in English, namely 
Stanley Chapman?s ?Whale hunt? (2003) and Amiel Bowers? ?Accent grave? (2007). 
 
 Every text (whether a translation or an original) is a reservoir of information, and it is 
interesting to examine the possible variables that account for these translations or/and pseudo 
versions. As I explain below (see the paragraph on DTS in chapter 3.2, and the paragraph on 
Bowers? Background in chapter 4.2.5), my main concern is the translation process and not so 
much the end product. 
 
1.1. Aim 
 
This study seeks to test the applicability of deconstruction and other post-modern theories to 
the analysis of English translations of Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947). It is a journey 
into the English ?after lives? of Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947); a journey informed by 
the deconstructionist postulate that meanings are essentially unstable, and as such do not have 
perfect equivalents, but a plethora of echoes. Our primary aim is not to assess Ferlinghetti?s 
(1958), Lawson?s (2002), Chapman?s (2003), or Bowers? (2007) translations, but to 
deconstruct the reading of Paroles (1946/1947) by each translator. 
 
The approach to the analysis of these texts is therefore mainly inspired by poststructuralist 
and hermeneutical tenets as well as other prevalent trends in translation theory. The starting 
point of the analysis is the deconstructionist notion that meaning is neither concrete nor 
tangible; it is essentially plural. Jacques Derrida (1976), the father of Deconstruction, refuted 
the idea of ?centrality? or ?origin?. He held that texts could be explained through the tracking 
 2 
of their relationship with an infinite number of other texts. This tracking process is infinitely 
repeatable. Thus, an attempt to grasp the meaning of Text x equates to an attempt to ?pursue? 
a path forward from and backward to Text x. This path takes the form of a process, which is 
termed diff?rance, a word coined by Derrida (1976) as the versatile unit of both diff?rence or 
difference and diff?rence or deferral.  The punctual (an effect always engenders other 
networks of effects) effect, which is the after-presence of the process of play of diff?rance, is 
called trace. In other words, one of the multiple meanings of a text can only be deferred until 
its relationship with another trace is established. The same process applies for concepts and 
ideas. An idea only makes sense when its relationship with a set of other ideas is established 
in an interminable play of diff?rance.  
 
In a nutshell, diff?rance is instrumental in establishing the effect-to-effect relationship of 
words, texts, ideas, and concepts. The ephemeral effects or traces are inherently visible and 
transparent at the same time, just as the Greek word pharmakon means both poison and 
medicine. 
I think this reflects the translation process to some extent, with the difference that the 
translation process is a ground with a source text and a target text at its poles. The text would 
be a depository of traces, and the translation process would equate to the play of diff?rance: a 
stage which ushers the emergence and disappearance of traces in and out the source text. 
From that perspective, the product of the translation process is accounted for by old traces, 
i.e. those emanating from the ST and dissolving in the process, and new traces, or the result 
of that dissemination process, an ?after-presence? of such old traces. Whether the 
dissemination of old traces is conditioned by ST or TT norms, or even both, the bottom line 
remains that the meaning of both ST and TT depends on the ?in and out? movement of traces, 
from and to these texts. Every old trace that leaves the ST (in an ?out? movement) has many 
echoes that the TT cannot fully capture, and every after-echo produced by the TT enriches the 
former echo (in an ?in? movement). Traces as referred to here may apply to the play of 
diff?rance syntactically, lexically, and conceptually, because meaning is involved at all of 
those levels. 
I am not adopting a reductionist poststructuralist approach, which questions the essence of 
interpretation itself as a vain activity because meanings are essentially evanescent, and claims 
that the quest for any meaning is doomed to failure in advance. I rather attempt to use the 
 3 
idea of semantic plurality as a starting point in this analysis. From that perspective, a text and 
its possible interpretations make up an endless chain of suggestions.  
 
1.2. Rationale 
 
I have selected Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947) because of the overall thematic 
relevance of the collection, and, the atypical writing style of the author. Paroles (1946/1947) 
tells about every day people, their struggle to come to terms with overwhelming oppressive 
forces, their dreams and their joys. It tackles issues like power abuse and social injustice, and 
these are far from being solved in the 21st century. The human condition is essentially 
unchanged today; men still love, hate, and die; our societies remained plagued by stereotypes, 
dogmas, religious intolerance among other evils.  
 
Many literary scholars have held Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947) to be untranslatable. 
Some translators themselves (namely Lawrence Ferlinghetti) express dissatisfaction, which 
they claim is justified by Paroles? ?insurmountable? hurdle of untranslatables. Yet, we have 
scores of authorized and non-authorized translations and versions of Paroles. 
 
This study explores a realm beyond the claimed untranslatability of Paroles (1946/1947). As 
we ?dissect? the different translations, our goal is not to establish which one ?spoliated?, 
?killed? the original or did it ?justice?. We rather want to deconstruct certain ?a prioris? with 
respect to Paroles and its translations, and transcend the boundary of things that seem 
obvious to infiltrate the web of suggestions that are likely to emanate from a reading of 
Paroles. 
 
It also shows how productive a comprehensive approach to translation analysis can be. It 
seeks to shift from traditional reductionist approaches where the emergence of a new theory 
entails the refutation of existing theories, and looks at aspects of translation trends that can be 
reconciled towards showing how texts? meanings depend on a web of relationships. These 
relationships can be intertextual (deconstruction) endless chain of texts (Lambert and Van 
Gorp?s model text-text axis (1985) and normative (Descriptive Translation Studies or DTS); 
they may reveal historical, cultural, and social factors that might have influenced the outlook 
of the author/translator (hermeneutics), or the situational and cognitive context that suggested 
 4 
specific clues to the translator (relevance theory). These concepts are explored further in 
Chapter three. 
 
1.3. Methodology 
The traditional aim of comparative analysis in translation is very often to evaluate 
translations mapped against a given ST; and to assess the level of faithfulness and/.or 
transformation by the former.  
 
If from all perspectives our comparative analysis reads like ?business as usual? in the field of 
translation, the aim is however different. 
 
The mapping of the source text and selected target texts is an effort to show the fragmentary 
nature of meaning, its evanescence and incompleteness. This effort is inspired by the claims 
of Deconstruction theory that uphold the importance of relativity in semantic equivalence.  
Again, my intention is not to apply such claims in a reductionist manner, i.e. prolonging the 
logomachia over the essence of meaning, its illusory nature, etc. 
 
The comparative analysis herein conducted, beyond the conventional tools utilised, tests the 
pertinence of the derridean concept of intertextual semantic relationships. It is not a display 
of the endless chain of relationships words, texts, and concepts entertain with each other as 
claimed by the philosopher, rather, it is an illustration of the multiple semantic relationships 
that emanate from compared texts, when the centrality of the ST is relativised, and the 
potential meaning of each target text justified at the light of relevance and hermeneutics 
among other theories. 
 
In a nutshell, this study uses an existing finding, perspectivism in translation, to distance 
itself from claims of superiority of one text over another, and to illustrate the claim that all 
translations (whether deemed authorized, non authorized, faithful or transformations) and the 
corresponding ST form an interdependent semantic chain where flexible boundaries are 
delineated thanks to the principles of relevance theory, hermeneutics, and DTS. 
 
 
 
 
 5 
This research is corpora based. The background literature pertains to books and articles by 
Pr?vert and about him; books and articles about deconstruction, hermeneutics, trends in 
translation theories and related issues. My selection of poems was inspired by the overall aim 
of this study. First, I selected poems that were translated by most translators of Paroles 
(1946), to show the versatility of literary meanings; these poems are ?Barbara?, and ?Le 
miroir bris?? (which appears in Ferlinghetti?s collection as ?Shattered Mirror? and in 
Lawson?s as ?Broken Mirror?). Secondly, I chose poems deemed untranslatable by some 
translators (including Ferlinghetti), but effectively translated by others, to show the 
importance of the translator?s initiative in the ?excavation? of meaning and the translation 
process as a whole; such poems are ?L?accent grave? rendered as ?Hamlet at School? by 
Lawson, and ?Chasse ? la baleine? translated as ?Whale hunt? by Lawson and other 
professional translators online (Stanley Chapman). 
 
The study opens with an explanation of key concepts which build up my theoretical 
framework. It also shows how various aspects of these concepts and theories can be 
reconciled and utilised in the process of text analysis. The following is a summary of the 
steps of this analysis: 
1. Identification of an a priori claim (the claim may be text itself or a traditional concept) 
2. Text reading and efforts to follow the ?traces? and the web of relations suggested 
3. Mapping of appearing and disappearing traces at the macro level of the text (lexical items, 
rhyme patterns) 
4. A tracking of hypotheses that may explain the structure of Paroles and its after-lives, as 
well as strategies used by different translators. The hypotheses are informed by either aspect 
of my model, depending on the object that undergoes analysis. 
 
Chapter 1 sets out the purpose of the research and provides information pertaining to the 
methods used throughout.  
 
Chapter 2 comprises a literature review, which gives an overview of books, articles, and all 
other major resources referred to in the course of this research. It is followed by a discussion 
of the leading theoretical aspects framing the study. These, as we elaborate in later chapters, 
draw on deconstructionist theory, DTS, Relevance theory and hermeneutics or the science of 
interpretation. 
 
 6 
Chapter 3 provides an explanation of theoretical concepts, as well as a detailed discussion of 
the analytical steps. It further elaborates on steps making up the descriptive analysis. 
 
Chapter four provides the context of Paroles and its English translations. This is a journey 
back in the social and cultural setting of selected texts; and an insight in the author?s and 
translators? biography.  
 
Chapter five is the descriptive analysis itself, starting with an attempt to contextualize the ST 
in the ST system before proceeding with the comparative analysis of selected texts it starts 
with a scrutiny the ST and evolves as a comparative mapping of TTs against the ST. This part 
is followed by a section that interprets the findings at each phase.  
 
The conclusion is a short reminder of the issues and aims identified at the beginning of the 
research, and the major findings of the descriptive analysis. The latter are tied up with aspects 
of the integrated theoretical paradigm as well as issues and aims identified at the beginning of 
the research. 
 7 
 
Chapter 2: Literature review 
 
Deconstruction is a critical theory which subverts the structuralist approach to linguistics, 
literature and thought in general. The departure point is Saussurean linguistics, as elaborated 
by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), in his Cours de linguistique g?n?rale. De Saussure 
(1857-1913) argues that meaning emanates through the relationship between the spoken word 
(signifier) and the object referred to (signified). His theory holds that every signifier has a 
determined signified (or meaning) and is backed by the belief that meaning comes from signs 
(the union of signified and signifier), and that language is a system of signs. Outside this 
semiotic system, there is no meaning.  
 
If languages are organised systems of signs embodying meaning, then translation consists of 
decoding the message embedded in a Source Text?s semiotic system to encode it anew in a 
Target Text. De Saussure (1857-1913) believes that meaning is conventional, and entrenched 
in the way each community perceives the world and expresses its experience of it according 
to its needs. From that perspective, unless two linguistic communities have the same world 
view and the same way of codifying their experiences of that world, translation is an 
impossible task. 
 
This is a situation that translation scholars refer to as ?untranslatability?; when referents 
(social or cultural) of the source text system are often non-existent in the target text system; 
under such circumstances the original meaning resists transposition into the target context. 
 
The poststructuralist movement questions structuralist premises on that basis. Its proponents 
hold that the study of underlying structures is subject to myriad biases and misinterpretations; 
there is no such thing as the transposition of meaning, because meaning is essentially 
intangible. 
 
Jacques Derrida, the father of Deconstruction, shows in De la grammatologie (1967) that 
meaning is constantly slipping from one sign to the next. Signifiers do not produce signifieds; 
they merely produce an endless chain of signifiers. He believes that equivalence, as the 
transfer of ?pure signifieds? between two languages is impossible. De la grammatologie 
 8 
(1967) clearly shows that each sign breaks with the context and infinitely engenders new 
contexts. Words and languages appear within a certain context, yet their meaning 
disseminates, giving up some of their old context and giving out a new one. Furthermore, 
Hugh J. Silverman argues in Derrida and Deconstruction (1989), that when it comes to text 
analysis, deconstruction opens the text to as many possibilities as there would be readers. A 
deconstructionist approach sets out to identify not how the text of a poem would be the sole 
resource to understand that text, but how no text is ever ?complete? in and of itself. The text 
has as many contexts as its readers. These contexts embody different perspectives with roots 
in the poem or text. The process of deconstruction is carried out by means of reference to 
connotations or relations suggested by the work /works at hand. 
 
Kathleen Davis also lends her voice to the deconstructionist movement in her book 
Deconstruction and Translation (2001), where she explains the relationship between 
Deconstruction and Translation, and the Derridean view that the limit of a language is neither 
?decidable? nor absolute. Translation, Davis believes, is not to be regarded as some form of 
transfer between two languages with clear limits, because the limit of a language ?is not 
?decidable? or absolute? (2001:20). The process of translation is a process to endlessly pursue 
and erase traces, to disseminate, graft, rewrite and supplement and so on in the diff?rance 
chain of writing, indicating a semantic multiplicity, which is uncertain, and beyond reversion. 
The mission of the translator as a reader and rewriter becomes that of a transformation of 
potential, instead of a passive transfer of meaning or ontological presence. She states that 
meaning ?is an effect of language, not a prior presence merely expressed in language. It 
therefore cannot be simply extracted from language and transferred. Deconstruction provides 
an interesting look at the work of the translator and the processes surrounding the formulation 
of meaning and bridging the gap between signified and signifier? (Davis (2001:14). 
 
In his article ?Doubts about deconstruction as a general theory of translation? (1999), 
Anthony Pym discusses some of the issues related to the applicability of Deconstruction, and 
in a later book (Pym, forthcoming), he dedicates a whole chapter (07) to the rather 
philosophical issue of ?uncertainty? in translation. In that chapter Pym explains that most 
accusations against deconstruction are not often justified, as ?remarkably few translation 
analysts or translator trainers have read deconstructionist theory, and even fewer have seen 
value in its complexities. With isolated exceptions (for example Pym 1995), the problematics 
of uncertainty have mostly been allowed to go their own separate way. The paradigms pass 
 9 
like ?ships in the night?. He goes on to note that as a matter of fact, Deconstruction is not a 
theory in the general sense of the word: ?Rather than provide ready-made solutions, the 
deconstructionist would use indeterminism in order to make readers think? (Pym: 
forthcoming). This analysis sounds like an echo of Rosemary Arrojo (1997)?s opinion in the 
?The Death of the Author and the Limits of the Translator?s Visibility? that: ?[t]he most 
important consequence post structuralism could bring to translation studies is precisely a 
thorough revision of the relationships that have generally been established between originals 
and translations, between authors and translators and between translators and their readers.? 
(Arrojo, 1997: 30) 
 
As we discuss concepts like reading and re-writing processes, it is important to mention 
that both activities rely on cognition and context to some extent. In Scenes and frames 
semantics (1997), Charles Fillmore equates a text to a square box, and its readings to the 
angles of the box. Indeed, much of a translation?s outcome depends on how the translator 
understands and values certain aspects of the original work; given the scene a table and 
books, our interpretation of this scene will vary depending on the angle from which we 
visualize it. Some people will look at the scene as ?books on a table?, while others will 
visualize it as ?A table underneath books?. Each perceiver interprets what they see 
according to their personal context, what Anthony Pym (Forthcoming) calls the ?learner?s 
schemata? or the way the perceiver?s ?brain [?] construct[s] the image?. Pym quotes 
Arrojo (cited in Chesterman and Arrojo 2000: Ad.10) to illustrate this concept further:  
 
Meanings are always context-bound. Depending on our viewpoint and our 
circumstances, we may perceive them to be either ?more? or ?less? stable but all 
of them are always equally dependent on a certain context. A proper name such 
as the University of Vic, for example, only makes sense to those who are familiar 
with the explicit and implicit context to which it belongs and which makes it 
meaningful. The same certainly applies to notions such as democracy, which may 
be perceived by some to be less stable. If we ask Fidel Castro, or Augusto 
Pinochet, for instance, what ?democracy? is, their answers will certainly indicate 
that there is nothing ?unstable? about their definitions of the concept, no matter 
how different they may end up to be. Both Castro and Pinochet will be sure that 
each of them has the right, true ?definition? and that the other one is wrong. The 
implications of such statements for translation are certainly essential and far-
 10
 reaching and they may be summarized as follows: no translation will ever be 
definite or universally acceptable; no translation will ever escape ideology or 
perspectivism. 
 
Should meanings be context-bound, and contexts ?boundless? as proponents of deconstruction 
claim, we however need to admit that people usually attain ?understanding?, even though the 
notion may be relative, thanks to consensus and practical experience. 
 
These elements are fundamental to the theorists of relevance theory, who for their part define 
context as ?the psychological construct, a subset of the hearer?s assumptions about the world? 
(Sperber and Wilson in Relevance: Communication and cognition 1995), a context 
reconstructed through the ?clues? that the listener/reader/interpreter picks up (Gutt: 1991) 
from the utterances of the sender. 
 
Even though interpretation may vary between individuals, every linguistic act is first and 
foremost an act of communication, which takes place in a particular society. This is the 
reason why Gideon Toury (2000) believes that cognition itself is influenced and modified by 
socio-cultural factors. In ?The nature and role of norms in translation? (2000), he holds that a 
translator, just like an author, is not simply a ?person? but a socially and historically 
constituted subject. In ?Contextualization in Translator- and Interpreter-Mediated Events? 
(2006), Mona Baker?s view on the matter is that as much as the writer is viewed as the 
spokesperson of his own time, society?s culture and ideology, the translator?s eyes are 
supposed to be the eyes of their society. Their interpretation of the text would to a great 
extent be their people?s interpretation. It is important for translators to have their audience?s 
expectations in mind, if they want to achieve a successful communication. Gutt?s Translation 
and relevance: Cognition and context (1991), appropriately emphasises the importance of the 
communicative act in the translational situation. He holds that successful communication 
relies on the potential context which is mutually shared by the reader and the communicator. 
As far as the audience?s expectations are concerned, they constitute an element of the context, 
which the target language brings to the text, and they are indispensable for the outcome 
(success or failure) of the communication act as a whole. One type of cross-cultural 
communication is literary translation, particularly the translation of poetry; a task which 
seems challenging, because poetry entails a great deal of implicit information.  
 
 11
 That is the reason why in their article ?On Describing Translation? (1985), Lambert and Van 
Gorp (1985) recommend that translators go beyond mere textual analysis in their reading. 
They draw from Toury?s (1985) hypothesis that ?translations are facts of the target systems?, 
a display of dynamic ?norms?, and aspects of the poly-system theory (Even-Zohar, 1980), to 
elaborate a hypothetical model for describing translations (Lambert and Van Gorp, 1982). 
The challenge of my research lies in the attempt to reconcile aspects of an ?objective? 
approach like DTS with aspects of a ?subjective? approach like hermeneutics. The French 
scholar Jean Greisch hints at the pragmatic usefulness of hermeneutics within the field of 
translation studies in his ?Herm?neutique et ?pist?mologie des sciences humaines: l?h?ritage 
herm?neutique de Wilhelm Dilthey? (1991). This article highlights the valuable contribution 
of Dilthey to the science of textual interpretation. The latter highlighted the importance of 
historical elements in the interpretation of a text. He held that every attempt to interpret a text 
should start with an empathetic journey into the history of that text, i.e. biographical, social 
and cultural elements thereto related. 
A further echo on the usefulness of hermeneutics to the study of literary translation comes 
from James Holmes (1998) who holds that problems inherent to the translation of poetry 
generally arise at ?three planes or levels?: ?linguistic context?, ?literary tradition? and ?socio-
 cultural situation?. These last two aspects are closely related to variables that hermeneutics 
prescribes; they should be carefully examined prior to the reading and interpretative act. 
 
 Talking about literary tradition, two books, one by Richard Gray (A History of American 
Literature: 2004) and another by Michel Brix (Sainte-Beuve, Panorama de la litt?rature 
fran?aise de Marguerite de Navarre aux fr?res Goncourt, 2004), are very useful. The first is 
a panoramic discussion of American literature from the ?Pilgrim Fathers? to the present times, 
while the latter takes the reader on a journey across milestones of French literature from 
ancient ages to post-WWII. Lars Ole Sauerberg?s book for its part traces the impact of 
migration, globalization, and related issues in nowadays (21st century)?s British literature. His 
Intercultural Voices in Contemporary British Literature (2001) presents the features of a 
?national? literature endowed with such heterogeneity that they resist mainstreaming. The 
study is grounded in the claim that literary translations are products of a broad system. It 
would be interesting to see how literary features of contemporary translations produced in 
Britain reflect the previous discussion of British literature. 
 12
  
A poem often announces its presence on a page by virtue of its appearance. Without reading a 
word, a reader may immediately conclude that a text is a poem because it is written in verse 
(free or metered), a feature typically perceived as inherent in the genre of poetry. The unit of 
composition in poetry written in verse is the line. Jacques Pr?vert does not stick to strict rules, 
and some of his poems rather read like prose. Other French writers before him used the same 
style. In Invisible Fences: Prose poetry as a Genre in French and American Literature 
(2000), Steven Monte discusses prose poetry and mentions the contribution of Arthur 
Rimbaud in the re-invention of prosody in French poetry and, eventually, American poetry. 
The prose poetry is a hybrid genre that does away with the strict rules of versification, and 
mingles elements of verse and prose.  
 
The stylistic features of Paroles (1946/1947) exemplify that statement. The collection is 
made up of 95 texts without punctuation, comprising prose (Souvenirs de famille, some parts 
of D?ner de t?tes); conversing scenes written in free verses (L'orgue de barbarie, La chasse ? 
l'enfant, L?accent grave); and poems displaying a traditional use of free verse associated with 
irregular rhyme (Pour toi mon amour, Complainte de Vincent, Barbara).  
 
On the historical context of Paroles (1946/1947), William E. Baker?s critical Essay (1967) 
highlights the importance of studying Pr?vert as an anti-bourgeois and pro-proletariat poet 
who criticised the abuses of Capitalism, and wrote about common people in a common 
language.  
 
Pr?vert?s style is unique without being intricate and mannered. He often uses puns, 
alliteration, obsessive rhyme, tongue slips and coined words. In her Dani?le Gasiglia-Laster 
pr?sente Paroles de Jacques Pr?vert (1993), Dani?le Gasiglia gives an insight into the social 
background of Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947). The collection can be read to some 
extent as a book of history. It tells about France at the time Pr?vert wrote the poems in which 
he denounces the tyranny of political leaders and national institutions. 
 
