Gender and Style in the Translation and Reception of Ingeborg Bachmann’S ‘Todesarten’ Texts
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Gender and Style in the Translation and Reception of Ingeborg Bachmann’s ‘Todesarten’ Texts Lina Fisher Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Literary Translation University of East Anglia School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing November 2014 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Abstract This thesis compares style in the ‘Todesarten’ [literally: manners of death] texts by Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) with their English translations: the novel Malina (Malina; Philip Boehm), the novel draft Das Buch Franza (The Book of Franza; Peter Filkins) and the story collection Simultan (Three Paths to the Lake; Mary Fran Gilbert). The fact that Bachmann was a woman significantly influenced the descriptions by German-language critics in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s of the author herself, as well as their evaluations of her work. Bachmann’s extended metaphors, ambiguity, iconicity, transitivity structures and intertextuality suggest that her prose texts, and especially Malina, should be regarded as proto-feminist masterpieces whose contemplation of the post-war human condition and society’s treatment of women were far ahead of their contemporaries. Boehm’s and Filkins’ translation choices show parallels with criticism expressed in German-language reviews. The reduction of the networks of stylistic features in the translations results in a weakening of the links between content, style and politics which are crucial to Bachmann’s texts. These changes mean that the English-language reader experiences Bachmann’s texts in a fundamentally different way. The male translators largely silence what I term women’s language in Malina and Franza, and consequently conceal much of Bachmann’s proto-feminist message. It is clear that these changes are not necessitated by the constraints of translating Bachmann’s complex texts into English because Gilbert, the female translator of Simultan, manages to recreate the texts’ style. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 6 A Note on the Translation of Titles and Quotations 7 Gender and Style in the Translation and Reception of Ingeborg Bachmann’s ‘Todesarten’ Texts 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 9 1.1 Aims of the Study 11 1.2 Hypothesis 18 1.2.1 The Influence of the Reception on the Translations 18 1.2.2 The Effect of Gender on Translation: What Could It Be? 20 1.3.1 Previous Research on Gender in Translation 22 1.3.2 Why Does Gender Matter? 27 1.4 Limitations 29 1.5 Methodology and Model of Analysis 31 1.6 Why This Case Study? 33 1.7 Linguistic Relativity: Do Women Use Different Language? 36 1.8 Text-type Considerations: ‘Women’s Writing’ 39 1.9 Is Women’s Writing Feminist Writing? 41 1.10 Bachmann’s Background 45 1.11 The Translators’ Backgrounds 49 1.12 Overview of Chapters 51 Chapter 2: Reception and Gender in the German-Speaking Territories 52 2.1 The Particulars of Bachmann’s Reception 54 2.2 Wendepunkte: Reception in German-Speaking Countries 61 2.3 Reception of Bachmann as a Poet in the 1950s 71 2.4 How Suhrkamp Orchestrated the Publication of Malina 76 2.5 Reception 78 2.5.1 Reception as a Novelist 78 2.5.2 Essentialism and the ‘Neurotic Novel’ 82 2.6.1 Feminist Rediscovery 84 2.6.2 Is Malina a Feminist Novel? 86 2.7 Publication of Fragments and Other Writings from Bachmann’s Estate 93 2.8 Paratexts 94 2.9 Afterwords 104 3 Chapter 3: Text Analysis 106 3.1 Method of Analysis 107 3.2 Overview of Malina 114 3.3 Ambiguity, Puns and Wordplay in Malina 115 3.4 Imagery in the Nightmares 128 3.5 The Depiction of Characters 136 3.5.1