Oeuvres compl?tes (1992), an edition presented, compiled and annotated by the same Dani?le 
Gasiglia-Laster and Arnaud Laster, constitutes a comprehensive collection of Pr?vert?s work 
with the exception of film scripts: Paroles, Spectacle, La Pluie et le Beau Temps, Histoires et 
d?autres histoires, Fatras, Choses et autres, Grand Bal du printemps, Charmes de Londres, 
 13
 Hebdromadaires, Soleil de nuit, La Cinqui?me Saison, Contes pour enfants pas sages, 
Guignol, Le Petit Lion, Des b?tes, etc. Comments by both compilers reveal that throughout 
his writings,  Jacques Pr?vert is able to communicate so much by saying so little. His texts 
are sometimes composed of collages (titles, quotations or proverbs) and have certain points in 
common with the film medium. They mirror his antipathy for institutions (the church, state 
institutions and the army), his sympathy for women and children, his compassion and 
tenderness towards animals, and a fanciful and dreamlike vision of reality.  
 
 
If Pr?vert did not want to be associated to any ?ism?, it is not to be forgotten that he was part 
of the surrealist group with Raymond Queneau and Marcel Duhamel, until he quarrelled with 
Andr? Breton in 1930. Not surprising therefore, that Gilbert Adair?s article The Arts: Jacques 
of all trades (2000) refers to Pr?vert as ?the poet of populist Surrealism?.  In her ?Negation 
and Affirmation in Jacques Pr?vert? (1968) Anne Hyde Greet also connects Pr?vert?s word 
game with surrealist writing styles. Pr?vert renews the language?s evocative function, 
redefining old meanings and inventing new ones. He also questions the grammatical gender 
as used in French; why is power a ?he?, and a flower a ?she?. His dark humour, Greet 
believes, ties up with surrealism, a literary movement for which Andr? Breton is held to be 
the chief promoter.  
 
Breton drafted the Manifesto of Surrealism (Andr? Breton: 1924) in which he states: 
?Surrealism, as I envisage it, proclaims loudly enough our absolute nonconformity, that there 
may be no question of calling it, in the case against the real world, as a witness for the 
defence. It could only account, on the contrary, for the complete state of distraction which we 
hope to attain.? He further adds: ?[Surrealism is] pure psychic automatism, by which an 
attempt is made to express, either verbally, in writing or in any other manner, the true 
functioning of thought. The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by reason, 
excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.? More details on the tenets of surrealism and 
Andr? Breton can be found in Marguerite Bonnet?s Andr? Breton: naissance de l?aventure 
surr?aliste (1975). It is interesting to see the ties, which existed between Pr?vert and Breton. 
His 1937 edition of Anthologie de l?humour noir featured Pr?vert?s ?Diner de t?tes? together 
with poetry by Swift, Kafka, Rimbaud, Poe, Lewis Carroll, and Baudelaire. Breton wrote 
poetry, but it seems that his prose was more highly rated, and among his chief works from the 
1920s is NADJA (1928), a portrait of Breton and a mad woman. This autobiographical 
 14
 ?fiction? epitomizes subjective themes, considered to be the hallmarks of several surrealist 
works. It may be that a deconstructive reading of Paroles (1946/1947) would reveal an 
influence of surrealism on Pr?vert?s work. 
Owing to the success of Paroles (1946/1947) in France, the name of Pr?vert soon travelled 
beyond national frontiers. The first English translations of Paroles (1946/1947) were 
published by City Lights in 1958. But Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the translator and publisher, 
commented in the introductory note of his Paroles: Selected Poems by Jacques Pr?vert 
(1958) that Pr?vert was untranslatable. He claimed that some of the poems ?defy replication?. 
That is the reason he decided to reprint a bilingual version in 1990. A biography of 
Ferlinghetti (http://www.citylights.com) shows that he spent his early childhood in France, 
and holds a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. His name is synonymous with leaders of American 
lyric poetry, and he is the owner of the legendary literary bookstore, City Lights. The poet 
and translator was a major figure of the American Beat Movement, alongside other writers 
such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. Ferlinghetti is the 
author of more than thirty books of poetry, including the famous A Coney Island of the Mind 
(1958).   
Other translations analysed here are by Sarah Lawson, Stanley Chapman and Amiel Bowers. 
Lawson is a modern poet and translator. Her website (www.sarah-lawson.net) states that she 
was born in Indianapolis in 1943, grew up in nearby Danville, Indiana, and now lives in 
London, which is also the home of Stanley Chapman. Further background information on the 
three translators is provided in Chapter Four. 
Most information about Stanley Chapman was collected from the website of the French 
Institute in London (http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/talks/past-talks/georges-perec), from 
the literary website Fatrazie (http://www.fatrazie.com/stanley_chapman.htm). As for his 
translation of ?La p?che ? la baleine?, I selected the version that was published on the 
website of Canadian writer and translator Pier de Lune (http://www.pierdelune.com/), in 
2003.  
 
Each poem of this corpus is valued for what it may reveal with respect to the translation 
process.  
 
 15
 Bowers? translation of ?L?accent grave? was featured on page 67 of the 2007 edition of The 
Journal of the Core Curriculum (2007), a publication of Boston University. Background 
information on the Journal and Ms Bowers can be accessed at the official website of the 
University of Boston: http://bu.edu/core. 
Recent research in the field of sociolinguistics and other related linguistic branches showed 
that women and men speak differently. Although this topic is not directly relevant to the aim 
of my research, I have collected some information on the claimed conditionality of choice 
when women speak.  
Jennifer Coates discusses the impact of gender on language in her Women, men and language 
(1993). She draws from the studies by William Labov (1996) and Peter Trudgill (1972). After 
their study carried out in New York and Norway, Labov and Trudgill concluded that women 
tend to use forms which closely resemble those of standard or prestigious speech variety: 
women would prefer expressions considered ?nicer? ?better? or ?correct?. These studies were 
carried out in NYC?s female lower middle class, and in Norway?s female working class and 
show that the social reason why women use ?prestigious? language is their involvement in 
child rearing and the transmission of culture; most women want their kids to acquire prestige 
norms. In her Le deuxi?me sexe (1949) Simone de Beauvoir insists on deconstructing these 
stereotypes. She advises precaution as we tackle the reading of a text because ?On ne na?t pas 
femme, on le devient?; and writing techniques reflect the writer?s freedom, independently of 
their ?natural gender?.  
 16
 Chapter 3: Theoretical aspects of the study 
 
 
The title of this research already suggests that Deconstruction is a major concept in it. 
However, it should once again be noted that reference to the deconstructionist philosophy in 
the framework of this study is not to be equated to its reductionist sense. The aspect of 
deconstruction that I found appealing and useful is its advice for caution: the punctual 
deferral of a prioris until the text has been subjected to scrutiny. This is another way of 
asserting that the interpretation of a text is never totally predictable. 
 
3.1  Deconstruction 
 
Deconstruction is a word coined by French writer and philosopher Jacques Derrida in his De 
la grammatologie (1967). The word ?deconstruction? literally means the act of undoing the 
structure of something. As a philosophy, deconstruction appears under the umbrella of 
postmodern philosophy. 
 
The post-modern movement rejects the view that deep structures underlie language. As a 
matter a fact, they hold that language does not refer to things, but to language itself. 
Linguistic signs and reality don?t have a clear referential relationship. 
 
Derrida (1967) developed a perspective that focuses on the lack of a truth ?out there? or at the 
centre. He argued that binary pairs are not polar opposites in the way claimed by 
structuralism, but that each element of the pair is dependent on the other for meaning within 
an infinite web of relationships. Words, signs and signifiers only have meaning in 
relationship to other words, signs and signifiers.  
 
The deconstructionist approach to texts ties up with the notion of intertextuality, because a 
text is not a complete entity, but an element of a longer chain on which the understanding of 
the text depends. Deconstructing texts entails a careful interpretation of the traces that 
emanate from their readings. Derrida?s theory also shows that all textual interpretations are 
subject to semantic undecidability, because texts offer multiple choices of semantic attributes. 
 
 17
 To describe how meaning is produced, Derrida developed the term diff?rance, meaning to 
differ and to defer. It is a movement through a chain of signifiers, the transverse relationship 
between these signifiers. Diff?rance may also be seen as a trip, from one intangible point or 
trace to another intangible point; an echo that constantly emerges and evaporates from, 
through, and to the countless traces that make up every text. 
Applied to translation, deconstruction challenges the traditional notion of inter-language 
transfer of stable signifieds from one context to another, because each sign breaks with the 
context and infinitely engenders new contexts.  In the words of Kathleen Davis (2001:20), the 
limit of a language, ?is not decidable or absolute (which would cleanly cut languages off 
from each other), but a boundary and a structural opening between languages, contexts?. The 
process of translation is a process of endlessly pursuing and erasing traces, of disseminating, 
grafting, rewriting and supplementing in the diff?rance chain of writing, indicating a semantic 
multiplicity which is uncertain and beyond reversion.  
The tenets of ?deconstructive theory? seem to fuel most accusations raised against it with 
respect to translation: its apparent relativity, open-endedness and its plural perspectives with 
respect to meaning.  
Its Achilles? heel is the set of interrogations that it raises in relation to meaning. Meaning is 
the ?sine qua non? condition of the translational activity and thus, questioning its essence 
means questioning the essence of translation.  If there is no certainty about meanings, then 
the translator?s efforts are futile.  
Davis rejects these accusations and holds that ?Derrida does not claim that there can be no 
stability of meaning? (Davis, 2001:32). She explains that plurality as contained in Derrida?s 
thoughts is not a directive. If we rather define translation as a text that conforms to the target-
 culture?s norms of what translations are supposed to be like, the translator is supposed to be, 
as far as possible, an aware reader. His eyes must be open to identify the possible traces that 
emanate from the original.  
As we have already stated, the reading experience of a text is not always predictable and 
varies between individuals, depending on a number of variables. This explains various 
versions of the same original by different translators. Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947) 
 18
 illustrates this claim, and the simple fact that Paroles has different translations, explains the 
various semantic perspectives that may emerge from a given reading.  
The latent meanings of texts can be brought to surface level by a methodological reading, 
what could otherwise be termed a description of traces emerging from those texts. 
3.2 DTS and derived models 
The descriptive branch of translation studies, as the name indicates, deals with existing 
translations. Simply put, DTS is the deconstruction of an observable element, i.e. the 
translated text, with the aim of reconstructing non-observable elements, i.e. hypotheses 
suggested by the text under scrutiny. Gideon Toury (1980/1985/2000), one of the precursors 
of the descriptive approach, holds that the descriptive analysis of translation is always backed 
by the assumption that ?translations are facts of one system only: the target system? (Toury, 
1985:19). 
 
The fact that translations are social products of the target system also means that they are 
subject to norms and conventions pertaining to social activities in that system; and their 
acceptability depends on those norms and conventions. There are three types of norms in 
relation to the process of translation: ?preliminary norms? or norms applied prior to the 
translation process; ?operational norms? or norms suggested by the strategies used during the 
translation process; and ?linguistic norms? which controls the selection of concrete elements 
for the production of the target text (Toury, 1980:53). They vary from one society to another 
(though some societies share similar norms) and from one period to another. Lambert and 
Van Gorp (1985:42) also highlight the importance of DTS when they state that: ?Gideon 
Toury and a few scholars have repeatedly pointed out the fundamental weakness of any 
translation theory which fails to take into account the findings of systematic descriptive 
studies?.  
 
In order to redress this weakness, they elaborated a hypothetical scheme for describing 
translation inspired by Toury?s writings (1985). The scheme equates to a communication 
model with several axes. It is comprehensive, and encompasses the historical context in 
which the translation is produced, the process itself, the reception, and so on. I have modified 
the model within the framework of this study, inspired by another derivative model, namely 
the model elaborated by Alet Kruger and Kim Wallmach (1997) .  
 19
  
Although the descriptive approach normally entails the analysis of the translated text first, I 
follow Kruger and Wallmach (1997) in analysing the ST in its context prior to the actual 
comparative study. It is important to first look at the original text in its originating context in 
order to identify the possible traces which played a role in the shaping of the ST?s afterlives. 
Thus, as I tackle the analytical phase of my corpus, I analyse the source text alone according 
to the tenets of hermeneutics and deconstruction, before mapping it against the English texts. 
The comparative analysis is carried out across the tertium comparationis that would emerge 
from the ST. The notion of tertium comparationis used here is simply the set of elements that 
would have been identified as a common ground. As the sections below further explain, the 
analytical part of this study unfolds along thematic sequences that I would delineate from the 
ST. These sequences therefore constitute elements of the tertium comparationis in the 
framework of this research report. 
 
Kruger and Wallmach (1997) replicate almost all aspects of the Lambert and Van Gorp 
(1985:42) hypothetical model, and though I am keen to mainstream most aspects of that 
model too, it should be noted that I expressly discarded some of their recommendations for 
the sake of consistency with my overall theoretical framework. One of these 
recommendations pertains to the collection of information related to the status of the TT in 
the Target System prior to the analysis, in an attempt to answer the question: ?Is the 
translation identified as such?? (Lambert and Van Gorp, 1985:48). Even though these 
scholars advise caution because the answer to that question may only be an assumption that 
should be tested against the actual descriptive analysis, I personally do not think that the step 
is relevant for this research because, as Toury puts it: ? [even if at a point] some of the 
[textual] phenomena which have been tentatively marked as translations [?] turn out to be 
pseudo translations [?]?, this ?prospect is of no consequence [?] on the [descriptive] phase?  
(Toury, 1985:20). The phases of my investigation can be summed up as follows: 
 
Phase 1: 
I first attempt to contextualize each of the selected poems from Paroles (1946/1947) in the 
ST system. This effort to locate the poems in their originating context entails the study of 
historical, sociological and textual variables. These variables tie up with the broad definition 
of traces provided in the introductory chapter, and the study of the ST thus equates to a 
pursuit of traces likely to emanate from it. At either phase (whether when the original is 
 20
 being analysed alone, or during the actual comparative analysis), the analysis unfolds along 
two sequential phases: a macroanalysis of the text first, before the microanalysis is carried 
out. At the macrolevel of the ST analysis, I present the poem in terms of its genesis, its 
structure, and the characters involved. The microlevel analysis unfolds along relevant 
thematic sequences. Most of the poems in my corpus do not have classical stanza structures 
but often appear as a block of lines.  
 
In line with the purpose of this research, I have identified linear sequences where a main 
idea1 seems to predominate.  Elements contributing to the shape of those thematic sequences 
are discussed in detail. In poetry, formal aspects cannot be dissociated from the content, and  
thus, the analysis of sequences includes their internal  verse structure, syntax, the use of 
words and phrases, terminology, lexemes, metaphors and figures of speech, language variety 
(such as sociolect, archaic/popular, informal/formal register, jargon, American British 
English) and culture specific elements, whichever category proves relevant. The analysis of 
each thematic sequence is followed by a corresponding short interpretation. Each 
interpretation of the sequences contributes to shaping the overall interpretative phase of the 
ST analysis. This concluding step establishes whether aspects of our theoretical model were 
applicable to the ST analysis. 
 
Phase 2: 
The analytical scheme at this phase follows the principles of phase 1. The resulting body of 
variables emanating from the analysis of ST poems grounds the comparative and descriptive 
analysis. 
 
At the macrotextual level, the analysis focuses on elements such as: 
? The title of the text 
? The structure of the poem 
 
At the microtextual level, thematic sequences are identified for each target text following the 
principles governing the ST analysis. The TT sequences are eventually mapped against 
fellow ST sequences, to discuss translation techniques (substitution, repetition, deletion, 
                                            
1. The Collins? Essential English dictionary defines ?idea? as a meaningful thought. A deconstruction of the 
word meaningful gives the lexis ?meaning? and the suffix ?full?. The latter means ?as many as possible?, and 
when I talk of main idea here, I mean an idea with as many meanings as possible, but with enough unity. 
 21
 addition, compensation, and so on). The descriptive and comparative analysis of every 
thematic sequence is followed by a short interpretative paragraph. Such interpretations 
mainly pertain to norms (are they ST, or TT oriented and motivated or both) and other 
relevant aspects. 
 
The last ?explanatory phase? discusses the findings of phase 1 and phase 2. It tells whether 
the findings at the microlevel  analysis are consistent with the overall findings, and provides 
answers to questions related to ?norms? at play during the translation process (were they 
motivated by acceptability or adequacy, or both? Was the ST/TT oriented translation strategy 
identified during the study of a particular sequence pre- echoing the general tendency of the 
translator to use ST/TT oriented strategies?); questions related to the possible motivations of 
the translator in the choice of particular strategies (relevance theory); the usefulness of 
hermeneutical tenets. Further, the phase discusses findings pointing to what I call 
significations plurielles: do our hypotheses allude to the multiplicity of dimensions that are 
latent in a text and that emerge through the act of interpretation?  
 
Whatever the outcome, answers are not definite, because they also derive from my personal 
interpretation; an interpretation that relies on textual and paratextual clues made manifest to 
me according to the principles of relevance.  
 
3.3 Relevance theory 
Proponents of Relevance theory hold that translation is a clue-based interpretive use of 
language across language boundaries (Gutt: 1991).  
 
This idea particularly applies to literary translation where the author of the source text often 
communicates a number of ideas without using explicit wording. This implicitness is 
epitomised through the clues game; it requires a degree of processing effort from the reader 
who aims to dig out relevant ?clues? laid down in the text they read. I have highlighted the 
word ?relevant? here because as a result of cognitive processes, relevance varies between sets 
of participants and different communication acts. The concept is context dependent and fits in 
with what Sperber and Wilson (1986:15) define as ?[...] the psychological construct a subset 
of the hearer?s assumptions about the world?. 
 
Context as explained above does not refer to external physical factors. It is part of the 
 22
 hearer?s cognitive environment, and makes up ?a set of facts that are manifest to him?. The 
reading/listening process equates to a ?clue hunting? for the translator; a hunt informed by a 
?search for relevance?. The outcome of the ?clue hunting? will translate in the target audience 
in terms of ?success? or ?failure?, depending on the distance between the translator?s intention 
and the receptor?s expectations. If these expectations don?t tie up with the translator?s 
intentions, then the communication is doomed to failure. 
  
In order to make an utterance optimally relevant to its audience, the translator has to take 
certain contextual implications into consideration. According to Sperber and Wilson (1986), 
information is relevant to a reader/listener only when its processing yields a positive cognitive 
effect. This positive result can only be obtained in a context of available assumptions, and is 
referred to as the contextual effect. Gutt (1991) believes that these effects are neither 
produced by the new information or the utterance or the context alone, but by the new 
information and the context combined. Contextual effects are obtained when the new 
information interacts with a context of existing assumptions in one of four ways: by 
strengthening an existing assumption, by contradicting and eliminating an existing 
assumption, by weakening the existing assumption, or by combining with an existing 
assumption to yield a contextual implication. Relevance arises from the interplay between 
two factors: contextual effects and processing effort. The result can be mapped and graded as 
follows: optimal relevance, strong relevance, weak relevance, and irrelevance. The more 
positive cognitive effects an utterance yields, the more relevant it is; and the more processing 
effort required, the weaker its relevance. Considering the following example: 
 
In an Interpretation class, the lecturer engages the students in a ?warm up? exercise, which 
consists of synonym chains. The first student comes up with the word ?belly?; the second 
student goes on with ?tummy?, and the third student suggests ?steering wheel?.  
The reaction of the 8 people (including the lecturer) present in the session differs; 2 students 
(including the uttering student) burst into laughter, and the rest of the class appears curious: 
?What [?] do you mean??  
 
As the teacher asks the student what she means by ?steering wheel? in this context, she stands 
up and fakes a ?love scene?. The teacher and the fellow students are amazed. Considering this 
example we understand Sperber and Wilson (1986)?s definition of context as ?a set of facts? 
manifest to the hearer and including ?field of experience?. 
 23
  
The student who did burst out laughing immediately ?picked up? the clue given by the 
student, because of her prior experience. The ?clue digger? and the uttering student explained 
that they were used to exchanging ?dirty jokes?  with friends, and ?steering wheel? is part of 
the jokes? repertory.  
 
Even though one student easily ?picked up? the clue laid down by the uttering student, we 
cannot hold this whole instance to be a successful act of communication because the author 
(uttering student) ?distorted? the context of situation (a synonym matching game in an 
academic setting), and her utterance yielded negative cognitive effects; most students could 
not guess in the direction of ?erotic jargon? because the formal setting of a lecture did not 
precondition them to do so.  
 
This illustration clarifies what is known as ?consistency with the principle of relevance?; as a 
matter of fact, an utterance is consistent with that principle only if the interpretations 
conveyed by the communicator are rational interpretations in the particular situation (the 
class meeting in our example), and if they do not cost the hearer unjustifiable effort in 
achieving positive cognitive effects (if at all positive). These effects are related both to the set 
of referential assumptions available in the context, and to the participants? experience. 
 
If the meaning of both verbal and nonverbal messages draws on past experiences, personal 
knowledge of language and word meaning, it has ties with other variables and that are found 
beyond the realm of mere cognition: the cultural context in which a communicative event 
occurs.  Translation teachers often claim that beyond formal training, the student must be 
cultivated, well grounded in their field of specialization, and above all, be aware of the social 
and cultural implications of their role as a mediator.  
 
I do not, however, intend to use relevance theory in this study to evaluate whether a particular 
passage from the ST yielded a positive or negative effect; my mandate is restricted to 
observable effects in translated texts as a possible result of a particular interpretation. 
 
The last part of this chapter deals with a prioris, or steps that need to be considered before 
embarking on the interpretation of a text.  
 
 24
 3.4 Hermeneutics 
Within the framework of this study, I do make use of the tenets of hermeneutics according to 
which all readings start with an interpretation of the original. Texts are loaded with latent 
meanings that the reader can recover by considering the historical, social and psychological 
context that governed its production. Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhem Dilthey (Greisch: 
1991) recommend that the reconstruction attempt should be undertaken before the proper 
interpretive move. 
 
Hermeneutics is inspired by philosophical tenets as demonstrated through the claims of 
forerunners such as Schleiermacher (who held that the interpreter should reconstruct and 
explain the motives of the author and the implicit assumptions of the text), or Hans-Georg 
Gadamer ? who contrary to the Aristotelian view of language as conveying thought, held that 
language precedes thought ? with his emphasis on the reader?s biases. The hermeneutical 
approach adapted for the purposes of this study mainly draws on Dilthey?s premises. Dilthey, 
initially a follower of Schleiermacher, believed that texts and actions were reflections of their 
times and expressions of individuals, and that their meanings were consequently related to 
both an orientation towards values of their period, and, an expression of their authors? 
motives and experiences. He upheld that every encounter with a text is a journey in the 
historical, social and psychological context of that text. The text does not stand as an 
independent act; it is part of a circle, and its meaning thereon depends. The circle in the 
framework of this study would be: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
French literature in the 1950s 
Jacques 
Prevert/biography/his 
positioning within the 
literary system 
Paroles 
(1946/1947) 
 
 
 25
  
Texts are social acts, and their interpretation entails the scrutiny of the author?s position in the 
broader social and literary frame, and an understanding of that frame at a given moment of 
history, when the text was produced. 
 
Meanings are therefore determined by the author?s world-view and also reflect a particular 
historical, cultural and social context. Hermeneutical premises justify the essence of the 
following chapter: an exploration of background information that may enrich the reader?s 
understanding of the texts making up my corpus. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 26
 Chapter 4: The context of Paroles and its translations 
 
This chapter begins with a short discussion of prevailing literary trends contemporary to the 
author?s time, and to the translators? time, and then provides biographical information on the 
author and the various translators.  
 
 Important historical and literary facts  
The following section deals with literary traditions and theories at the time Pr?vert (1950s), 
Ferlinghetti (1960s), Chapman (1990s/2000s), and Bowers (2007) produced their texts. 
 
4.1.1 Prevailing trends in French literature during the 1940-50?s  
  
Twentieth century French literature was profoundly shaped by the historical events of the 
century. Two world wars had left France exhausted, resulting in a questioning of all moral, 
intellectual, and artistic traditions. The early years of Post World War I saw the end of the 
Third Republic, and the second industrial revolution. 
In literature, symbolism was a leading trend with forerunners such as Paul Val?ry, Guillaume 
Apollinaire, Paul Claudel and Arthur Rimbaud. The Symbolists reacted against 
Parnassianism (formal perfection), naturalism, and objectivism in literature. They tried to 
restore a romantic sense of mystery to poetry. Paul Verlaine literally ?sang? in his verses, 
Arthur Rimbaud embarked on metaphysical explorations and Guillaume Apollinaire fused 
poetry with cubism through his Calligrammes, a form of visual poetry in which the 
typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the 
conventional elements of the poem such as meaning of words, rhythm, and rhyme.  
Apollinaire is popularly believed to have coined the word surr?alisme, and his Les mamelles 
de Tir?sias (1918) is held to be one of the first surrealist dramas ever written.  
The surrealist movement draws on the post World War I Dada movement, which refers to the 
anarchist literary movement initiated by Romanian poet Tristan Tzar. It aimed at breaking up 
conventions and linguistic norms. The movement later transmuted into Surrealism with 
Andr? Breton, Louis Aragon and Robert Desnos as its leading figures. Surrealism drew from 
Sigmund Freud?s notion of unconscious and sought to liberate writers and artists from 
Formatted: Bullets and
 Numbering
 27
 constraints imposed by taste and reason. Surrealist writers seemed to share a sense of 
alienation from mainstream literature. Poetry provided them with room to explore realms 
inaccessible through reason alone. Surrealist writers and artists introduced new techniques 
such as collage and word games, and expressed the unconscious through vivid dreamlike 
imagery. One of the most famous surrealist painters was Pablo Picasso. 
The group led by Breton promoted an anti-bourgeois philosophy and a literature that 
denounced political misbehaviour; most of its members were later to join the communist 
party. At that time, two main editors dominated the Publishing market: Gallimard and 
Grasset.  
Other important historical facts that marked France and the world during and between the two 
World Wars would be: the collapse of the New York stock market on 24 October 1929, 
cutting stock prices by 30%, then by 50%. This chaotic event, referred to in France as ?le 
jeudi noir?, saw a massive bankruptcy of banks and firms, and unemployment touching 
millions of workers. The crisis affected the whole world, and it was the return to an age of 
?absurdity?, as Louis Ferdinand C?line seemed to have predicted in his cynical Voyage au 
bout de la nuit (1932).   
Albert Camus studied this absurdity in L?Etranger (1942), and suggested that man could 
revolt because he is free. This concept of freedom was the hallmark of existentialist writers, 
with Jean Paul Sartre as their leading figure. He explained how human beings are to build 
their own values in the novel La Naus?e (1938). Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre?s long-time 
friend, also tackled existentialist problems in her novels with antiheroes who failed to 
recognize their own freedom and exercise; but she is best known for her feminist work, Le 
deuxi?me sexe (1949). 
Although post world war II was sparkled by the development of advertising, and the 
emergence of music halls, talk shows, and stars like Edith Piaf, the decades after 1950 
represented a return to disillusion, with cynicism and experimentalism the dominant 
characteristics of French literature. On the one hand these decades witnessed the emergence 
of the ?anti-roman? by Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor, and Alain Robbe-Grillet, and on the 
other hand, the resulting effect on literary analysis and criticism as illustrated by the writings 
of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. 
 28
 French literature does not consist of homogeneous elements that can be delineated in terms of 
history. Though some literary works can be arranged along specific literary trends which 
emerged at given periods, a short panorama of French literature in the 20th century shows that 
writers reacted differently to prevailing and emerging theories and that at the time, French 
literature entailed a variety of styles, ranging from traditionalist to modernist, or a bit of both.  
French literature was also widely influenced by foreign writers such as William Faulkner, 
Franz Kafka, Bertholt Brecht, and Dos Passos, thanks to translation. France slowly became 
the favourite destination for international artists and writers trying to escape from Prohibition 
such as Oscar Wilde, Henry Miller, Eugene Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett.  
4.1.2 Prevailing trends in American literature during the 1950-60s  
In the 1950?s, there were several events that impacted the landscape of American literature: 
World War II, the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945, and the emergence of media and 
mass communication. 
 
The kind of literature that sprung from the experience of World War II was a literature of 
dissent and despair. Writers, fulfilling their mission as spokespeople of their time portrayed 
characters at odds with a world that tried to dictate a certain identity to them. This literature 
demonstrates marked contrasts, yet our postulate with respect to French literature, i.e. the 
need to mainstream these writers along clusters for the sake of categorization, also applies to 
American literature. As a matter of fact, although writers might be categorized according to 
schools of thought or writing techniques, the truth remains that the literary landscape was 
quite varied. 
 
Traditional writers include acknowledged virtuosi of established forms and diction who wrote 
with a readily recognizable craft, often using rhyme or a set metrical pattern. Those are 
Richard Eberhart, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Richard Howard to name a few. But 
American literature in the 1950s cannot be seen as consisting of antipodes, with conformist 
writers on one hand and non-conformist on the other hand. Some other writers like Robert 
Lowell explored and made use of both traditional conventions and experimental techniques. 
However, originality seemed to become the new norm, and the quest for originality gave rise 
to a counterculture in literature, notably the Beat Generation or the San Francisco school.   
 29
 The term beat suggests musical rhythm or angelical beatitude, and reveals a rebellion against 
the traumatic effects of a terrible World War II. The ?beat movement? upheld the importance 
of new forms of spiritual experience through drugs, alcohol, philosophy, and oriental 
religions. Some important figures of the movement include the well-known Allen Ginsberg, 
the group?s spokesperson; Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The 
bookshop of the latter, City Lights, established in San Francisco?s North Beach in 1951, 
became a gathering place for Beat writers and a new centre of American literature. Toward 
the 1960s, surrealism and existentialism were introduced in America. Writers like Robert 
Bly, Charles Simic, and Charles Wright, used surrealism for its pure emotion, its archetypal 
images, and its models of anti-rational, existential unrest to exorcise the stress of the Vietnam 
conflict and cold war. 
 
4.1.3 Prevailing trends in Contemporary American Literature 
As a panoramic view of contemporary literature is provided in the following paragraphs, it 
may be appropriate to note that within the framework of this study, ?contemporary literature? 
refers to literary trends from late 1970s when Stanley Chapman started translating, to current 
2000s when Sarah Lawson and Amiel Bowers published their translations.  In a nutshell, I 
aim to give an overview of major features associated with the body of work written during 
?that time? _which happens to span over our own times, specifically in the US, and in the UK.  
 
Global literature and American literature in particular, has had a vibrant, ever-changing 
history. Since the 1980s, more trends have emerged and new controversies arisen. The 21st 
century is witnessing an emergence of the so-called ?Third Wave? of feminists, who are often 
held to make a come back to tradition; i.e. stories involving women in child rearing, home 
care, love issues, and fashion. Their protagonists are figures made famous worldwide by 
Helen Fielding?s Bridget Jones?s Diary (1998/2007) and Candace Bushnell?s Sex and the 
City (1997/2008). 
 
Contemporary American literature is also a return to Gothicism and a fascination for the 
supernatural, as exemplified in J.K Rowling?s bestselling series Harry Potter (1997/2007). 
The United States? involvement in the Iraqi War is one of the most controversial political 
issue of our times and this too, is inspiring American writers. Many of them are using the war 
as a focal point to tackle political issues. John Keegan published Iraq War in 2004 in which 
he does naturally discuss war in Iraq. 
 30
 Diverse styles, genres, and trends can be found at the heart of contemporary American 
literature. Ethnicity, gender-based issues, sexual orientation, political and social problems are 
key factors therein emerging, showing that literature is a true reflection of the life and times 
of the writers.  
 
4.1.4 Prevailing trends in Contemporary English Literature 
The effects of globalisation on literature make it difficult to talk about a mainstreamed British 
literature, but gives room for the reference ?plural British literature?. The phenomenon is not 
only peculiar to British literature; besides, as Lars Ole Sauerberg states:  
 
It is only by remaining dynamic, by evolving, that a culture or a literary tradition 
continues to live. It is its loopholes, its openness to the ?other? or ?others? which 
allows it to re-view and develop itself. In literature and in poetry it is those 
writers who look abroad who are often its most valuable territorial voices. 
(Sauerberg 2001:137). 
 
Contemporary British literature shows features resulting from its connections with ?post-
 colonial writers who chose Britain as home or at least as a ?pied-?-terre? (Lars Ole 
Sauerberg: 2001); fellow European writers (mainly French writers) and of course, the 
?American fellows?.  
  
The main trick used by British writers today is the hybridization of literary genres. They are 
active actors in literary global exchanges, as it is the case for Helen Fielding with her Bridget 
Jones?s Diary (1998/2001) which won the award of ?British book? of the year in 1998. If 
review articles tend to position Fielding?s Bridget Jones?s Diary (1998/2001) within the 
American literary landscape, the bottom line remains that the book originated from U.K. 
 
 Background information on Pr?vert and his translators 
Writers live in a society and are part of its historical, social and ideological context. They 
share a particular worldview and a language with fellow nationals. Whether they do conform 
with or choose to rebel against prevailing societal norms, they are part of the society and are 
thus influenced by aesthetic norms, social, religious, ethical and political issues prevailing in 
that society; both consciously and unconsciously.  
 
Formatted: Bullets and
 Numbering
 31
 But literature is also subjective in essence; it is first and foremost the product of a man-the 
author/translator. From that perspective, biographical elements would probably help explore 
some of the hidden motives behind the creative act. 
 
4.2.1 Jacques Pr?vert: biography and literature 
Jacques Pr?vert has almost become a national figure in France, with over 400 schools named 
after him. He was initially read by the kind of people who never normally read poetry and 
was despised by intellectuals for that reason. The author only won widespread recognition 
after World War II, in the Paris of the late 1940s. He played an active part in the making of 
Parisian post-war culture. Admired as the controversial scenarist of some of the best French 
cinema?s classics, his taste for subversive impertinence also tainted his poetry. He wrote 
against a lot of the social inhumanity in the years following WWII. 
4.2.1.1 Pr?vert: his biography 
Jacques-Henri-Marie Pr?vert, known as Jacques Pr?vert, was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine on 4 
February 1900, the second of three sons. The parents, Andr? and Suzanne Pr?vert, were not 
bourgeois in the real sense, but they had enough affection to give out. The father Andr? 
Pr?vert found work with a charitable organization that provided help for the needy, and 
Jacques would accompany him on visits to the destitute. These visits opened Jacques 
Pr?vert?s eyes to the depths of poverty; they awakened a love for city streets and sympathy in 
him for the underprivileged.  
An anecdote from his biography (Dani?le Gasiglia-Laster et Arnaud Laster, Oeuvres 
compl?tes: 1992: intro. XXXIX) shows that when he was only 6 years old, he managed to 
dissuade his father who had thought of throwing himself in Toulon?s river and committing 
suicide. The incident and the reversal of roles (a child reasoning with an adult) comforted 
Jacques Pr?vert?s belief that if freed from prejudice and societal expectations, children can do 
wonders.  
 
His refusal to ?swallow? imposed ideas took root during his childhood. Pr?vert was unhappy 
in school. He attended two different secular schools in the ?Quartier Latin? of Paris, and in 
1908, he was enrolled in a Catholic institution. Pr?vert disliked schoolteachers and exams, 
and dropped out shortly after obtaining his primary school certificate. Though he did not have 
 32
 a good academic record, Pr?vert was a self taught man and a real rat de biblioth?que, eager to 
exchange views about the books he read, the films he saw or the paintings he admired. He is 
reported to have said that he studied arts in the street and with the surrealists. 
 
He was called up for military service in 1920, and during his stay in Lun?ville, he met Yves 
Tanguy whose name would soon become synonymous with surrealist painter. Jacques 
Pr?vert took part in the activities of the surrealists between 1925 and 1929. He disapproved of 
what he described as Les grands et les honorables salauds or the revered swindler: the army, 
the church and the police. Coincidentally, his new friends were, like himself, rebellious, anti-
 establishment and curious about everything. There are several photographs of Pr?vert 
sneaking around the boulevards of Montparnasse in the company of Sartre and de Beauvoir, 
of Camus and Raymond Queneau, of Bardot and Arletty, Picasso and Chagall, Buster Keaton 
and Marcel Marceau.  
 
Himself, Marcel Duhamel and Andr? Breton lived at 54 rue du Ch?teau in Montparnasse in 
an old house, which became a venue for surrealist painters and poets. On 30 April 1925 
Pr?vert married Simone Dienne; he would eventually divorce her.  
Differences of opinion led to a parting of ways in 1928 with Breton, the founder and theorist 
of the Surrealist movement. The incident inspired Pr?vert to write his satirical article ?Mort 
d?un monsieur?, a contribution to the anti-Breton pamphlet Un cadavre (1930). Many critics 
claim that ?Mort d?un Monsieur? (1930) marked the birth of a writer. 
 
4.2.1.2 Pr?vert: his literature 
Jacques Pr?vert was known mainly for his film scripts and dialogues in the thirties. In 1932, 
his brother, Pierre Pr?vert directed L?affaire est dans le sac (1932) with a dialogue written by 
Jacques and adapted from a screenplay. This 50-minute burlesque comedy about the 
abduction of an eccentric millionaire left audiences so confused that the production company, 
disturbed by what they had landed themselves with, pulped almost every print. With Richard 
Pottier, Pr?vert amused himself by changing, and even reversing, social situations. Si j??tais 
le patron in 1934 tells the story of a worker who is appointed by the main shareholder to 
manage a company against all expectations. Un oiseau rare another film that Richard Pottier 
directed in 1935, is about the misadventures of a rich industrialist who decides to pass 
 33
 himself off as a proletarian and unwittingly lends his previous high social status to a poor 
young man. Although the films directed by Richard Pottier are adaptations, their themes 
highlight an opinion dear to Pr?vert: the value of human beings is often in inverse proportion 
to their social position, and the real noble are to be found among the common people. Pr?vert 
also wrote the script for Le Crime de Monsieur Lange of Jean Renoir in 1935.  Obviously, the 
film is about role swapping: the employees of a printing house take advantage of the assumed 
death of the owner, to set up a co-operative. 
 
Pr?vert also created poems, though he earned a living by writing scripts and dialogues for 
films. Whether writing scenarios or literature, his art proceeded from the same approach: 
collages and perversion. His work had a highly visual effect, achieved either by the generous 
use of metaphors and unusual comparisons or by relating stories in a succession of images 
similar to scenes in a film or scenes in drama. 
 
His collages2 mirrored his antipathy for institutions (the church and the army), his sympathy 
for women and children, his compassion and tenderness towards animals. In much of his 
writing, the poet described his disappointment at the suffering inflicted on animals by 
humans. In ?Cataire?, (Choses et autres: 1972), he noted that men have insulted practically 
every animal (cows, calves, pigs, camels, etc) except for cats. Until the late 1930s, many of 
his poems and writings were sung in nightclubs, appeared in reviews or were distributed in 
youth hostels.  
 
Ren? Bertel? who had recently founded Le Point du Jour, a budget publishing House, 
managed to convince Pr?vert to compile a collection of his writings, and published the first 
?imprim?? of collected poems in 1945 entitled Paroles. It was an immediate success. 
Gallimard would eventually publish reviewed versions of Paroles, namely the 1946 and the 
1947 versions herein referred to. 
 
4.2.1.3 Pr?vert: Paroles (1946/1947) 
The title of the collection sounds like a challenge, a refusal to abide by prevailing literary 
traditions and conventions. As a matter of fact, there is a famous saying among writers that 
les mots restent et les paroles s?envolent. Pr?vert is reported (Dani?le Gasiglia-Laster et 
                                            
2 The Collins? Essential English Dictionary (2001) defines collage as a work related by combining unrelated 
styles. 
 34
 Arnaud Laster Oeuvres compl?tes, 1992:982) to have subverted the popular quotation and 
said: ?Les ?crits s?envolent, seules les paroles restent?.  
 
Paroles (1946/1947) is not preceded by an article or a possessive pronoun and this may 
suggest that anybody can take ownership of these ?words?. Further, Pr?vert, the apostle of 
freedom in all its form, certainly did not want the words to remain ?stagnant?; he wanted them 
to flow, like the lyrics of a song; it is therefore no surprise that many poems from the 
collection were sung.  
 
 The collection mixes prose (?Souvenirs de famille?  - certain passages of ?D?ner de t?tes ?), 
saynettes (?L?orgue de barbarie?, ?La chasse ? l?enfant?, ?L?accent grave?) and free verse 
(?Pour toi mon amour?, ?Complainte de Vincent?, ?Barbara?). While Pr?vert is known to 
pay a tribute to popular language by using straightforward idioms, he gratifies the reader 
upon occasion with an interesting word play, judicious alliterations, beautiful rhymes, and 
witty coined words. 
 
Jacques Pr?vert deserves his description as a populist poet. He wrote about and for ?les 
simples gens?, in their language. Poems like ?La p?che ? la baleine?, ?D?jeuner du matin?, 
and ?Fiesta? are reservoirs of simple and concrete everyday expressions, the kind of French 
spoken in the streets of Paris. He also invited his readers to invent new aphorisms, and 
whenever he used common expressions or images, it was to rejuvenate them, as in ?La 
C?ne?, either through a wordplay or a literal interpretation (Ils ne sont pas dans leur assiette, 
which idiomatically means ?they feel unwell?, is literally paraphrased and pictured as ?they 
are not in their plate?). 
The collection Paroles (1946/1947) illustrates the shift from ?poetic idealism? to a literature 
of daily experience. It can be best described as ?art for people?s sake?. The poems? 
impertinence and sarcasm target traditional ideas, credos and institutions.  
Pr?vert was notoriously anticlerical, and he wrote a blasphemous version of the Pater noster 
prayer in the poem ?Pater Noster? [Paroles (1946)]: 
Notre p?re qui ?tes aux cieux 
Restez- y 
 35
 Et nous resterons sur la terre 
Qui est quelque fois si jolie. 
Pr?vert had a deep sensitivity toward the cruelty of men against fellow men, and denounced 
war and its atrocities. There is an instance in Barbara when the disgusted narrator uses a 
swearword to express his indignation and says ?Quelle connerie la guerre?. Le temps des 
noyaux and Quartier libre are similar manifestations of his hatred for war agents, the 
military. 
Paroles (1946/1947) speaks against all fundamental institutions of French society at the time, 
namely the church, the family and school institutions. The family ceases to be a protective 
environment for the individual and is portrayed as repressive in ?la Lessive? and ?Familiale?. 
In ?le Cancre?  we find the dunce who says no with his head but yes with his heart; a child 
frustrated by  rigid rules which annihilate his freedom of expression and  who ?draws the face 
of happiness on the blackboard?. School as depicted here is like a brain washing centre where 
open-minded children are victimized. 
Nature is very present in Paroles (1946/1947), and several poems portray animals, birds 
especially. Birds symbolize a freedom and happiness so much valued by Pr?vert. They are 
often portrayed as sharing the plight of oppressed men like in ?Pour faire le portrait d?un 
oiseau?, or as an epitome of friendship like in La Crosse en l?air.  
 
Beyond all other themes, love seems to be the leading topic in Paroles (1946/1947). Pr?vert 
loves women, and there is a perceptible obsession for their body in most texts: ?Barbara?, 
?Alicante?, ?le Jardin?, etc.  He also loves children, birds, and the less privileged of human 
societies; they are the raison d??tre behind Paroles (1946/1947), a collection of ?words? that 
intent to speak for those ?without a voice?. 
  
In conclusion, Paroles (1946/1947) is an unusual collection of texts. They remain interesting 
beyond time because they tackle universal and ever urging issues. It is in the human nature to 
always seek to free itself from everything that may hinder its happiness. 
  
 36
 Under their seeming simplicity, these texts are products of a meticulous work of language 
reinvention. They exemplify an effort to find the right word, rhythm or collage to captivate 
the least erudite as well as the most aware of readers.  
 
4.2.2 Lawrence Ferlinghetti: biographical information 
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919, the youngest of five sons of 
Italian immigrant Carlo Ferlinghetti and half-French Clemence Albertine Mendes-Monsanto. 
His father had shortened the family name upon arrival in America to Ferling, and it is only as 
an adult that Ferlinghetti restored his lengthier name. 
 
Orphaned at an early age, Ferlinghetti went to live with his maternal uncle, Ludovic 
Monsanto, a language instructor, and his French-speaking wife, Emily. When Emily 
Monsanto divorced Ludovic and returned to France, she took Ferlinghetti with her. The 
youngster was only two years old and lived in Strasbourg for five years, speaking French 
exclusively.  The aunt and the little boy eventually returned to the US where Ferlinghetti was 
placed in an orphanage. He subsequently went to the University of North Carolina where he 
received a B.A in Journalism, and, to the University of Carolina where he earned an M.A in 
English literature. Ferlinghetti decided to go Paris for a PhD; he would receive a Doctorate 
from La Sorbonne with ?mention tr?s honorable?. 
 
During World War II he served in the US Naval Reserve and was sent to Nagasaki shortly 
after it was bombed. He married in 1951 and settled in San Francisco where he had a 
daughter and a son. In 1953 he earned a living by teaching French at an adult education 
school, and through freelance writing for art journals and for the San Francisco Chronicle. 
The same year, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin began to publish the City Lights magazine, a 
popular culture magazine where some translations of Jacques Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947) 
were featured. They also opened the City Lights Books Shop in San Francisco to help support 
the magazine and launched City Light Publishing, in 1955. The publishing house started the 
first volume of their Pocket poet series with Ferlinghetti?s Pictures of the Gone world, (1955). 
By 1955, Ferlinghetti counted such poets as Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip 
Whalen among his friends, as well as the novelist Jack Kerouac. He attended the poetry 
reading ?Six Poets at the Six Gallery,? at which Ginsberg unveiled his poem Howl (1956). 
Ferlinghetti liked Howl (1956) and offered to publish it in his ?Pocket Poets? series. The first 
edition of Howl and Other Poems appeared in 1956 and sold out quickly. Additional copies 
 37
 were ordered from a British printer, but were seized by American customs authorities seized 
on the grounds of alleged obscenity. Ferlinghetti was eventually arrested by the San 
Francisco Police Department on charges of printing and selling indecent material.  
 
The American Civil Liberties Union interpreted this court case as an illustration of abuses 
against the right to freedom of speech, and offered to defend Ferlinghetti. He was acquitted 
on October 3, 1957, and benefited from the publicity generated by the case. Ferlinghetti and 
Ginsberg became national and international revolutionary figures in circles of thinkers and 
writers. 
In an attempt to redeem poetry from the ivory towers of academia, Ferlinghetti wrote A 
Coney Island of the Mind, in 1958. The book sold over one million copies in America and 
abroad. Ferlinghetti?s name is forever associated with the San Francisco literary renaissance 
of the 1950s and the subsequent ?Beat? movement which preached that art should be 
accessible to all people, not just a handful of highly educated intellectuals. The author 
constantly challenged the status quo in art. He has translated the work of a number of poets 
including Jacques Pr?vert and Paolo Pasolini. 
 
4.2.3  Sarah Lawson: biographical information 
Sarah Lawson is an England based American poet and translator. She was born in 
Indianapolis in 1943, but has spent most of her adult life in London. Lawson attended the 
University of Pennsylvania where she obtained a Master degree in English, and eventually 
moved to Glasgow University in Scotland. 
 
Her personal website provides more biographical information: 
[?] The Spanish classic El s? de las ninas by Leandro Fern?ndez de Morat?n was 
performed in her translation at the Prince's Theatre in Greenwich in 1997. In addition, 
she has translated some short prose pieces by the Mexican writer Martha Cerda and 
some poetry by the late Manuel Ulacia, also of Mexico, published in Pen 
International. With Ma?gorzata Koraszewska she has translated the poetry of Jan 
Twardowski (Serious Angel, Dedalus Press, 2003) and a group of aphorisms by S. J. 
Lec (included in Friends in the Country). 
 
 38
 Sarah Lawson has been publishing poetry since the 1970?s. A group of her poems was 
published by Faber in Poetry Introduction 6 in 1985. A pamphlet, Dutch Interiors, 
appeared in 1988 published by MidNAG, and Down Where the Willow Is Washing Her 
Hair (16 poems about China) by Hearing Eye in 1995, but her first full collection was 
Below the Surface (Loxwood-Stoneleigh, 1996). That was followed by two pamphlets 
from Hearing Eye: Twelve Scenes of Malta (2000) and Friends in the Country (2004) 
and another full collection, All the Tea in China (2006). [?] Some current work and 
preoccupations are listed at the right. Sarah is a member of English PEN and secretary 
of the International PEN Women Writers' Committee and also belongs to the Royal 
Society of Literature, the Society of Authors and the Translators' Association.? 
As a French translator, she is acknowledged for her translation of Christine de Pisan?s 
Treasure of the City of Ladies (1985), the first English rendering of that work since its 
publication in 1406. Further, her translation of poems from Jacques Pr?vert best selling 
Paroles (1946/1947) and other poems, Selected Poems by Jacques Pr?vert (2002) was a 
Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. The collection was published in 2002 by 
Hearing Eye Press; a publishing house ran by John Rety, a poet and editor whose literary 
works, editions, and press suggest some taste for ?counter, original, spare, and strange? 
material. 
4.2.4 Stanley Chapman: biographical information 
Stanley Chapman was born in Britain in 1925. He is a British architect, designer, translator 
and writer. He was appointed to the British Oulipian chapter on 13 January 1961 (?Founded 
in 1960 by Fran?ois Le Lionnais and Raymond Queneau, the Oulipo stands for Ouvroir de 
Litt?rature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature?). Oulipo consists of writers and 
mathematicians, who invent, reinvent and experiment with different types of formal 
constraints. George P?rec, a member from 1967, is credited for the longest palindrome ever 
written (?a ne va pas sans dire). La vie: mode d?emploi (1978) was likewise written 
according to a complex set of rules by the same P?rec.  
 
Stanley Chapman is a member of several societies, including the ?Coll?ge de pataphysique?, 
the London Institute of Pataphysics and the Lewis Caroll Society. As a translator, he was 
commended by Raymond Queneau for his English rendering of Cent mille milliards de 
po?mes [Hundred Thousand Billion Poems (1999)]. His other translations include Boris 
 39
 Vian?s L?arrache-coeur [Heartsnatcher (1965)], l??cume des jours [Froth of the Daydream 
(1967)], and Robert Desnos? Liberty or Love, 1995. 
 
 
4.2.5 Amiel Bowers:  background information 
In the introductory notes of this research report, I wanted to set the tone for this analysis by 
highlighting that the corpus is made up of both ?authorized and non authorized versions?. 
That phrase should not raise controversy, as selected translations are valued for the potential 
insight they can provide with respect to translation procedures at play therein. Though I 
strived to make sure that the translated poems making up the corpus of this research are taken 
from ?reliable? sources, I am not so concerned with issues of ?authority?. It should be 
remembered that the primary aim of this research is the description of text production (both 
ST and TT) processes in order to provide a hypothetical account for the final product; from 
that perspective, the prospect of a translation that turns out to be a ?non authoritative? or 
pseudo translation under the canons of the target system is of ?[?] no consequence for the 
initial phase [in this case, my analysis]. In other words, pseudo translations [or non-
 authorized] are as legitimate objects for study [?] as genuine translations. They may even 
prove to be highly instructive for the establishment of the general notion of translation? 
(Toury, 1985:20). 
 
My corpus thus comprises a translation by Amiel Bowers, alumnus of Boston University?s 
academic programme, The Core Curriculum. In a nutshell, Core opens students' eyes to 
literary interpretations and social debates, it teaches them to read, write and think. It aims at 
producing well-grounded social science students in a community of students and professors 
who explore the most profound and inspirational literature, art and music. Their activities are 
materialized in The Journal of The Core Curriculum, which featured a translation of 
?L?accent grave? by Amiel Bowers on page 67 of the May 2007 edition. 
 
Amiel Bowers is a Boston University CAS  (College of Arts and Sciences)senior majoring in 
the Classics - Ancient Greek and Latin.. Although she had finished the Core Curriculum in 
2007, she worked as Editor-in-Chief for the spring 2008 edition. She is servings as Executive 
Editor for the spring 2009 issue of Pusteblume - a translation journal. 
 
 40
 In the editorial note of the autumn 2008 issue, she described The Journal of The Core 
curriculum as a reflection of the common journey of the partakers to the Core:  
 
We have been plagued by countless sleepless nights and by bitter coffee, and yet we 
refused to give up the journey. As much as we liked to complain, we savoured each and 
every moment of our two years in the Core, steeping in over two millennia of the 
world?s culture and history. We have encountered the most esteemed, convoluted, 
distracted, perverted, ridiculous, and most sublime minds, and engaged with them until 
the very late or early hours of the morning. [?] So that is roughly the Core experience, 
and in this year?s journal we have tried to assemble works representative of Core and 
the robust, unconventional thinking it nurtures.  
 41
 Chapter 5: Descriptive and comparative analysis 
 
This chapter begins with an analysis of selected poems in their originating context. My 
interpretation of the poems is inspired by the checklist identified as I discussed the steps of 
analysis under the section DTS (Chapter 3).  The checklist is used as a filter against elements 
of the poem. The filtered items are examined, and later on make up the tertium comparationis 
(see explanation of the concept in the DTS section of chapter 3) of the comparative analysis. 
 
5.1 Descriptive analysis of ST poems 3 
It would be difficult to follow the movement of traces emerging from the ST to the TT unless 
the positioning of such traces has first been elucidated in the ST context. The following 
sections provide an analysis of ?La p?che ? la baleine?, ?L?accent grave?, and ?Barbara? 
respectively. 
5.1.1 Descriptive analysis of  ?La p?che ? la baleine? 
?La p?che ? la baleine? was written in 1933, when Pr?vert was travelling to Czechoslovakia 
(Dani?le Gasiglia-Laster et Arnaud Laster, Oeuvres compl?tes, 1992:1020). It was a script 
meant to be performed on stage by the ?Groupe Octobre?. The poem has become part of the 
French music repertory since Agn?s Capri performed it in 1936 in a musical composition by 
Joseph Kosma. The text is structured like a poem, though it defies all poetic conventions. It is 
made up of 63 verses marked by an irregular use of internal rhymes. The assonance of ?er? 
and ??? contributes to the poem?s rhythm and creates the effect of a loud noise, a noise that 
could well be that of the whale, the main protagonist of the play; or a noise that could predict 
the quarrel between father and son. 
 
As the title indicates, the poem tells the story of a whale hunt. But the poem is not a mere 
narration; it is a text where description alternates with dialogue (5-8) and monologue (lines 
23-26, lines 50-53). 
 
The main characters in this poem are the father, the son, Prosper, and the whale. The story 
also alludes to ?Cousin Gaston? and the mother. 
 
 
                                            
3 ST  and TT poems are found in the appendix section 
 42
  
Prosper the son 
Prosper is one of the main protagonists of the story. The opening lines depict him as a 
naughty son, as he argues with his father. In the course of the argument, his speech accounts 
for 6 lines, whereas his father?s speech accounts for 4 lines (lines 1-6). His confrontation with 
his father suggests that he is a young adult who bravely questions the essence of hunting an 
animal that did nothing to deserve that treatment. Prosper is the driving force of the rebellion 
and revolt in the story.  He is the one who drops the knife which is later snatched by the 
whale, in a counter-reaction of the latter to the father?s order to kill it.  
 
The whale 
Pr?vert?s story takes us on a journey to a fantastic world where animals speak and are 
endowed with feelings like human beings. The picture of the whale in this poem shows 
Pr?vert?s particular love for animals. He usually depicts them as victims eventually 
overcoming the bondage of their oppressors. Often, these animals are metaphors of an 
oppressed humanity. They personify people living under the plight of persecution, and to 
whom Pr?vert?s special instruction would be: ?fight back!?  
 
The whale is the principal character of the story, and, in line with this pattern, it is pictured as 
a victim at the beginning of the poem, but emerges victorious at the end, when it kills the 
father who captured it. The last part of the story is narrated from its point of view, when the 
whale fights back, its last words sounding like a mocking tirade to Prosper?s mother. The 
character of the whale in this poem is similar to the character of the horse in the poem 
?Histoire du cheval? where a horse eventually manages to escape from the ?prison? where it 
was held. 
 
The mother 
In ?La p?che ? la baleine?, the mother is almost a character in absentia. She is referred to or 
addressed, but never utters a word; she is hardly actively involved in the events of the story. 
The fact that her son refers to her as ?ma pauvre m?re? already suggests that in their 
household, her husband?s authority silences her voice. Eventually, she is depicted as a 
mourning widow, an attitude that wins her the sarcasm of the whale, who asks her: ?Why 
should you be sad at the passing of an oppressive husband?? 
 
 43
 The mother in this poem is a spectator, a passive character like the other mother featured in 
?souvenirs de famille?. The description the poem provides of the latter equates her to a piece 
of furniture in the house; she is pictured as a ?dead? woman, probably because her personality 
could not stand the obstructive narcissism of the husband. Another character that is also a 
spectator, but plays a relatively important role, is Cousin Gaston. 
 
Cousin Gaston 
Cousin Gaston is the agent of disruption in the poem. He is the one who upsets the soup bowl 
and deprives Prosper from enjoying a tasty meal. He hardly takes the floor, and when he 
does, he utters a dirty joke where the killing of the father is compared to a ?butterfly hunt?. 
Gaston symbolises the ?real man?, one who does not embarrass himself with hypocritical 
societal conventions, and speaks his mind. It is thus not surprising that he is not featured in 
the last scene, the ?mourning scene?.  Gaston also grounds the poem in a cultural setting, 
because his name is a typical French name, celebrated on the 6th of February.  His ironical 
statement clearly shows that he did not like the father at all. 
 
The father 
The father is pictured as a very authoritative man. He uses the imperative mode to compel his 
son to follow him ?A la p?che, ? la p?che?. Pr?vert carefully chooses words with a negative 
connotation to describe the way the father speaks. When he is not being aggressive (line1), he 
speaks lamentably (line 32), or gives impetuous orders (line 33). His gestures (line 30) show 
that he is a heartless man. 
 
The figure of the father is used here as a scapegoat for Pr?vert?s social satire. Fathers 
represent social conformism and are often depicted in Pr?vert?s literature at daggers drawn 
with their sons, images of social anti-conformism.  As a matter of fact, the father of Prosper 
shares common features with the father of the narrating character in ?Souvenirs de famille?. 
These figures symbolise socially revered institutions, and Pr?vert?s imagination kills them at 
the end of his stories, either through the agent of a ?heart attack? as in ?Souvenirs de famille? 
or through to the revenging action of the whale in ?La p?che ? la baleine?.  
 
A reading of the poem suggests four thematic sequences as follows: 
 
 
 44
 Quarrel (lines 1-14) 
There are numerous lexical items pointing to ?anger? and impetuosity in this sequence: 
courrouc?e (line 2), and the repeated use of pourquoi. The first line unveils the trigger of the 
quarrel between father and son. The father uses an imperative sentence to ask the son to 
follow him. The harsh tone of the father?s request is followed by a confrontation where the 
second pourquoi (line 7) sounds like a rebellion on the part of the son who uses a defiant 
vocabulary to convey his refusal to whale hunt. The son?s refusal aggravates the father?s 
anger. This anger seems to be contagious, because as the father sails out to the sea, the reader 
is provided with an image of a sea demont?e (line 14), i.e. literally ?mad?. The general 
tension in this sequence is further fuelled by the strident assonance and rhyme of the sound 
??? and ?er? in line 2 (courrouc?e), line 3(allong?), line 5 (aller), and line 14 (demont?e). 
 
The ?stormy? atmosphere of the first sequence is followed by a less virulent description. The 
dominating theme of the next sequence is sadness.  
 
Sadness 
This sequence begins with a series of images, which line up in a cinematographic movement 
(lines 15-19): 
 
Voil? le p?re sur la mer 
Voil? le fils ? la maison 
Voil? la baleine en col?re,  
Et voil? le cousin Gaston qui renverse la soupi?re,  
 
These images epitomize the technique of structural collage. Behind this assemblage of 
seeming unrelated images and the total absence of cohesive devices, readers enjoy the 
freedom to draw their own conclusions pertaining to the possible meaning associated with the 
images described. 
 
As a matter of fact, this incongruous description, an unusual coq ? l??ne style (a narrative or 
descriptive technique whereby there is an abrupt change of subject) seems to hide a latent 
meaning. The upsetting of the soup bowl probably ties up with the whale?s anger in a cause-
 effect relationship. There is a common expression in French, la goutte d?eau qui fait d?border 
le vase, to express the ultimate reason that causes someone?s anger. The upsetting of the soup 
 45
 symbolises the father?s obstinate intent to go whale-hunting, in spite of the efforts of the son 
to dissuade him. The father?s obstinacy can thus be equated to ?la goutte d?eau qui fait 
d?border le vase?, and which causes the whale?s anger. 
 
In this sequence, the whale is described as ?en col?re?, i.e. upset, saddened. It is sad because 
her capture means that it will have to abandon its beloved family (in later lines the whale 
refers to that family with affection as ?ma petite famille? [line 53]).  
 
If the spilling of the soup is an image used as the factor causing the whale?s sadness, taken in 
the literal sense, it is the reason why Prosper is sad. Line 21 tells us that the soup was good; 
now that Cousin Gaston has upset it, Prosper does not have anything else to eat, and even 
wishes he had followed his father to the whale hunt (line 25-26). It may be that the general 
feeling of sadness so evident in this sequence is a premonitory allegory of the cruel incidents 
that eventually follow. I have entitled the next thematic sequence ?Cruelty?. 
 
Cruelty 
This sequence starts with the father?s triumphant return (line 27). He is carrying the whale as 
a trophy and throws it roughly onto the table. He is hungry and orders Prosper to butcher the 
animal. The verb d?p?cer in itself already has a violent connotation, and the father?s cruelty 
almost becomes unbearable as it contrasts with the beautiful description of the whale, une 
belle baleine aux yeux bleus (line 30). The lyricism that emerges from this picture of a 
beautiful animal at the mercy of a cruel man evokes sympathy in the reader. It may be that 
kind of sympathy that drives Prosper when he disobeys the paternal request and drops the 
knife. Prosper?s second revolt results in an ironical situation.  
 
The whale snatches the knife that was meant for its slaughter and kills the father. 
The measure of the whale?s anger is perceivable in the violent stabbing of the father to death. 
Pr?vert seems to justify this counter-cruelty of the animal, and waters it down with a comical 
subversion; he trades the use of the phrase part et autre for p?re en part (line 43): 
 
Puis il jette le couteau par terre,  
Mais la baleine s?en empare, et se pr?cipitant sur le p?re 
Elle le transperce de p?re en part (lines 41-43) 
 
 46
 The beautiful whale seems to feel remorse when it sees the woman mourning her husband, 
and Prosper preparing the death announcements. But shortly, the animal realises that the 
father deserved his fate, and that the killing was an act of self-defence. There is an abrupt 
movement from lyrical feelings back to feelings of cruelty. In the midst of two people 
mourning a father and a husband, the whale suddenly bursts into laughter (line 54): 
 
Soudain elle s??crie :  
Et pourquoi donc j?ai tu? ce pauvre imb?cile,  
Maintenant les autres vont me pourchasser en motogodille 
Et puis ils vont exterminer toute ma petite famille. 
Alors ?clatant d?un rire inqui?tant, (lines 50-54) 
 
Its laughter is mocking. It knows that the father was not loved at all, yet here are Prosper and 
the mother playing the role of a devoted son and a devoted wife respectively. She does not 
spare the widow a last attack as she asks her: 
 
Madame, si quelqu?un vient me demander,  
Soyez aimable et r?pondez :  
La baleine est sortie,  
Asseyez-vous,  
Attendez l?,  
Dans une quinzaine d?ann?es, sans doute elle reviendra... (lines 57-62) 
 
These last words, a sarcastic statement to a ?mourning spouse?, are like a barometer of the 
whale?s inner grief. The animal is upset over the hypocrisy of the family, and probably over 
what it did too.  
 
It was a beautiful whale living a peaceful life with its children, until a cruel man came to 
capture it. In an attempt to free itself from bondage, the animal had to respond through the 
same cruelty, a confirmation of Jean Jacques Rousseau (Discours sur les Origines et les 
Fondements de l?In?galit? parmi les Hommes, 1996:86)?s statement that ?L?Homme na?t 
naturellement bon, c?est la soci?t? qui le corrompt? [Human beings are good at birth, but 
society corrupts their minds]  
 
 47
 The overall theme of these poems seems to be revolt: the revolt of the son, and the revolt of 
the oppressed animal. Rebellion leads to unhappy consequences, and these consequences are 
presented with a lot of humour. The humour of the poem emanates from comical and unusual 
images like a talking whale, endowed with human features as she ?snatches the knife? or  as 
tears stain her blue eyes in lines 30 and 49 (Une belle baleine aux yeux bleus / Et la baleine, 
la larme ? l?oeil). Other comical images like the father carrying the whale on his back (line 
29) alternate with textual chunks marked by a darker humour. Pr?vert breaks the phrase ?part 
et d?autre? and instils a dreadful meaning into it with the new playful coined phrase ?de p?re 
en part?. Further, Cousin Gaston makes a joke out of the father?s killing, and equates the 
stabbing scene to a butterfly hunt (lines 44/45): 
 
Mais la baleine s?en empare, et se pr?cipitant sur le p?re 
Elle le transperce de p?re en part.  
Ah, ah, dit le cousin Gaston,  
?a me rappelle la chasse, la chasse aux papillons, (lines 42-45) 
 
The dark humour of the poem also springs from the sarcastic instruction of the whale to the 
?mourning? wife, and from the whole situation in which the father has just been killed 
[maybe his body is even still lying on the floor], but Prosper already writes the ?faire-part?. 
 
The descriptive analysis of ?La p?che ? la baleine? reveals a poem that lends itself to many 
interpretations, given the ambiguous images that Pr?vert uses. That apparent ambiguity is 
resolved through an interpretation that is informed by biographical elements from the life of 
Pr?vert, and it confirms the deconstructionist postulate that meanings are not fixed. This 
poem also reveals Pr?vert?s taste for a dreamlike vision of situations; a vision that mixes 
surreal elements from an enchanted world with elements from the real world. 
 
The investigative survey of ST poems continues in the following section with a description of 
?L?accent grave?. 
 
5.1.2  Descriptive analysis of ?L?accent grave? 
 ?L?accent grave? reads like a poem and the scene of a play at the same time.  It is composed 
of free verse and the layout of the lines defies the conventions of French versification. For the 
sake of referencing within the framework of this analysis, I have identified lines according to 
 48
 the following principle: a set of words delimited by a full stop, an interrogation mark or an 
exclamation mark only, for punctuated chunks; and a set of words forming a single vertical 
row, for unpunctuated passages or passages with three dots. 
 
The story draws on the Shakespearian character of Hamlet, but its substance emanates from 
Pr?vert?s imagination. It involves a student and a teacher in a typical French classroom. This 
poem may be analysed as an epitome of Pr?vert?s special taste for subversion. Pr?vert likes 
playing with words, especially stereotyped expressions, for the sake of showing their 
semantic multiplicity or simply for fun. The interest of ?L?accent grave? lies in the 
instrumentalisation of a pun: the play on the homonymy between ?o?? and ?ou?. 
The stage opens with an introduction of the two protagonists. The information offered to the 
reader provides insight on the role of each. It tells of their social status and suggests a 
relationship based on unequal forces.  
 
Hamlet the student. 
Hamlet in ?L?accent grave? may be likened to the brother of the main character of ?Le 
cancre? [the dunce]. He is a victim of an old institution (school) that indoctrinates young 
minds and deprives them of freedom of expression. As a matter of fact, Hamlet tries to resist 
the conditioning of a rigid system, and plays the fool to avoid a possible retaliation. Hamlet 
seems to be a humble student, and this humility is made manifest through the student?s 
tendency to use phrases connotating politeness such as ?Bien monsieur?, or ?C?est exact 
monsieur le professeur? (line 17). Whenever interrogated, he gives the impression of being 
about to utter a satisfactory answer, whereas he actually responds as it pleases him. His 
modesty is only apparent, as the last part of the poem eventually confirms. The difference 
between Hamlet and the character of the preceding poem, ?La p?che ? la baleine? resides in 
the fact that Prosper openly confronts his father, whereas Hamlet hides his rebellious 
intentions under the social mask of the ?day-dreaming? student. He seems to have succeeded 
in his masquerade because the teacher really believes he has not been concentrating, as usual. 
 
The teacher 
The teacher is the custodian of repressive institutional rules. His figure is similar to all other 
abusive adults who label children aspiring to freedom of expression ?cancres? [dunce] or 
?enfants pas sages? [naughty children]. The classroom is equated to a laboratory and the 
teacher is like the master scientist who has been assigned a mission to ensure that all the 
 49
 guinea-pigs (students) respond positively to the conditioning. In the opening line of the poem, 
he displays his superiority as he calls the student ??l?ve Hamlet?; the emphasis on ??l?ve? is 
a way of reminding the latter that he is in a weak position.  
 
The teacher requires the same discipline from all students; that is the reason why he is angry 
when Hamlet fails to answer like everyone else (lines 3-4): ?Vous ne pouvez pas r?pondre 
?pr?sent? comme tout le monde? / Pas possible, vous ?tes encore dans les nuages?. The 
teacher uses the expression ?comme tout le monde? several times (lines 3 ,8 and 10). He is 
depicted as a strict man, and his strictness is made evident in the plosive alliteration of the 
following passage (lines 3 and 4).  
 
Three thematic sequences were identified: 
 
Distraction 
This sequence proceeds from line 1 to line 5, and the tone is set by the information provided 
in the stage directions (sursautant): 
 
L??l?ve Hamlet (sursautant) 
... Hein... Quoi... Pardon.... Qu?est-ce qui se passe... Qu?est-ce qu?il y a... Qu?est-ce que 
c?est?... 
 
Hamlet seems to have been put on the spot. He did not expect the question and is absent-
 minded as the successive interjections ?Hein?, ?Quoi?, ?Pardon? clearly show. He hardly 
utters a complete sentence, and the series of three dots illustrate his state of half-awareness, 
even though the echo of the teacher?s question was loud and impulsive enough to startle him. 
The language register used by Hamlet here is very familiar (?Hein??/ ?Quoi??), and 
contrasts with the teacher?s very formal register. The formality of the teacher may be 
interpreted as a distantiation technique, because, as we previously discussed, he insists on 
reminding students of their social role by calling them ?El?ve until? (Student x or y).  
 
The double occurrence of the phrase ?dans les nuages?, uttered by the teacher (line 4) and by 
Hamlet (line 5) also contributes to showing that the student is very distracted.  A pun is 
introduced in this sequence as Hamlet draws on the teacher?s statement ?Pas possible, vous 
 50
 ?tes encore dans les nuages? (line 4), to utter an irrelevant sentence. The irrelevancy 
inevitably causes trouble, and the teacher gets angrier. 
 
Teacher?s anger and conjugation paradox 
In the previous sequence, Pr?vert puts a fortuitous utterance in the mouth of the student, a 
French calque of the famous Shakespearian ?to be or not be?:  ??tre ou ne pas ?tre dans les 
nuages !? (line 5). This image equates to a desacralisation of that well-known expression by a 
revered writer. The student is playing the fool; he is fooling the teacher, and by so doing, 
society at large. The teacher?s exasperation reaches its peak in this sequence, and as a means 
of punishment, he requires the conjugation of verb ?tre: 
 
Suffit. Pas tant de mani?res. Et conjuguez-moi le verbe ?tre, comme tout le monde, c?est 
tout ce que je vous demande.  
 
The teacher?s use of lexical items like ?tout?, creates the impression of absoluteness, and 
suggests that, in his mind, the student?s attitude is absolutely unbearable. That is the reason 
for him trying to call him back to order by saying: ?suffit?. The consecutive series of two 
imperatives further conveys the compelling tone of the teacher?s request. 
 
In this sequence, Hamlet?s intention is made clear, as he does exactly the contrary of what the 
teacher requested. He does not conjugate the verb ??tre? like anybody else; like an artist, he 
reinvents the syntax and ignores the conventional rules of conjugation. This interpretation 
throws a new signification on the information conveyed in the second line. As a matter of 
fact, Hamlet?s hesitation to answer ?pr?sent? like all students do, now denotes a refusal to 
conform to established conventions. In French schools, students have traditionally practised 
mechanical conjugation, and the student Hamlet takes it on himself to subvert that tradition 
(lines 12-15): 
 
Je suis ou je ne suis pas  
Tu es ou tu n?es pas 
Il est ou il n?est pas  
Nous sommes ou nous ne sommes pas...  
 
 51
 He has applied his unusual conjugation paradigm to the first person singular ?Je?, the second 
?Tu?, the third ?Il?,and  the first person plural ?Nous?. He seems to enjoy chanting the absurd 
refrain, and as he is about to proceed with the second person of plural ?Vous? when the 
teacher interrupts him (line 16): ?Mais c?est vous qui n'y ?tes pas, mon pauvre ami!? The 
teacher?s intervention symbolises an attempt to reinforce old rules. The passage ?vous n'y ?tes 
pas? may be interpreted as a continuation of the conjugation at the second person plural, but 
this time following a conventional syntactic scheme. However, Hamlet does not give up and 
his last intervention further illustrates his determination to question stereotyped expressions 
and structures. 
 
Hamlet?s strategic revenge 
This sequence reveals that Hamlet?s ?madness? actually hides a smart mind. He uses an 
ironical tone to draw the teacher?s attention to the fact that he has been using words all 
through in a sort of alchemy, a game that reveals linguistic ambivalence: ?Je suis  ?o?? je ne 
suis pas?( line 18). 
 
The first ?ou? is a conjunction and the new ?o?? is an adverb. The little ?accent grave? 
makes a big difference, beyond the misleading homonymy. This illustrates the fact that 
principles governing grammar are not inherently rational, and that their conventional nature 
predisposes them to be questioned.  
 
The teacher makes a figurative pronouncement (?vous ?tes encore dans les nuages?), and 
Hamlet proceeds to enact it ??tre ou ne pas ?tre dans les nuages!? (Line 5). The student?s 
play on words based upon his literal approach towards the teacher?s expressions produce 
comical effects.  This poem materializes a total destruction of meaning and a renewal of 
language?s evocative powers.  It is an area where seemingly ?obvious? significations are re-
 examined. 
 
5.1.3 Descriptive analysis of ?Barbara? 
?Barbara? is set in Brest, a city devastated by war. Brest was under German occupation 
during 1940; the American allies successfully embarked on its liberation the same year, and 
from 1940 to 1944, the city became their naval base, and the ?theatre? of devastating 
bombardment. Whereas most French politicians ?celebrated? the allies for their ?effort to 
liberate? Brest, Pr?vert highlighted the bad side of such ?liberation efforts.? The ?politically 
 52
 incorrect? poem was banned from radio (Dani?le Gasiglia-Laster and Arnaud Laster, Oeuvres 
compl?tes, 1992: 1084).  
 
?Barbara? is made up of 58 unpunctuated lines forming a single stanza. The poem seems to 
be the dramatization of an encounter with ?Barbara?, the main character of the story, besides 
the man referred to as the ?lover? and the narrator himself. The latter can hardly get Barbara 
off his mind. In the course of remembering the circumstances of their first encounter, he 
intensively repeats the name of Barbara, and the refrain creates a sense of invocatory magic. 
Barbara is out of the current picture, and the monologue of the narrator sounds like an 
invocation. He invokes her name, several times, in an attempt to bring her back from the past 
when he met her. The memory is alive because the narrator remembers every detail of her 
portrait, as well as her lover?s.  A careful description of their physical appearance and of the 
setting enables the reader to picture the scene easily. Items from the lexical field of anatomy 
abound in the text: Barbara?s smile (line 9), her face (line 33), and her beautiful body in the 
lover?s arms (line 23). 
 
Some of the features of ?Barbara? point to another poem, ?Union libre? (Breton: Clair de 
terre 1931) by Andr? Breton. A comparison of the two poems actually shows a range of 
commonalities. Breton also focuses on the sensual traits of the main character (a woman): 
?jambes de fus?e?, ?sexe de miroir?, ?fesses de printemps?, ?seins de nuit?, etc. Further, his 
poem is not punctuated. The narrator in ?Union libre? uses the technique of repetition to 
highlight the admiration he has for his ?wife?; ?ma femme? is used like a chorus all through 
the text and literally starts every line (e.g., lines 16/17/18/19/20/21): 
 
Ma femme aux tempes d?ardoise de toit de serre 
Et de bu?e aux vitres 
Ma femme aux ?paules de champagne 
Et de fontaine ? t?tes de dauphins sous la glace 
Ma femme aux poignets d?allumettes 
Ma femme aux doigts de hasard et d?as de Coeur  (lines 16-21) 
 
?Union libre? reads like a celebration of the image (both morally and physically) of a woman. 
The celebration of that woman encompasses several references to natural elements, ?eau/ feu 
/lumi?re?, among others (line1/line 24). ?Barbara? is also characterized by the presence of 
 53
 many natural elements: ?feu?, ?eau?, ?orage?. Pr?vert makes use of the image of rain in the 
poem. The rain is first sensed as the literal pouring of water from heaven, a rain that wet 
?Barbara? [and unveiled her charms], the ?good and wise rain?, the kind that brought joy to 
the heart of the lovers. The tense of the narrative shifts from past tense [imparfait] to present 
tense, a hic und nun which is so atrocious that it inspired the narrator an escapade in happier 
instances of the past. The rain is like a narrative thread and the image of a new type of rain in 
the present also suggests a change in the setting. Two sequences can therefore be identified in 
the overall movement of the text: a recalling of happy moments followed by a chaotic 
description of war. 
 
Happy memories 
The anaphoric phrase ?Rappelle-toi? opens the poem. This imperative statement is not an 
order, but a friendly request that almost sounds like a plea. The addressee, Barbara, is being 
asked to look back at happy moments of the past. Moments that correspond to an idealised 
portrait of Barbara as ?epanouie, ravie?, lexical items of absolute happiness. 
 
The familiar register marked by the use of the pronoun ?toi?, presupposes a close relationship 
between the speaker [the narrator] and the addressee.  He calls her by her first name, 
?Barbara?, and the repetition of the personal pronouns ?toi, tu, moi, je? further suggests a 
personal experience which just like a secret, is preciously shared by two friends. The 
friendship between the narrator and Barbara is taken for granted, until the former eventually 
hints at a few clues indicating the opposite. From line 24, he apologises for being too 
familiar: 
 
Rappelle-toi cela Barbara 
Et ne m?en veux pas si je te tutoie  
Je dis tu ? tous ceux que j?aime 
M?me si je ne les ai vus qu?une seule fois 
Je dis tu ? tous ceux qui s?aiment 
M?me si je ne les connais pas (line 23-28) 
 
The reader realises at this level that perhaps the narrator does not even know Barbara 
personally. As the lines suggest, he might have seen her once only, and he is aware of her 
name because he heard her lover shout ?Barbara? (line 19). The only certitude is that he once 
 54
 witnessed Barbara?s joy as she met her lover. Their love was so intense that it might have had 
a contaminating effect on the narrator. The idea of an intense happiness is further reflected in 
the triple rhyme (heureuse/heureux/heureuse) of lines 31/32/33: 
 
Cette pluie sage et heureuse  
Sur ton visage heureux  
Sur cette ville heureuse (lines 31-33) 
 
As a matter of fact, this sequence of lines conveys an overflow of joyful feelings. Barbara 
was extremely happy under the ?wise? rain because of her rendez-vous with the ?man under 
the porch? (line 17). Lovers usually meet in secret places, to be able to enjoy some privacy. 
Yet, the narrator recalls the lovers? meeting from the perspective of a spectator. The fact that 
he could share those intimate moments alone creates a bond that gives room for familiarity. 
He is not actively involved in the scene but like viewers of TV series, he was able to feel 
close to Barbara merely by watching her. 
 
The first sequence is essentially a flashback triggered by the rain. The narrator seems 
nostalgic for that beautiful experience he had, and strives to echo it in the present through 
repetition. This is supposed to keep the memory alive and ensure continuity, as reflected in 
the image of the incessant rain and the internal rhymes of the poem: (?panouie, ravie sous la 
pluie [lines5/6]).  Towards the end of this sequence, there is a succession of images 
introduced by the phrase ?cette pluie?: 
 
Cette pluie sage et heureuse  
Sur ton visage heureux  
Sur cette ville heureuse  
Cette pluie sur la mer  
Sur l?arsenal  
Sur le bateau d?Ouessant (lines 31-36) 
 
This description suggests a shift. The first set of images is introduced by ?Cette pluie sage et 
heureuse? (line 31), and the second set by a plain ?Cette pluie sur la mer?, with no adjective. 
Yet, the association of the second image of the rain with lexical items denoting war 
(?arsenal?, line 35) sets the tone of the second sequence. 
 55
   
The heavy consequences of war 
This sequence starts from line 34 onward. The tender refrain ?rappelle-toi Barbara? is now 
replaced by the interjection ?Oh Barbara?. The lyricism of the first sequence, characterised 
by nostalgia, dissipates as sadness emerges. This feeling of sadness itself soon mutates to 
anger as the narrator shouts: ?Quelle connerie la guerre?. The statement indicates a change of 
register (line 37).  The slang ?connerie? breaks the relative poetical harmony of the first 
sequence. It contrasts with terminology connoting positiveness like ?ravissante, epanouie?. 
Besides, there is a strong alliteration emerging from the repetition of guttural consonants 
(lines 38/39) ?Quelle connerie la guerre/Qu?es-tu devenue maintenant?, the ?f? of ?sous cette 
pluie de fer/De feu d?acier et de sang? (lines 40 and 41), as well as the following plosives: 
 
Il pleuvait sans cesse  
Il pleut sans cesse sur Brest 
Comme il pleuvait avant 
Mais ce n?est plus pareil et tout est ab?m? 
C?est une pluie de deuil terrible et d?sol?e (lines 44-49) 
 
The roughness of this alliteration presents a high contrast with the soft assonance of the first 
sequence: ?Barbara / rappelle-toi et Barbara (title, line 1)?. The latter endowed the poem 
with a certain musicality, and the poem that read like a song then now sounds like a loud 
complaint. As from line 46, the violence becomes so poignant that the narrator seems to have 
forgotten about Barbara.  
 
He probably wants to distance himself from this chaotic picture; he no longer repeats the ?je? 
or ?moi? as in the first sequence. He trades all the personal pronouns for an impersonal ?il? 
(lines 46/57). The fact that he ceases references to self and Barbara suggests that no human 
being deserves to experience the consequences of the fatal scenery he describes. Far from 
adopting a denial attitude, the narrator acknowledges how war possibly affects men, as 
illustrated in his question to Barbara in line 44: ?Est-il mort disparu ou bien encore vivant?, 
and decides to put on the attitude of a poet who expresses reality through metaphors. The 
imagery of clouds of smoke (line 53) emanating from the shooting may, to a certain extent, 
be assimilated to the frailty of human?s life, a life that passes like a breath, when victims of 
war perish like ?dogs?. There is a resulting rise in tone manifested by the use of slang ?Qui 
 56
 cr?vent comme des chiens? (line 53). The narrator is angry at the fate imposed on fellow men 
by a war that deprives them from their humanness. The slang ?crever comme un chien? is a 
strong expression for a poem, but it illustrates the fact that Pr?vert is able to use popular 
expressions to create the most traditional of poetic effect, lyricism. Most readers would be 
saddened by the image of ?men dying like dogs?. 
 
The other metaphor in this sequence is the image of rain. This new image is no longer 
associated with happiness. The old ?wise and happy? rain (line 31) is eclipsed by a rain of 
?fer, acier et sang [iron, steel and blood]? (41). The current description of rain points to 
another image conveyed in the idiomatic expression ?pluie de balles? [rain of bullets]. There 
seems to be a chronological movement of the image of rain as described in the poem. At first 
the rain is equated with happiness, then that image gets eclipsed by a rain of ?iron? which 
materialises war, and the last metamorphosis of the image of the rain is ?pluie de deuils? (line 
49) to mark the disastrous consequences of war. The linear movement of the poem, marked 
by the lack of punctuation, as if images and words from the text should flow continuously 
like the rain, is halted abruptly at the end of ?Barbara? by the presence of a full stop. Perhaps 
this further expresses the narrator?s desire to put an end to the sad consequences flowing from 
the ?rain of iron? and stop the effects of war from continuing. 
 
Several writing devices used by Pr?vert for ?Barbara? tie up to some extent with features 
emerging from Andr? Breton?s ?Union Libre?. The layout of both poems reflects what Breton 
meant when he talked about surrealism as ?the absence of all control by reason, excluding 
any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.?  (Andr? Breton, 1924, Manifesto of Surrealism). The 
historical setting of ?Barbara? is France in the 1940s; a period marked by the rise of 
?litt?rature engag?e?, or the involvement of writers in the social and political issues affecting 
their fellows. Barbara sounds like a pamphlet, where words are used as ?weapons? against the 
fatal war, which destroyed the city of Brest. 
 
5.2 Descriptive and comparative analysis of TT poems and ST poems 
This part of the research deals with the description of the TT poems mapped against elements 
that resulted from the description of ST poems 
 
It should be noted that my research is not about translation shifts. As hinted in the beginning, 
the play of diff?rance usually takes place at the syntactic, lexical and conceptual level. And 
 57
 since languages often map meaning differently across those surfaces, it is interesting to 
deconstruct their transformation phase to pick up some of the strategies that were used by the 
translator, and that contribute to shaping some of the meanings of the TT traces. These 
strategies may reveal the insufficiencies and the peculiarities of each language, as well as the 
creative genius of translators. As the description of selected texts eventually shows, 
?conflicts? often emerge from the confrontation of linguistic and cultural elements 
specifically relevant to each context (ST context or TT context). Whether the conflict is 
resolved at the expense of ST norms (domestication) or TT norms (foreignization) (Venuti 
1998), or through the setting up of a space where elements from both ST and TT norms are 
forced to co-exist, every decision entails an amount of creative effort from the translator. 
Neubert (1997) believes that creativity in translation is derived. I should add that if the 
creativity of literary writers ? like that of early poets ? springs from interaction with Muses of 
their imaginary garden; literary translators for their part draw their inspiration from authors of 
the ST. As Neubert elaborates: ?A translation is not created from nothing; it is woven from a 
semantic pattern taken from another text, but the threads ? the TL [target language] linguistic 
forms, structures, syntactic sequences ? are new? (1997:17).  
 
Now talking about the final cloth which results from that art, it is left to other observers to 
evaluate what was produced by Ferlinghetti, Lawson, Chapman and Bowers, as an outcome 
of their decisions and choices. This research report simply shows how either a decision or a 
choice speaks towards semantic multiplicity. As a matter of fact, Deconstruction equates the 
process of semantic derivation [the decision-making process] to the process of 
?transformation of potentials?. This relativity compels the researcher to be cautious, and 
words denoting semantic exhaustiveness like ?exactness?, ?preciseness?, or an evaluative 
terminology like ?distortion? do not apply. I draw from strategies identified by Newmark 
(1988) to describe the translation process, but I adapt them for the sake of consistency with 
my overall theoretical model. The description of TT texts translation processes makes use of 
the following concepts (Newmark, 1988: 40-114 [I have conceived the table below, an 
adaptation from Newmark?s claims]):  
 
Concept  Explanation 
Adaptation This strategy [my terminology] equates to a free rewriting 
process, TT oriented. 
 58
 Communicative 
translation 
This is an echoing of the original in a way that the TT and ST 
may be held to achieve similar purposes; herein used 
interchangeably with functional echo. 
Compensation An omission, a deletion, or a loss at one level often calls for 
compensation at another level. 
Couplets This is the combination of two different procedures. This 
research reports may mention ?triplets? or ?quadruplets?, coined 
as a reference to parallel strategies. 
Cultural [echo] This is the trading of a ST culture specific item for a TT culture 
specific item 
Literal translation This strategy almost equates to a word for word translation 
strategy.  
Modulation This is the remapping of thought along lexical items to fit in the 
TT norms. 
Naturalization It is the phonetic or the morphological adaptation of a ST word 
to match TT linguistic system?s requirements. 
Paraphrase This strategy consists in the reformulation of a ST expression in 
other words. It is herein used interchangeably with explanative  
technique. 
Recognised translation This strategy is the translator?s recourse to an ?official or 
generally accepted? rendering of a ST term. 
Through-translation It is otherwise referred to as calque or loan translation. 
Transposition This is the remapping of thought along syntactic items to fit in 
the TT norms  
Word-for-word translation This strategy entails the echoing of individual lexical elements 
of the ST, often out of the textual context. 
 
Although Newmark (1988) mentions the difference between translation methods and 
translation procedures as he holds that ?translation methods relate to whole texts? while 
?translation procedures are used for sentences and the smaller units of language? (1988:81); 
these terms are used here interchangeably. 
 59
 The study of the ST selected poems showed that they are rich in culture specific terms or 
concepts. As we describe the translation process of some of these culture specific features of 
the ST, the translation of personal names in particular, references are made to Hervey and 
Higgins (1992). The latter held that names could either ?[...] be taken over unchanged from 
the ST to the TT, or [?] adopted to conform to the phonic/graphic conventions of the TL? 
(Hervey and Higgins, 1992:29). 
Other strategies (synthesization, elaboration, addition, and explanative technique) referred to 
emanate from my personal deduction of given observables. In the course of analysing ST 
poems in phase 1, it was observed that humoristic features abound in the three selected texts. 
As I shortly discuss the strategies used by the authors of TT 1 and 2, references are made to 
Trajan Shipley Young?s Towards A Humour Translation Checklist For Students of 
Translation (2007). The issue of Humour in translation is complex enough to be the object of 
a study on its own. Within the framework of this research, it is tackled as one semantic layer 
among others. 
The descriptive and comparative analysis follows the scheme that was elaborated during the 
first phase. The analysis starts with an examination of macrotextual elements, and eventually 
unfolds at the microtextual level. Selected poems are examined following the order set in 
phase 1. 
 
5.2.1 Descriptive and comparative analysis of ?La p?che ? la baleine? 
 
5.2.1.1 Macroanalysis 
 
To start with, we look at titles, structural components (number of lines if applicable), specific 
aspects of punctuation (if applicable), and characters involved in the story. 
 
Title of poem 
?Whale fishing? 
 
 (TT1 by Lawson) 
 
?Whale hunting? 
 
(TT2 by Chapman) 
 
?La p?che ? la baleine? 
 
(ST by Pr?vert) 
 
 60
 Characters involved in the story 
?The father? 
?Prosper? 
?The whale? 
?Cousin Gaston? 
 
?The mother? 
?The old man? 
?[Little] Ernest? 
?The whale? 
?Cousin Anthony /Cousin 
Tony? 
?The mother? 
 
 
?Le p?re? 
?Prosper? 
?La baleine? 
?Cousin Gaston? 
 
?La m?re? 
 
 
In terms of structure, Chapman?s translation is made up of 64 lines, and Lawson?s of 62 lines. 
Mapped against the original, this suggests a margin of 2 additional lines for Chapman?s 
translation, and an amount similar to the original for Sarah Lawson?s. 
 
At the level of the title, Chapman?s version denotes a pursuit; an exercise which entails an 
amount of physical efforts, whereas Lawson?s rendering of the term ?fishing? suggests an 
activity on water surfaces.  
 
Mapped against the ST, Chapman?s translation reflects the choice of a synonymous term 
whereas there is a literal echo available within the TT system. In English and in French, 
?whale hunting?, ?whale fishing?, and ?P?che ? la baleine? or ?Chasse ? la baleine? are used 
interchangeably to refer to the same activity. A comparison of Lawson?s rendering and the 
ST on the other hand shows a decision to pick the literal echo available within the TT system. 
The names of characters featured in each text further reveals that Lawson?s choices are literal 
translations for names associated to the social status [father, mother] of those characters, and 
loans for personal names; Chapman has replaced ST personal names with names that ?[...] 
conform to the phonic/graphic conventions of the TL?  (Hervey and Higgins, 1986:29); and 
as for names associated to social status, he has added the adjective ?old? to refer to ?the 
father?. 
 
The macroanalysis and description of this poem suggests distancing strategies by Chapman, 
while Lawson tends to choose literal alternatives. To echo Neubert (1997), independently of 
the result of the decision-making process, every translation is always semantically related to 
 61
 the ST. Even in the event of additions and deletion [here the names of the ST characters are 
literally deleted and replaced by different names] as is the case with Chapman strategies, an 
explanative tracking of the play of diff?rence back to the ST reveals an enriching link. In fact, 
when Pr?vert refers to one of the characters of ?La p?che ? la baleine? as ?le p?re?; this term 
is relatively ambiguous, and though its first signification is ?the father?, it may also mean ?an 
old man?, or ?the head of a family? (one of the famous characters of French literature 
referred to as ?le p?re? with this specific connotation is ?Le p?re Grandet? (Eugenie Grandet, 
1965). 
 
As we saw in phase 1 while studying ST characters, Pr?vert depicts the character of the father 
with negative words, and Chapman?s addition of the pejorative adjective ?old? to his 
reference of the father probably sets the tone in the same direction. 
 
5.2.1.2 Microanalysis 
The microanalysis is carried out according to the tertium comparationis identified in phase 1. 
The latter is related to the thematic sequences that came out from the reading of the ST. As I 
discuss the strategies used by every translator within the confines of those sequences, the 
ultimate purpose is to show at the end how each text complements the other, enriching its 
meaning, or how all the texts are semantically related to one another. 
 
Quarrel  
This sequence covers the first 11 lines in Chapman?s version, and the first 12 lines in 
Lawson?s. Elements from the lexical field of ?anger? abound in the latter version with an 
occurrence of ?why? (line 7) twice and the adjective ?furious? (line 1). A comparison of 
Lawson?s rendering with the ST reveals that she used a compensation strategy in this 
sequence. The request ?let?s go? (line1), although emphasised through the repetition, sounds 
like a euphemic echo of the impetuosity perceived in the ST double imperative ?A la p?che 
[?], ? la p?che? (line 1). However, the selection of ?furious? (line 1), an adjective denoting 
?violent anger? to echo courrouc?e (line 2) compensates for this loss. The ST adjective 
denotes a milder violence, compared to the TT?s. The guttural alliteration in: 
 
Let?s go whale fishing, let?s go whale fishing, 
Said the father in a furious voice 
To his son Prosper, lying under the wardrobe, 
 62
 Let?s go whale fishing, let?s go whale fishing. 
You don?t want to go, (lines 1 -5) 
 
The ?o? assonance above is homophonic to the interjection ?oh? expressing anger, and points 
to a confrontation of angry voices.  Further, the guttural ?g? of line 1, combined with the ?r? 
alliteration in line 3 sounds like a grunt, an annoying echo that reflects the unpleasing noise 
of the ST ??? assonance. 
 
French usually conveys emphasis through cleft constructions, while English does so through 
an intensive use of phonetic stress on lexical items. This probably justifies the deletion of the 
ST second ?donc? in ?Pourquoi donc que j?irai [?]? (line 7).  So while the son?s defiant tone 
is reflected in ST through the cleft connector ?donc?, in Lawson?s version it is to be echoed 
through the stress on the ?why?: ?And [why] should I go to fish for an animal/ That has done 
nothing to me, papa,? (lines 7 and 8). A mapping of these lines against ST lines shows a word 
for word translation of: 
 
Et pourquoi donc que j?irais p?cher une b?te 
Qui ne m?a rien fait, papa, (lines 7-8) 
 
But it is also observed that this section, apart from being a literal translation, is also a 
communicative translation (Newmark 1988). Sarah Lawson (2002) modulates the verb 
?p?cher? [to fish] which is primarily used in English or French in its form without an object 
to denote the ?catching of fish?. She selects the option ?fish for? which is synonymous with 
?hunt for?, and denotes an activity requiring physical effort. This suggests that the real reason 
Prosper is reluctant to go fishing is his laziness. As a matter of fact, the first lines referring to 
Prosper depict him ?Lying under the wardrobe? (line 3). It ties up with Chapman?s rendering 
of the scene.  
 
Chapman for his part freely adapts the ST setting, and trades ?[...] sous l?armoire allong?? for 
?[...] dozing in the sun? (line 1). 
 
This new setting contributes to giving Ernest [adapted from the ST name Prosper] the image 
of a lazy character. Stanley Chapman?s (2003) rendering suggests that the anger in this 
sequence is actually triggered by Ernest?s lazy attitude. The former transposes ST elements 
 63
 depicting the father, and the resulting impression is that even though the son is lazy; his 
laziness is better than his father?s meanness. While anger is conveyed in the ST through an 
adjective modifying the sound of the father?s voice, ?courrouc?e? (line 2), Chapman?s 
portrayal of the father uses the adjective ?wild? to modify ?man?: 
 
Said a wild man to his son 
Ernest, dozing in the sun (lines 2/3) 
 
This suggests that the whole personality of the father is equated with anger.  It is not just the 
father?s voice, but also his whole being that points to violence and anger. The sizzling effect 
of the rhyme ?son/sun? indicates that the atmosphere is overheated, and predicts the quarrel 
and the confrontation that follows. 
 
Interpretation of this first sequence:  
This sequence shows Sarah Lawson?s general tendency to opt for literal renderings 
influenced by the ST oriented norms, while Chapman tends to opt for adaptation strategies. 
The new meanings that emanate from either version and that were not evident in the ST 
enrich the latter. As a matter of fact, as we were studying the ST characters, it was noted that 
Pr?vert uses the father as a ?scapegoat? to criticise the family institution; Chapman?s 
additions to the ST portrait of the father reflect that criticism. The analysis of the ST?s first 
sequence mostly attributed heroic and rebellious traits to Prosper the son; but the comparative 
analysis of the two target texts reveals that far from the ethical questioning of the essence of 
his father?s request, the son?s rebellion is explained by his laziness; he would rather stay 
home ?dozing?, instead of  ?fishing for? a whale. 
 
Sadness 
This thematic sequence comprises lines 13 to 26 in Lawson?s text, and lines 12 to 25 in 
Chapman?s. In the two target texts, the emphasis laid on the description of the father sailing 
alone, after his son?s refusal to go along almost raises pity.  
 
Chapman?s reference to the father as ?old man? (line 12) seems to have given up its satirical 
effect in the first sequence. It contributes to giving surrounding lines a lyrical note. There is a 
special emphasis in the man?s description that is latent in the ST: ?Alors dans sa baleini?re le 
p?re tout seul s?en est all?? (line 13), but made evident in both TTs: 
 64
  
So the father goes off all by himself on his whaling ship (Lawson: line 13) 
So in his little whaleboat all alone the old man sailed (Chapman: line 12) 
 
A back translation of Lawson and Chapman?s textual chunks above would respectively be: 
Alors le p?re s??loigne, terriblement seul dans sa baleini?re 
Alors dans sa baleini?re, livr? ? lui m?me, le vieil homme embarqua  
 
It takes an adverbial lengthening (tout vs terriblement) and a cleft construction (tout vs livr? ? 
lui m?me) in the French back translation to render the picture of the lonesome father in his 
little boat. The detestable character of the first sequence is now the object of the reader?s 
empathy. Moreover, in Lawson?s version, where the son ?waves off? the father to ironically 
wish him good luck with the ?stormy sea? (line 14) and the ?angry whale? (line 17). Soon the 
son too has a reason to be sad, as Cousin Gaston upsets the ?good? soup. Prosper is said to be 
?sorry? (line 22), and his regretful statement in lines 24-26 confirms he stayed home because 
he was planning to eat the good soup, and not because he does not want to ?[?] fish for an 
animal/That has done nothing ? (lines 7 and 8) to him. The relationship that the ST reading 
suggested between the images of Cousin Gaston?s disruptive action over the soup and the 
?angry whale? is justified through the connotation of the English term ?upsetting? (line 18 of 
Lawson?s text, and line 17 of Chapman?s). The verb ?upset? as used therein, denoting the 
action of the Cousin over the soup [or the cups of tea], may be transposed as an adjective to 
describe the sea as it is presented in line 20 (Pr?vert?s text/Lawson?s text). 
 
This sequence tells the reader comparing the poems that Chapman opted for an adaptation 
again. He renders ?Et voil? le cousin Gaston qui renverse la soupi?re,/ La soupi?re au 
bouillon? (lines 18 and 19) as :  
 
And tiny cousin Tony?s been upsetting all the cups,  
All the [?] cups of tea. (lines 18-19) 
 
At first, the reading of these lines yields negative effects in my mind. Coming from a non-
 British [and non English] background, I did not see any possible reason why he chose to trade 
the concept of ?bouillon? for ?tea?. It is only after a background research on the ?meanings? 
 65
 of tea that I found out from the Collins? Essential English Dictionary (2003) that tea often 
refers to ?the main evening meal? in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand.  
 
So in his adaptation, Chapman replaces a ST cultural element [even though bouillon is known 
in English speaking countries, especially in the form of bouillon cube in The US or stock 
cube in UK, it is primarily a French concept] with a TT culture specific element.  
It is now obvious why Ernest [an echo of ST?s Prosper] is ?feeling sad? (line 9); after the 
upsetting of the ?cups of tea?, he has nothing left to eat for tea (lines 23- 25): 
 
Whatever made me stay with mum and Cousin Anthony? 
We really might have caught a whale 
And eaten it for tea. 
 
Chapman uses the image of tea to create a ?collage?; he makes an ambiguous use of tea as 
denoting the drink and the meal. 
 
Interpretation of the second sequence: It was observed that the two translators consistently 
use literal translation and adaptation strategies as identified from the beginning. There was a 
latent lyricism in the ST brought to surface level in the two TTs by means of stress and 
intonation. 
 
Cruelty 
In the midst of the sad monologue of the son, the reader?s attention is drawn to the door. 
Lawson?s text (line 27), draws the attention of the reader to a gradual process (?But the door 
is opening [?]?), the ST emphasises the abruptness of the movement (?Mais voil? la porte 
qui s?ouvre? [line 27]), and Chapman?s lines focus on the trigger of the movement (?But 
suddenly the handle turns? [line 26]. This illustrates what Newmark (1988) terms 
?modulation?. 
 
The return of the father marks a situational shift. The ?old man? who sailed ?all alone? across 
the ?stormy sea? is back with a whale. He was sad as he left, but he is conceited and cruel as 
he comes back. He managed to catch a whale, and he ?flings? (Chapman: line 18) it on the 
table at the attention of everyone in the household, like a trophy. He is still bitter at the son?s 
refusal to come along, but all the same outrageously proud of himself.  The ?hunting? turned 
 66
 out successfully, and alone, he managed to catch a whale ?[?] big as a mountain? 
(Chapman: line 29). Once again, Chapman adds supplementary information on what is 
available in the ST chunk. The latter does not specify the dimensions of the whale; it only 
tells the reader about its beauty: 
 
Le p?re appara?t hors d?haleine, 
Tenant la baleine sur son dos. 
Il jette l?animal sur la table, une belle baleine aux yeux bleus   (lines 28-30).  
 
As discussed in the first phase, the father?s cruelty is highlighted by the description of the 
whale?s beauty; it is cruel to want such a beautiful animal dead, more so because she has 
human features (blue eyes).  Although Chapman omits to mention that the father came in 
with the whale on his back, his addition of the simile ?big as a mountain? enables the reader 
to complete the picture of the whale: ?big as a mountain? with beautiful ?blue eyes?.  
 
Chapman further omits to mention the ?blue eyes? of the whale in these lines; however, the 
cruelty of the father is made apparent in the language register, as the latter orders his son to 
?carve up? (Chapman: line 33) the animal. The ST d?p?cer which denotes brutality, is 
modulated in the TT, and the result is a verb, ?carve?, and a particle, ?up?, denoting the 
envisaged roughness in the act of killing; as if the father wants to tell the son to show no pity 
when he kills the animal. 
 
The additions observed in Chapman?s rendering of the following lines further confirm the 
father?s cruelty: 
But little Ernest stands up straight 
And looks in the whites of his father?s eyes,  
In the whites of his father?s bright blue eyes 
 
Chapman adds the adjective ?bright? to describe the eyes of the father. The brightness of the 
father?s eyes speak for a cold attitude, he is completely indifferent to the plight of the ?poor 
whale?. 
 
If the reading of ST earlier suggested that the son?s refusal to obey the paternal order was a 
mark of solidarity with the beautiful animal, that understanding is now enlightened by a new 
 67
 clue: Lawson gives a literal rendering of the whale?s portrait, and draws on Pr?vert?s general 
tendency to endow the whale with human attributes by disambiguating the French ?qui? in 
?Et pourquoi donc je d?p?cerais une pauvre b?te qui m?a rien fait?? (Line 41). The French 
pronoun ?qui? in French is ambiguous and refers to objects, human beings and animals, 
contrary to its English translations that categorises, and reserves the pronoun ?who? 
exclusively for human beings. Lawson?s rendering of that ST line as: ?And why would I chop 
up a poor creature who?s done nothing to me?? (Line 41), further hints at  some of the 
reasons why the son chooses to counter his father?s request; apart from being beautiful, the 
whale is almost like a human being. However, when the whale reacts with a cruelty as intense 
as that of the father, Lawson refers to the animal as ?it?.  
 
The structure of the English language does not allow for a pun like p?re en part, a comical 
strategy used by Pr?vert to show that the father?s condition was well deserved, justifying the 
crime by the whale. Chapman resorts to a contrast to resolve that linguistic difference. His 
description of the eyes of the whale, contrasted with the previous description of the father?s 
eyes actually shows that the whale is remorseful. Its ?tear-stained? blue eyes show some 
compassion, unlike the father?s cold ?bright blue eyes?.  
 
It is probably the recalling of that coldness that explains why it suddenly puts on the mask of 
ruthlessness again. If in Lawson?s text the words ?poor idiot? are used to refer to the 
deceased man, Chapman?s description goes a step further as he makes the whale say: ?made 
me kill that wretched silly ass?. Although in terms of register the ST ?Pauvre idiot?, 
Lawson?s ?poor idiot? and Chapman?s ?wretched silly ass? could be tagged ?informal?, 
Chapman?s slang denotes a harsher criticism towards the figure of the father.  
 
As discussed in the first phase, there are many humoristic instances in the ST.   
Young (2007) notes that humour is embedded in societal beliefs, varies along geographical 
lines and time, and between individuals. The humoristic aspects highlighted here are those 
that were relevant from my perspective.  The author draws from Vaskin (1985) to set a 
checklist for students translating humour, and the target parameter (Young, 2007:3) as well as 
the situation (Young, 2007: 5) are some of the elements identified. I selected these two 
parameters because they fit well with elements identified in phase 1 while discussing humour 
in ST. 
 
 68
 In terms of target (Young, 2007: 3), there were indications in phase 1 that Pr?vert used the 
father as a scapegoat for his social satire; the father is there what Young would call the ?butt? 
of the joke?. 
 
The pun ?de p?re en part? used to describe the killing of the father reads like one of the 
harshest comical instances meant to induce laughter at the expense of the father.  The two 
target texts resort to different means to convey the humour of this scene. They draw from the 
concentration of information in the pun to distribute humoristic elements across the TT 
situation.  In Lawson?s version: 
 
Then he throws the knife on the floor, 
But the whale snatches it up, and throwing itself on the father 
It stabs him through and through (lines 41-43) 
 
The humour of these lines springs from the effects of surprise: the whale ?snatches up? the 
knife on the floor. This scene, combined to the incongruous image of line 30 where the whale 
is reported to be thrown on the table is very comical. The reader pictures the whale on the 
table, and the ?snatching? of the knife on the floor. If the description of the whale tells the 
reader it had ?blue eyes?, the reader infers from this latter scene that the animal probably has 
hands [but no feet, because the father had to carry it on the back], and it uses them with 
agility to ?steal? the knife on the floor. The image of an agile whale itself is very humorous, 
more so when it ?throws? itself on the father to stab him. 
If Lawson had to redistribute the verbal humour concentrated in the ST across the whole 
situation of the TT, there are prior sequences where she uses a strategy that now qualifies to 
be termed compensation:  
 
There?s the father on the waves, 
There is the son waving him off (lines 15 and 16). 
 
She creates a pun of her own from the ST chunk: 
Voil? le p?re sur la mer, 
Voil? le fils ? la maison, (lines 15 and 16). 
 
 69
 She adapts the content of the text in an attempt to echo Pr?vert?s stylistic device of 
predilection: a playful use of words and images. 
 
The ST?s Cousin Gaston was identified as an agent of disruption, and later on of dark 
humour, with the joke and the sarcastic laughter he utters while witnessing the killing scene. 
If Lawson?s rendering keeps the character the same psychological traits, Chapman for his part 
transforms the picture of the ST character who mutates under his pen and appears as Cousin 
Anthony in the version: 
 
And tiny cousin Tony?s been upsetting all the cups, 
All the [?] cups of tea. (lines 17-18) 
 
Apart from the name change, the TT reader is provided with a humorous description of the 
physical features of ?Cousin Tony? (line 17). After this sequence, the latter is not further 
referred to in Chapman?s text, and although the last scene does not feature him at all, it seems 
that the character?s sarcastic laughter is echoed in the AA rhyme of these lines: 
 
Ernest sits addressing many letters edged with black, 
The mother wears a hat, a coat, a frock, all deadly black, (lines 46-47) 
 
This textual chunk also shows how Chapman has transformed the situational humour of the 
ST. While the ST humour emerged from a simple situation (see discussion of the ST), 
Chapman takes a step further and caricatures the mother. His images give a very detailed 
description of the mourning scene. This reveals that the widow who was the object of the 
whale?s sarcasm at the end of the ST poem has been added to the list of ?the butt [s]? of the 
joke? in the TT poem. 
 
Interpretation of the third sequence: The last sequence of this comparative study shows a 
consistent use of adaptation by Stanley Chapman (2003) who seems to be more influenced by 
TT norms.  Sarah Lawson for her part mixes creative strategies and she often opts for literal 
translations. The translation process of ?La p?che ? la baleine? shows that she is more 
influenced by ST norms. The important finding that emerges from the discussion of the 
strategies used by the different translators is that even the most literal of translations entails 
creativity from the translator, and that the freest transformation of the ST still draws from the 
 70
 latest. The adaptations by Chapman reveal how he processed clues from the ST (relevance 
theory). If the researcher in turn was able to interpret some of the clues hinted by the 
translators, a range of background information contributed to shaping of some of my 
hypotheses (hermeneutics/relevance theory).  The meanings that emerged from each text 
show how they interact with each other, in a complementary movement. 
 
 
 
5.2.2 Descriptive and comparative analysis of ?l?Accent grave? 
 
As I am about to tackle the descriptive analysis of TT1 and TT2 counterparts of ?L?Accent 
grave?, it should be remembered that the notion of ?line? in this analysis ties up with the 
principles that were elaborated during the descriptive analysis of the ST (a set of words 
delimitated by a full stop, an interrogation mark or an exclamation mark only, for punctuated 
chunks; and a set of words forming a single vertical row for unpunctuated passages or 
passages with three dots), for the sake of referencing. 
 
5.2.2.1 Macroanalysis 
 
Title of poem 
?Hamlet at school? 
 
 (TT1 by Lawson) 
 ?The accent grave? 
 
(TT2 by Bowers) 
?L?ACCENT GRAVE? 
 
(ST by Pr?vert) 
Characters involved in the story 
?Hamlet? 
 
?The Teacher? 
 
?Hamlet the Student? 
 
?The Professor? 
 
 
?L?ELEVE HAMLET? 
 
?LE PROFESSEUR? 
 
 
 
 
The elements identified in the table above already reveal diversity in terms of strategies. 
Sarah Lawson?s strategy equates to what Newmark (1988) calls adaptation. 
 
Bowers for her part uses a borrowing, a strategy that Hervey and Higgins (1992) assimilate to 
exoticisation, i.e. the echoing of a ST trace in a manner that the new TT trace is a ?[?] 
 71
 recognisably and deliberately ?foreign? element in the target text.? Her intention to give the 
reader indications about the ?foreignness? of her ?sources? is also marked by the italicisation 
of grave in her text. The word ?Professeur? is a generic term that may be used to refer to a 
high school or a university teacher. If Sarah Lawson has this time chosen another generic 
term to echo this ST element, namely ?teacher?, Bowers rather selects ?The Professor?. The 
rendering of the latter, although literal, encompasses a nuance in register because it only 
applies to college or university lecturers.  
 
Strategies used by both translators to render the ST characters in the TT reveal on the one 
hand that Bowers uses a couplet: she borrows the ST naming procedure whereby the 
characters? social role is indicated, and she transposes the elements of the ST to conform to 
the TT syntactical norms. On the other hand, Sarah Lawson does not mention Hamlet?s social 
status. This omission suggests the reading of her title, ?Hamlet at school?, as a compensation 
technique. The reader is aware from the beginning that the story is about a schoolboy; by so 
doing, she disambiguates the ST?s title which just provides a general clue about an element of  
?French grammar?.  Bowers? strategy, the loan of ST elements, prepares the TT reader?s mind 
for an encounter with a foreign culture.  
 
The following microanalysis revolves around the thematic sequences identified in phase 1. 
 
5.2.2.2 Microanalysis 
 
Distraction 
Line 4 shows a lexical addition in Lawson?s text: ?You can?t just say ?here? like normal 
people??  The added adverb, ?just?, indicates that the teacher does not expect anything more 
or less than a ?normal? attitude.  Bowers? textual chunk reveals a consistency with literal 
rendering and borrowing. The result is a hybrid ?[?] answers ?Present? like everybody 
else?? The phrase is a structural calque, and it takes the reader on a cultural journey in a 
society where ?l?appel? (what I would explain as a systematic verification of students? 
attendance by calling their names in a row) has been a long school tradition. The exercise 
entails the teacher calling the student?s name, and the latter is expected to answer ?Pr?sent!? 
The conflict that emerges from the new connotation of Bowers? selection of ?Professor? is 
that traditionally in French speaking contexts, the ?appel? routine is mostly enforced in high 
school and primary school.  
 72
  
But that is also the paradox of the translation activity. In line 5, she uses a modulation: ?Of 
course not, you still have your head in the clouds?. If the French version uses the idiomatic 
expression ??tre dans les nuages? to express Hamlet?s dreamlike state, Bowers? replaces that 
idiom with another idiom: ?to have one?s head in the clouds?.  But her idiomatic tournure 
indicates that the student is not entirely in the clouds, it is only his ?head? that is. The 
expressivity of the teacher in Lawson?s version, ?Oh no, you are in a world of your own 
again? ( line 5) suggests that Hamlet is either a primary school or a high school student. Her 
?oh no? expresses the concerned disappointment of an adult confronted with a child?s 
misbehaviour, while Bowers? ?Of course not? expresses the sarcasm of a teacher towards a 
student who is old enough to know the consequences of his negative attitude. One of these 
consequences is the punishment, the conjugation of verb ??tre?.  
 
Interpretation: Translation always entails losses and gains. In this sequence, Bowers tends 
to use strategies influenced by ST norms, while the general impression for Lawson?s 
rendering is that her strategies are oriented towards TT norms. 
 
Teacher?s anger and conjugation paradox 
The first lines of this sequence in Lawson?s rendering confirm the impression that the reader 
previously had. The teacher?s angry voice in her text carries the instructions of an adult 
dealing with young secondary school or primary school students: ?The Teacher: That will do. 
Stop clowning around. Now conjugate the verb ?to be? (lines 7-9). 
 
The teacher knows that young children are prone to a playful attitude in class, and when he 
asks the student to stop ?clowning around? it is a call to order, but at the same time an 
acknowledgment that some students like ?clowning around?, an irritating habit. 
 
In Bowers? text, the teacher?s anger is conveyed in the statement: ?Don?t be silly?. The 
expression ?Do not put on airs? shows that the teacher is passing judgment on Hamlet?s 
attitude and by extension on Hamlet himself. When young children misbehave in class, they 
are ?naughty?; when grown up children do, they are insolent, in other words, they ?put on 
airs?. Both renderings are valid echoes of the ambivalent ST ?Pas tant de mani?res.? (Line 
8).  
 
 73
 The study of the character of Hamlet in phase 1 revealed that under the feinted foolishness, 
he was willingly planning to annoy the teacher. The two TTs reinforce that information. In 
Lawson?s text he swaps from English to Danish when requested to conjugate, and in Bowers? 
he swaps from English to French. Both strategies qualify as what Newmark (1988) calls 
communicative translation. The translators echoed the code swapping of the ST through 
another code swapping in TTs. If Lawson?s ?linguistic intrusion? is inspired by the 
Shakespearian hero (Hamlet) who was a Danish Prince, Bowers? draws from the ST?s 
language. 
 
Lawson?s translation of the teacher?s reaction suggests that he still does not realise that 
Hamlet has been fooling him. The teacher believes that the student did not understand the 
request, and the elaborated lines: ?Not in Danish! Just in English, please, like normal people, 
that?s all I ask of you? (line 10), sound like a will to further explain what he really expects 
from Hamlet. 
 
Bowers? teacher for his part goes on with the ironical tone; he almost tagged the student 
?insolent? previously, and he thinks Hamlet behaves the way he does because he wants to be 
singled out; and this justifies the perceived arrogance. The professor tells him: ?In English, 
please, like everyone else?. One could add on the same tone: ?You are not special!? 
 
The two strategies reveal an explanatory technique from Lawson, and a literal rendering from 
Bowers. The compelling tone of the ST is apparent in Bowers?, because like Pr?vert, she has 
the teacher use very short sentences. Lawson for her part, by opting for explicitation 
techniques, gives a euphemic echo of the teacher?s anger through the relatively elaborated 
utterances by the latter.  
 
The conjugation paradox conveyed in Hamlet?s refrain is rendered literally by both 
translators, and the effect is humorous. 
 
There is a subsequent challenge that emerges from the teacher?s sentence, as he stops Hamlet: 
?Mais c?est vous qui n?y ?tes pas, mon pauvre ami!? (line 16). The challenge lies in the fact 
that, as discussed in phase 1, the structural layout of the phrase ?vous qui n?y ?tes pas? 
continues the conjugation on the one hand, and on the other hand it is an idiomatic expression 
where the addressee is reminded that they completely misunderstood the message conveyed 
 74
 by the addresser. In this context, there seems to be no structure in English that would convey 
the two semantic layers. Textual chunks from both TTs reveal that the translators have opted 
for a literal rendering at the expense of the idiomatic meaning: 
 
But it is you who are not there, my poor friend! (Bowers: line 16) 
The Teacher: (extremely annoyed) you are the one who is not... all there, my poor 
friend (Lawson: line 16) 
 
Interpretation: Lawson?s teacher is irritated by the clowning attitude of a young student, 
while Bowers? rendering suggests that the Professor is angry at the insolence of a grown up 
student who ?puts on airs?. There is an indication that both translators have a different 
perspective of the characters. 
 
Hamlet?s strategic revenge 
This sequence finally explains Lawson?s rendering in the previous sequence. In the ST, it was 
discussed that Hamlet consistently uses imitation to ironically repeat the teacher?s statements. 
The strategy used by Lawson towards the end of the previous sequence allows in a 
continuation of comical imitation. Hamlet adapts the teacher?s construction ?to be all there? 
in a rhetorical passage: 
 
That?s quite right, Sir. 
I am all there or I am not 
And in the end, you know, on reflection 
To be all there or not to be all there 
That is perhaps also the question. (Lines 17-21) 
 
This passage reveals an irony in the sense that Hamlet questions the means used to evaluate 
him: the teacher tells him he is not ?all there?. The adverb ?all? here, like ST?s ?tout?, 
denotes the rigorous approach of a school system where children are tagged along restrictive 
categories: those who are all there, the ?normal students? who have been successfully 
conditioned, and those who are ?not all there? the atypical and naughty children who resist 
conditioning. When Hamlet hints that ?To be all there or not to be all there? is perhaps also 
the question, he becomes the spokesperson of Pr?vert?s criticism of the school institution. His 
message to the teacher and by extension to all teachers, is that instead of methodically 
 75
 carrying their duty the way they have traditionally been doing, it is perhaps time they become 
more flexible. 
 
Bowers? ?To be ?where? not to be? is a literal translation of ??tre ?o?? ne pas ?tre?; her 
strategy disambiguates Pr?vert?s word play on the homophony between ?ou? the conjunction 
and ?o?? the adverb. In her translation, Hamlet finally gives up the paradoxical construction 
?X or not X? to reveal that he has not been behaving ?like anyone else? because he is [to be] 
?where [he is] not [supposed] to be?; in a repressive school system that seeks to counter every 
attempt by the learner to express himself other than how he is expected to do. 
 
Interpretation: The translation process evident in TT1 and TT2 shows that Lawson?s 
strategies are TT oriented, with many explanatory techniques and a few adaptations. Bowers 
for her part consistently chose literal renderings. The new traces in her text, namely her literal 
echo ?The professor?, although calqued on ST ?Professeur? distances itself from the latter 
through new connotations. This shows that even the most literal rendering does not guarantee 
sameness, and that translation, as Derrida hinted, is best referred to as transformation. Her 
experience as a university student may explain why the reader has the impression of a 
lecture?s setting, with a Professor, and a college student. Specialists in translation assessment 
are provided with enough arguments here for their task; on one hand the reader has elements 
pointing towards a very young student, on the other hand, elements pointing towards a more 
mature student. What matters with these differences is that the translation paradox lies in the 
conflicting and complementing semantic relationships revealed through the process. Even 
though translation aims at the status of an objective science with DTS, my reading and my 
observations remain ?prejudiced? (Gadamer 1960) by the aim of this research, and my 
personal ability to interpret textual clues. At least for these two arguments, these 
interpretations are not final. 
 
5.2.3  Descriptive and comparative analysis of ?Barbara?  
5.2.3.1 Macroanalysis 
Title of poem 
? Barbara? 
58 
(TT1 by Ferlinghetti) 
? Barbara ? 
58 lines 
(TT2 by Lawson) 
? Barbara ? 
60 lines 
(ST by Pr?vert) 
 76
  
Characters involved in the story 
?Barbara? 
first person singular narrator 
?Barbara? 
first person singular narrator 
?Barbara? 
first person singular narrator 
 
The macro analysis does not indicate any particular tendency. It is however noted that 
Lawson?s version has the same number of lines with the ST, and Ferlinghetti?s 2 lines more.  
 
5.2.3.2 Microanalysis 
Happy memories 
The anaphoric repetition that characterised the ST is also present in both TTs. Ferlinghetti?s 
simple past tense ?it rained?that day? tells the reader that the rain must have stopped. Many 
?ing? constructions abound in the TTs and seem to echo the assonance that gave the ST its 
musicality. 
 
The two translators likewise use a vocabulary that clearly denotes genuine happiness. 
Lawson?s version describes Barbara as: ?Radiant delighted dripping wet?. The previous and 
Ferlinghetti?s ?enraptured? enable the reader to fully picture the intensity of Barbara?s 
happiness. That explains why when the narrator ?ran into? her, she was smiling, maybe not at 
him particularly, but simply out of an overflow of happiness: 
 
And I ran into you in Siam Street 
You were smiling  
And I smiled too 
 
The narrator in Ferlinghetti?s text as in the ST does not specify if they were just smiling, or 
they were smiling at each other. But Lawson uses explanatory techniques in her version; the 
narrator?s indication that he ?smiled back? at Barbara suggests reciprocity. And the simple 
past tense indicates that Barbara?s smile was temporal. She probably smiled because their 
eyes met, and he ?smiled back?. This exchange between the narrator and Barbara already 
reflects the positive contagion effect of Barbara?s happiness discussed in phase 1.  The 
French imparfait usually translates into English using the past progressive; but this is not an 
absolute rule, and depending on the context and effects that the translator wants to attain, they 
 77
 might convey it as a simple past. Lawson?s choice of the past tense, however, reflects a 
strategy influenced by the TL norms. 
 
The language (English) of both TT1 and TT2 does not have a functional equivalent for the 
French ?toi? which was a clue towards a possible friendship between the narrator and 
Barbara. However, the mere fact that he anaphorically uses her first name, ?Barbara?, already 
indicates familiarity. 
 
When eventually the reader discovers that the narrator probably only saw her once, it is 
observed that Lawson?s rendering is literal and she uses the loan word ?tu?, revealing a 
lexical gap between the two languages (see line 24 of ST and Lawson?s version). 
 
 Ferlinghetti?s translation of that section shows an explanatory technique: 
And don't be mad if I speak familiarly 
I speak familiarly to everyone I love 
Even if I've seen them only once 
I speak familiarly to all who are in love 
Even if I don't know them. 
 
As a matter of fact, ?tu? denotes familiarity, and in Ferlinghetti?s text the narrator shows his 
intention to further befriend Barbara through the colloquial expression: ?don?t be mad at me?. 
This change of register (the ST ?ne m?en veux pas? is relatively formal) may be interpreted as 
an addition. 
 
The general observation in this passage is that there is a lexical fluidity between ST and TT. 
Apart from the rendering of ?tu?, the translation process did not reveal any big difficulty. In 
this sequence, Ferlinghetti and Lawson mix addition, explanatory techniques, and literal 
translation. 
 
The heavy consequences of war 
The beginning of this sequence shows a literal rendering from both translators. They 
maintained the ST interjection ?Oh?, and it has the same stylistic effects. A scrutiny of 
Lawson?s text shows that she kept the name of ?Ouessant?, a city referred to in the ST, 
unchanged. Ferlinghetti for his part selected an authorised translated version, Ushant. 
 78
  
 The shift that eventually takes place and breaks the poetical harmony of the first sequence is 
made apparent in Lawson?s text through: ?The sheer bloody stupidity of war?. She uses 
lexical additions to echo the concentration of negativeness and roughness conveyed in the ST 
slang word ?connerie?. Ferlinghetti for his part selects a single word that sounds ?unusual?; 
the word stems from the lexical union between ?shit? and ?stupidity?: ?shitstupidity?. If the 
two TTs do not display the kind of outrageous alliteration of the ST, the expressions ?sheer 
bloody stupidity? and ?shitstupidity? , are rough enough to break the phonetic fluidity of the 
first sequence; a sequence marked by the soft bilabial alliteration of ?b?: Remember Barbara. 
 
While Sarah Lawson eventually uses a transposition to echo the ST description of the new 
rain: ?It?s a rain of terrible and desolate grief? [for ST?s ?C?est une pluie de deuil terrible et 
d?sol?e?], Ferlinghetti opts for a structural ?calque?: ?It?s a rain of mourning terrible?. 
 
Towards the end of the ST poem as discussed already, Pr?vert uses an image. He compares 
war victims to people who die miserably; he conveys that idea through the idiomatic slang 
?Qui cr?vent comme des chiens? (line 53). Ferlinghetti renders it literally through the phrase 
?die like dogs?, while Sarah Lawson resorts to another image that conveys the idea of 
?cr?ver?, i.e. bursting: ?Burst like Balloons?. Her strategy epitomises what Neubert (1997) 
explains: ?T[ranslators] are forced to creativity because the means of the TL are not identical 
with those of the SL [source language]. To arrive at an adequate TL version, new resources 
have to be tapped. [?] Creative uses of the target language are the result of the various 
problem-solving strategies applied to any piece of SL text? (1997:19) 
 
Interpretation: ?Barbara? is like a song, and everybody can easily take ownership of the 
lyrics; the vocabulary is simple and the rhythm fluid.  A few conflicts emerged during the 
translation process, but the two TTs revealed an overall harmonious relationship between the 
SL and TL. The use of ?Americanisms? (?Don?t be mad at me?, etc.) was apparent in 
Ferlinghetti?s text, and the two translators opted for a mixed variety of strategies.  
 
 
 
 
 
 79
 5.3 Interpretative phase 
Selected texts making up the corpus of this research stem from Paroles (1946/1947). The ST 
descriptive analysis revealed a great deal of orality; the texts that were analysed often 
sounded like song lyrics, like a conversation, or like ?paroles?. The anaphoric repetitions in 
?Barbara?; the refrains in ?L?accent grave? where the frequent use of interjections like  
?Hein/Quoi?? balanced the monotonous repetition of ??tre ou ne pas ?tre? ; the assonances 
and alliterations of  ?La p?che ? la baleine?: all are devices that endowed those texts with 
musical and oral tones, confirming Pr?vert?s reputation as a popular poet. 
 
In poetry, content and form cannot be dissociated. Thus, the search for possible meanings 
embedded in the stylistic features of selected ST poems embarked the reader in the author?s 
biography and historical context every time. Jacques Pr?vert?s biography tells that as a child 
he dropped out of school because of repressive teachers; the reading of ?L?accent grave? 
actually provides clues for this. 
 
The puns of ?La p?che ? la baleine?, its images and collages, the dreamlike description of 
events where fantasy and reality coexist, and the narrative techniques of ?Barbara?, reveal the 
influence of surrealism on Pr?vert?s art. 
 
A study of French literature in the late 1940s shows an emergence of ?litt?rature engag?e?; 
although Pr?vert always avoided categorisation, the setting of ?Barbara? in Brest, a city 
destroyed by war, epitomises the motto of committed writers to use the pen as a weapon to 
denounce societal vices of the time, and take a position. The dramatisation of a French 
conjugation lesson in ?L?accent grave? and the household scene of ?La p?che ? la baleine? 
illustrate what Stendhal , another French writer, meant when he said ?Le roman est comme un 
miroir que l?on prom?ne sur une grande route? [the novel is like a mirror that is carried along 
a large road] (Stendhal, 1965: 357). As a matter of fact, Pr?vert?s literature portrays the 
French society of his time; and reflects sequences from the author?s life. He was not erudite 
in the conventional sense, but he was self-taught; a poem like ?L?accent grave? is probably a 
display of reminiscences from his readings of Shakespeare?s Hamlet.  
 
The interpretation of the ST poems requires a degree of caution, because Pr?vert?s texts are 
intricate and ambiguous. However, those features explain their usefulness for research such 
as this. The interest of selected ST poems lies in their semantic flexibility. The deconstructive  
 80
 reading of those poems revealed relationships with fellow texts, according to a derridean 
principle that is equated to intertextuality. The analysis of ?L?accent grave? indicated a link 
with another poem from the collection: ?Le cancre?. As for ?Barbara?, its structure pointed to 
Andr? Breton?s ?Union libre? (1931), and ?La p?che ? la baleine? displayed many ties with 
?Souvenirs de famille?. 
 
The hypotheses that were constructed during the descriptive analysis of selected translations 
indicate diversity.  The labelling of the translation processes of selected TT poems is relative, 
in terms of the influence of ST norms or TT norms. Irrespective of the overall tendency 
suggested by the decisions of a particular translator, the latter always displays a great deal of 
creativity, as Snell-Hornby (1995) rightly notes: ?The language norm is in fact supremely 
flexible; it offers potential for creativity within the possibilities of the language system. This 
is of crucial importance for the translator, especially the literary translator? (Snell-Hornby 
1995: 121). 
 
Translators are not like birds in a cage, and even where translation societies exist, translation 
practitioners are not bound by strict rules and prescriptive norms.  Sarah Lawson (2002) 
personally informed me that the Translator?s Association in Britain is part of the Society of 
Authors, and I interpret this as a way of acknowledging the margin of creative liberty to 
which  translators are entitled. 
 
Articles and entire book chapters have been dedicated to the issue of the fundamental 
importance of theory for the practice of translation. It would be pretentious to take a 
particular position in the framework of a report like this one, which because of its very 
academic nature (an academic assignment that is going to be assessed) would be a weak 
argument compared to papers by authorized voices in the field of translation theory. 
Nevertheless, one of the findings (probably not a new finding) of my research is that 
practising translators often do not concern themselves with theoretical aspects of translation ? 
that is, if they are aware of any. 
 
This comment needs to be read as a ?parenth?se? as I put it in French. It is also a transition to 
the next step of my actual prerogative. 
 
 81
 Preliminary interpretations at the sequential levels already disclosed the general tendency of 
some translators to select ST norms oriented or TT norms oriented (Toury: 1985) strategies. 
The following table recapitulates the findings at the end of each analysis: 
 
Selected poem Translator1/finding 1 Translator 2/finding 2 
?Barbara?  Lawson / mixture of ST 
and TT oriented 
strategies 
Ferlinghetti / mixture of ST and 
TT oriented strategies 
?L?accent grave? Lawson/ mixture of ST 
and TT oriented 
strategies 
Bowers / tendency towards 
literal rendering: influence of 
ST oriented strategies 
?La p?che ? la 
baleine? 
Lawson/ tendency 
towards literal 
rendering: influence of 
ST oriented strategies 
Chapman/ tendency towards 
adaptation and naturalisation: 
influence of ST oriented 
strategies 
 
The choice of particular strategies are hardly ex nihilo; it depends on variables ranking from 
the translator?s ability to make inferences from the clues made manifest to him/her during the 
reading of ST, the translation Skopos, and the translator?s personal intentions. The 
reconstruction of the decision-making process cannot be complete. My attempt draws from 
the translators? background information, and from aspects of relevance theory to reconstruct 
explanative hypotheses. 
 
The biography of Stanley Chapman shows that he was a pataphysician (Pr?vert too was a 
member of the French society of pataphysics). Pataphysicians use language as a laboratory, 
where words are played with and manipulated to create an imaginary universe. Chapman only 
utilises the concepts and themes of the original, and actually recreates a text of his own, with 
derived characters and transformed scenes. The result is a British sounding text where ?Little 
Anthony? and ?little Ernest? are the protagonists of a story involving a whale that the father 
hunted for tea, the family?s evening meal. The maxim of pataphysician writers is a Latin 
phrase that may be paraphrased as ?I emerge anew the same although changed?. Chapman?s 
?Whale hunt? epitomizes this phrase; it reads like a text that Venuti (2004) would label 
?fluent? translation. But as an afterlife of ?La p?che ? la baleine?, it is formed by a bunch of 
 82
 new traces which, like a ghost, still share common features with the other ?it?, the face that it 
wore in its first life, i.e. in the ST.  
 
The language register of ?La p?che ? la baleine? is very colloquial; perhaps more information 
on the intentions of the author and the first audience he had in mind could better explain that 
choice. Nevertheless, the translation process of ?Whale hunt? offers invaluable resources 
with respect to the potential meanings latent in a text, and its interconnections with fellow 
translated text ?Whale fishing? and the ST, show that there is no text that is ever semantically 
complete on itself; it relies on other texts for its meaning. The relationship between those 
texts is both conflicting and complementing at the same time. 
 
Ferlinghetti?s translation strategies in ?Barbara? reveal a desire to convey the thought and the 
style of a writer that the translator met as a student in France. He says in the preface of his 
collections from Paroles (1958): 
The poems herein comprise nearly half of the complete PAROLES. There are 
certain early long poems [?] which should be here, but they are especially 
loaded with jeu de mots impossible to translate and outdated topical allusions 
impossible to explain. They remain better in French than in English version 
[?] (Selections from Paroles, 1958:6) 
 
Ferlinghetti?s biography shows that he spent his early childhood in France, although 
American by birth. His knowledge of French provided him with a first language reader?s 
thrilling experience of Pr?vert?s Paroles (1946/1947). His desire to provide English readers 
with a similar experience confronted him with a difficult reality: languages are not tabula 
rasa, and meaning cannot be replicated across linguistic and cultural barriers without a loss. 
?Barbara? by Ferlinghetti displays a range of different strategies, from naturalisation to literal 
rendering, but with an overall tendency to give the nearest echo of the ST. If the author of the 
translation was displeased with the result, his text turned out instructive in the framework of 
this research. The deconstruction of its production procedures contributed to showing how 
meaning varies from one interpretant to the other. 
 
Amiel Bowers (2007)?s translation of ?L?accent grave? shows a tendency towards literal 
rendering. When interviewed on the purposes of her translation, she told me it was a writing 
project like any other featured in The Journal of the Core Curriculum (2007). She chose the 
 83
 text and carried out the translation. This personal implication may explain why the character 
of Hamlet in her text points out to aspects of her personal life. They are both students. Her 
rendering of the French ?professeur? as ?professor? probably indicates that being a university 
student, it naturally occurred to her that Hamlet -described in the ST as ??l?ve?, may be a 
university student as well.  Her interpretation of the ST clues seem to have been influenced 
by her background (Gutt, 1991), and her desire to present elements from another culture to 
the readers of her Journal, providing them with an experience compared to what Venuti 
(2004: unpaginated) evokes when he equates the reading experience of translated texts to a 
?lifelong immersion in the foreign language and literature.?  
 
Every comparative description included a text by Sarah Lawson. I chose to pick texts from 
the same translator against translations by different people to show with Lambert and Van 
Gorp (1985) that: ? From an empirical point of view it can safely be assumed that no 
translated text will be entirely coherent with regard to the ?adequate? versus ?acceptable? 
dilemma? (1985:44). By and large, her strategies confirm that translations are products of the 
TT literary system, and hers, as we saw, display the normative diversity highlighted in the 
panoramic discussion of contemporary American and British literature. Contemporary 
literary translations, like other contemporary literary products are a reflection of our times: a 
world characterised by global exchanges. Cultures, and by extension language, no longer 
evolve in autarky. This is a relevant metaphor to be applied to this discussion as I conclude: 
the translation processes of various selected poems show that the semantic multiplicity of the 
latter is revealed through their interactions with one another. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 84
 Conclusion 
 
Translation can be equated to the differential journey of traces emanating from the ST. 
A scrutiny of the steps of this journey, or the translation process shows that the translational 
activity always has to deal with losses and additions. The movement of disappearing and 
emerging traces justifies the nuances and divergences of the final translations. The latter no 
longer qualify as equivalents of the ST, because the ST itself is not a tangible semantic unit 
with clear demarcations. This echoes Derrida?s thought paraphrased by Anthony Pym in its 
forthcoming book:  
 
[D]econstruction necessarily sees translation as a form of transformation 
rather than any kind of meaning transfer. Like Heidegger in this regard (and 
continuing the same philosophical tradition), Derrida seeks out the 
?remainder,? the potential significations that are omitted in the process of 
translation. [?] 
 
Derrida often uses translation to investigate the plurality of source texts, here 
in a sense of revealing their ?semantic richness? rather than with reference to 
our own term ?instability.?  
 
It was clearly established from the beginning that I wanted to distance myself from the debate 
about the validity of a particular theory, or the importance of one theory over the other.  
 
My corpus was made up of selected poems of Paroles (1946/1947) and their afterlives. These 
selected texts lend themselves particularly well to interpretation, and illustrate the fact that no 
textual interpretation as well as no translation is ever final.  
 
The analyses of ?L?accent grave?, ?La p?che ? la baleine?, and ?Barbara? reveal that the 
boundaries of meaning are flexible, and there is always a remainder that lends itself to 
interpretation, between or within languages.  
 
 
 85
 The ST attains another dimension through its various afterlives. An analysis of the afterlives 
in turn shows that even if the making of the new traces entailed an overturning of some of 
their old attributes, there remains an imprint (whether latent or obvious) from the ST that 
allows the TT to be identified as an ?echo? of the ST. It is not a matter of identifying which 
echo resonates better. Rather, it is an interesting task to look at the complementing 
interaction. This concept is borrowed from Walter Benjamin (?The Task of the Translator? 
2000: 18) who further introduces the image of ?particles of a vessel? to refer to original and 
translated texts. Without the web of connections that constitute the whole vessel, each 
particle, although standing as an entity on its own, is not complete. 
 
Even the norms at play during the translation process of these poems speak in favour of 
semantic intrusion. Each text analysed separately stands on its own as an independent entity. 
But the mapping of individual texts with other texts soon reveals the fragmentary nature of 
each. Whether the ST itself; a TT likely to be referred to as foreignised; or another TT likely 
to qualify as a domesticated rendering, any text always contains an unfilled space. It is up to 
the reader to manage that space in a semantic tracing backward and forward, a play of 
diff?rance whereby the constant movement of traces in and out of texts shows that these 
traces, like pieces of a puzzle, depend on other pieces for their unity.  
 
 
An attempt to ?assemble? the pieces of the puzzle in this study made use of aspects of other 
theories, namely Hermeneutics and Relevance. As a matter of fact as I was analysing selected 
texts, I effectively realised that their reading suggested an infinite number of possible 
interpretations. But in the midst of that undecidability, elements from history, biography, and 
experience, resulted in a positive discrimination from the web of clues (Ernst-August Gutt: 
1991) made apparent to me.   
 
Deconstruction has often being blamed for the perceived ?instability? it heralds with respect 
to meaning. But this research, an investigation of possible sources of meaning, wanted to 
transcend reductionist significations with respect to prevailing theories in the field of 
translation. Its mainstreamed model of analysis proved extremely helpful, with 
deconstruction as the main theoretical aspect, hermeneutics and relevance as complementing 
aspects, and all within the overall framework of Descriptive Translation Studies.  
 
 86
 APPENDICES 
 
?LA P?CHE ? LA BALEINE? (Pr?vert, Paroles: 1947) 
 
? la p?che ? la baleine, ? la p?che ? la baleine, 
Disait le p?re d'une voix courrouc?e 
? son fils Prosper, sous l'armoire allong?, 
? la p?che ? la baleine, ? la p?che ? la baleine, 
Tu ne veux pas aller, 
Et pourquoi donc? 
Et pourquoi donc que j'irais p?cher une b?te 
Qui ne m'a rien fait, papa, 
Va la p?p?, va la p?cher toi-m?me, 
Puisque ?a te pla?t, 
J'aime mieux rester ? la maison avec ma pauvre m?re 
Et le cousin Gaston. 
Alors dans sa baleini?re le p?re tout seul s'en est all? 
Sur la mer d?mont?e... 
Voil? le p?re sur la mer, 
Voil? le fils ? la maison, 
Voil? la baleine en col?re, 
Et voil? le cousin Gaston qui renverse la soupi?re, 
La soupi?re au bouillon. 
La mer ?tait mauvaise, 
La soupe ?tait bonne. 
Et voil? sur sa chaise Prosper qui se d?sole : 
? la p?che ? la baleine, je ne suis pas all?, 
Et pourquoi donc que j'y ai pas ?t?? 
Peut-?tre qu'on l'aurait attrap?e, 
Alors j'aurais pu en manger. 
Mais voil? la porte qui s'ouvre, et ruisselant d'eau, 
Le p?re appara?t hors d'haleine, 
Tenant la baleine sur son dos. 
 87
 Il jette l'animal sur la table, une belle baleine aux yeux bleus, 
Une b?te comme on en voit peu, 
Et dit d'une voix lamentable : 
D?p?chez-vous de la d?pecer, 
J'ai faim, j'ai soif, je veux manger. 
Mais voil? Prosper qui se l?ve, 
Regardant son p?re dans le blanc des yeux, 
Dans le blanc des yeux bleus de son p?re, 
Bleus comme ceux de la baleine aux yeux bleus : 
Et pourquoi donc je d?p?cerais une pauvre b?te qui m'a rien fait? 
Tant pis, j'abandonne ma part. 
Puis il jette le couteau par terre, 
Mais la baleine s'en empare, et se pr?cipitant sur le p?re 
Elle le transperce de p?re en part. 
Ah, ah, dit le cousin Gaston, 
On me rappelle la chasse, la chasse aux papillons. 
Et voil? 
Voil? Prosper qui pr?pare les faire-part, 
La m?re qui prend le deuil de son pauvre mari 
Et la baleine, la larme ? l'oeil contemplant le foyer d?truit. 
Soudain elle s'?crie : 
Et pourquoi donc j'ai tu? ce pauvre imb?cile, 
Maintenant les autres vont me pourchasser en moto-godille 
Et puis ils vont exterminer toute ma petite famille. 
Alors, ?clatant d'un rire inqui?tant, 
Elle se dirige vers la porte et dit 
? la veuve en passant : 
Madame, si quelqu'un vient me demander, 
Soyez aimable et r?pondez : 
La baleine est sortie, 
Asseyez-vous, 
Attendez l?, 
Dans une quinzaine d'ann?es, sans doute elle reviendra...  
 88
  
 
 
?Whale fishing?  (Lawson, 2002) 
  
Let's go whale fishing, let's go whale fishing, 
Said the father in a furious voice 
To his son Prosper, lying under the wardrobe, 
Let's go whale fishing, let's go whale fishing. 
You don't want to go, 
And why not then? 
And why should I go to fish for an animal 
That has done nothing to me, papa, 
Go on, go fish it for it yourself, 
Since you enjoy it, 
I would rather stay at home with my poor 
mother 
And cousin Gaston. 
So the father goes off all by himself on his 
whaling ship 
On the stormy sea... 
There's the father on the waves, 
There is the son waving him off, 
There's the angry whale, 
And there's cousin Gaston upsetting the soup 
tureen 
The tureen full of broth. 
The sea was bad, 
the soup was good. 
And there's Prosper on his chair being sorry: 
I didn't go fishing for whales, 
And why didn't I go anyway? 
Maybe we would have caught something, 
?Whale Hunt? (Chapman, 2003) 
 
Off to catch a whale, we're off to catch a whale, 
Said a wild man to his son 
Ernest, dozing in the sun, 
Off to catch a whale, we're off to catch a whale, 
And you don't want co come.  
Why should I go and catch a fish 
That never troubles me? 
Father, go and catch the whale 
Yourself, you're sure to like the sail. 
I'd rather stay at home with mum 
And cousin Anthony. 
So in his little whaleboat all alone the old man 
sailed 
And the tide rolled out to sea...  
The old man's in the boat, 
The young son's in the home, 
The wild whale's in a temper, 
And tiny cousin Tony's been upsetting all the 
cups, 
All the careful cups of tea.  
The storm was very bad,  
The tea was very good, 
And on his little stool little Ernest's feeling sad : 
How I wish that I had sailed away with dad to 
catch a whale. 
Whatever made me stay with mum and cousin 
Anthony? 
We really might have caught a whale 
 89
 Then I could have eaten it. 
But the door is opening, and dripping with 
water 
The father appears out of breath, 
Carrying the whale on his back. 
He throws the animal on the table, a fine whale 
with blue eyes, 
An unusual creature, 
And says in a pitiful voice 
Hurry with jointing it, 
I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I want to eat. 
But Prosper gets up, 
Looking his father in the whites of his eyes 
In the whites of his father's blue eyes 
Blue like those of the blue-eyed whale: 
And why would I chop up a poor creature who's 
done nothing to me? 
I don't care, I renounce my share. 
Then he throws the knife on the floor, 
But the whale snatches it up, and throwing itself 
on the father 
It stabs him through and through. 
Oh, oh, says cousin Gaston, 
That reminds me of the hunt, the butterfly hunt 
And so 
So Prosper  prepares the announcements, 
The mother goes into mourning for her poor 
husband 
And the whale, a tear in his eye, contemplates 
the wrecked home. 
Suddenly it cries: 
And why have I killed this poor idiot, 
Now the others are going to chase me by 
And eaten it for tea. 
But suddenly the handle turns. 
Dripping like a fountain, 
There's the old man out of breath 
With the whale, big as a mountain.  
He flings it on the table. 
It's the sort of whale that's rare these days. 
Lifelessly the old man says:  
Hurry up and carve it up, 
I'm hungry, thirsty, need some grub. 
But little Ernest stands up straight 
And looks in the whites of his father's eyes, 
In the whites of his father's bright blue eyes 
As blue as the eyes of the blue-eyed whale : 
Why should I carve a poor old fish 
That never troubles me? 
I don't want my share. 
He throws the knife up in the air 
But the whale has grabbed its handle 
And attacked the wild old man 
And stabbed him through his middle.  
 
Ernest sits addressing many letters edged with 
black, 
The mother wears a hat, a coat, a frock, all 
deadly black, 
And the whale, with tear-stained eyes, looks 
around the  
Shabby wreck 
And sobs : 
Whatever made me kill that wretched silly ass? 
Now all the rest will chase me in their motor-
 boats and cars 
 90
 outboard motor 
And then they are going to exterminate all my 
little family. 
Then, bursting out with a disturbing laugh, 
It makes for the door and says 
To the widow in passing: 
Madame, if anyone comes to ask for me, 
Be so kind as to reply: 
The whale has gone out, 
Sit down, 
Wait there, 
It will probably be back in fifteen years 
 
And exterminate my race and y family tree 
Then, bursting into laughter in a strange and 
frightening 
Way, 
It swims to the door. 
This is what it had to say 
As it glided pas the window:  
If anyone should ask 
For the whale, be polite, 
Say it's just gone out to bask. 
Tell them to be comfortable, 
Tell them not to go, 
Tell them I'll look in again in fifteen years or 
so...  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 91
 ?L'ACCENT GRAVE? (Pr?vert, Paroles: 1947) 
 
 
Le professeur 
El?ve Hamlet! 
 
 
L'?l?ve Hamlet , sursautant 
 
... Hein... Quoi... Pardon... Qu'est-ce qui se passe...  
Qu'est-ce qu'il y a... Qu'est-ce que c?est ?... 
 
 
Le professeur, m?content 
 
Vous ne pouvez pas r?pondre ?present? comme tout le monde ? Pas possible, vous ?tes 
encore dans les nuages. 
 
 
L'?l?ve Hamlet 
 
Etre ou ne pas ?tre dans les nuages ! 
 
Le professeur 
 
Suffit. Pas tant de mani?res. Et conjuguez-moi le verbe ?tre, comme tout le monde, c'est tout 
ce que je vous demande. 
 
 
 
L'?l?ve Hamlet 
 
To be... 
 
 92
  
Le professeur 
 
En fran?ais, s'il vous pla?t, comme tout le monde. 
 
 
L'?l?ve Hamlet 
 
Bien monsieur. Il conjugue : 
 
Je suis ou je ne suis pas 
Tu es ou tu n'es pas 
Il est ou il n'est pas 
Nous sommes ou nous ne sommes pas... 
 
 
Le professeur, excessivement m?content 
 
Mais c'est vous qui n'y ?tes pas, mon pauvre ami ! 
 
 
L'?l?ve Hamlet 
 
C'est exact, monsieur le professeur, 
Je suis "o?" je ne suis pas 
Et, dans le fond, hein, ? la r?flexion, 
Etre "o?" ne pas ?tre 
C'est peut-?tre aussi la question. 
 
 93
 ?Hamlet at School? (Sarah Lawson, 2002) 
 
 The Teacher: Hamlet! 
 Hamlet (startled): What... Eh? Excuse me... 
What's happening 
What's going on?... What is it? 
The Teacher (annoyed): You can't just say 'here' 
like normal people? 
Oh no, you are in a world of your own again. 
Hamlet: To be or not to be in a world of my 
own! 
The Teacher: That will do. Stop clowning 
around. Now conjugate the verb 'to be' like 
normal people, that's all I ask of you. 
 Hamlet: At vaere... 
The Teacher: Not in Danish! Just in English, 
please, like normal people, 
that's all I ask of you. 
Hamlet: Alright, sir (He conjugates) 
I am or I am not 
You are or you are not 
He is or he is not 
We are or we are not... 
The Teacher: (extremely annoyed) You are the 
one who is not... all there, 
my poor friend. 
Hamlet: That's quite right, Sir. 
I am all there or I am not 
And in the end, you know, on reflection 
To be all there or not to be all there 
That is perhaps also the question. 
  
 
?The accent grave? (Amiel Bowers, 2007) 
 
The Professor 
Student Hamlet! 
Hamlet the Student (startled) 
? Huh? What? Sorry? What is going on?  
What is the matter? What is it? 
The Professor (displeased) 
You cannot answer ?Present? like everybody 
else?  
Of course not, you still have your head in the 
clouds. 
Hamlet the Student 
To be or not to be in the clouds! 
The Professor 
Don?t be silly. Do not put on airs. And conjugate 
for me 
the verb ?to be? like everyone else; that?s all I ask 
you. 
Hamlet the Student 
?tre? 
The Professor 
In English, please, like everyone else. 
Hamlet the Student 
Fine, sir. (He conjugates :) 
I am or I am not 
You are or you are not 
He is or he is not 
We are or we are not? 
The Professor 
(extremely displeased) 
But it is you who are not there, my poor friend! 
Hamlet the Student 
That?s just it, professor, 
I am ?where? I am not 
And, in the end, well, after reflection, 
To be ?where? not to be 
Is perhaps also the question. 
 
 94
  
?BARBARA? (Pr?vert, Paroles: 1947) 
 
Rappelle-toi Barbara 
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest ce jour-l? 
Et tu marchais souriante 
?panouie ravie ruisselante 
Sous la pluie 
Rappelle-toi Barbara 
Il pleuvait sans cesse sur Brest 
Et je t'ai crois?e rue de Siam 
Tu souriais 
Et moi je souriais de m?me 
Rappelle-toi Barbara 
Toi que je ne connaissais pas 
Toi qui ne me connaissais pas 
Rappelle-toi 
Rappelle-toi quand m?me ce jour-l? 
N'oublie pas 
Un homme sous un porche s'abritait 
Et il a cri? ton nom 
Barbara 
Et tu as couru vers lui sous la pluie 
Ruisselante ravie ?panouie 
Et tu t'es jet?e dans ses bras 
Rappelle-toi cela Barbara 
Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie 
Je dis tu ? tous ceux que j'aime 
M?me si je ne les ai vus qu'une seule fois 
Je dis tu ? tous ceux qui s'aiment 
M?me si je ne les connais pas 
Rappelle-toi Barbara 
N'oublie pas 
Cette pluie sage et heureuse 
 95
 Sur ton visage heureux 
Sur cette ville heureuse 
Cette pluie sur la mer 
Sur l'arsenal 
Sur le bateau d'Ouessant 
Oh Barbara 
Quelle connerie la guerre 
Qu'es-tu devenue maintenant 
Sous cette pluie de fer 
De feu d'acier de sang 
Et celui qui te serrait dans ses bras 
Amoureusement 
Est-il mort disparu ou bien encore vivant 
Oh Barbara 
Il pleut sans cesse sur Brest 
Comme il pleuvait avant 
Mais ce n'est plus pareil et tout est abim? 
C'est une pluie de deuil terrible et d?sol?e 
Ce n'est m?me plus l'orage 
De fer d'acier de sang 
Tout simplement des nuages 
Qui cr?vent comme des chiens 
Des chiens qui disparaissent 
Au fil de l'eau sur Brest 
Et vont pourrir au loin 
Au loin tr?s loin de Brest 
Dont il ne reste rien. 
 96
  
?Barbara? (Lawson, 2002) 
 
Remember Barbara 
It was raining constantly in Brest that day 
And you were walking along smiling 
Radiant delighted dripping wet 
In the rain 
Remember Barbara 
It was raining constantly in Brest 
And I passed you in the rue de Siam 
You smiled 
And I smiled back 
Remember Barbara 
You who I didn't know 
You who didn't know me 
Remember 
Remember that day all the same 
Don't forget 
A man was sheltering in the doorway 
And he called your name 
Barbara 
And you ran towards him in the rain 
Dripping wet delighted radiant 
And you threw yourself into his arms 
Remember that Barbara 
And don't hold it against me if I call you tu 
I say tu to everyone I love 
Even if I have seen them only once 
I say tu to people who love each other 
Even if I don't know them 
Remember Barbara 
Don't forget 
?Barbara? (Ferlinghetti, 1958) 
 
Remember Barbara 
It rained all day on Brest that day 
And you walked smiling 
Flushed enraptured streaming-wet 
In the rain 
Remember Barbara 
It rained all day on Brest that day 
And I ran into you in Siam Street 
You were smiling 
And I smiled too 
Remember Barbara 
You whom I didn't know 
You who didn't know me 
Remember 
Remember that day still 
Don't forget 
A man was taking cover on a porch 
And he cried your name 
Barbara 
And you ran to him in the rain 
Streaming-wet enraptured flushed 
And you threw yourself in his arms 
Remember that Barbara 
And don't be mad if I speak familiarly 
I speak familiarly to everyone I love 
Even if I've seen them only once 
I speak familiarly to all who are in 
love 
Even if I don't know them 
Remember Barbara 
 97
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
That wise and happy rain 
On your happy face 
On this happy city 
This rain on the sea 
On the arsenal 
On the ferry to Ouessant 
Oh Barbara 
The sheer bloody stupidity of war 
What has become of you now 
Under that rain of iron 
Of fire of steel of blood 
And the man who held you in his arms 
Lovingly 
Is he dead disappeared dead or still alive 
Oh Barbara 
It is raining constantly in Brest 
As it rained before 
But it is not the same anymore and 
everything is ruined 
It's a rain of terrible and desolate grief 
Nor is there a storm now 
Of iron steel blood 
Quite simply clouds 
That burst like balloons 
Balloons that vanish 
In the water streaming on Brest 
And are going to disintegrate far away 
Far away very far from Brest 
Of which there is nothing left. 
 
Don't forget 
That good and happy rain 
On your happy face 
On that happy town 
That rain upon the sea 
Upon the arsenal 
Upon the Ushant boat 
Oh Barbara 
What shitstupidity the war 
Now what's become of you 
Under this iron rain 
Of fire and steel and blood 
And he who held you in his arms 
Amorously 
Is he dead and gone or still so much 
alive 
Oh Barbara 
It's rained all day on Brest today 
As it was raining before 
But it isn't the same anymore 
And everything is wrecked 
It's a rain of mourning terrible and 
desolate 
Nor is it still a storm 
Of iron and steel and blood 
But simply clouds 
That die like dogs 
Dogs that disappear 
In the downpour drowning Brest 
And float away to rot 
A long way off 
A long long way from Brest 
Of which there's nothing left. 
 98
  
 
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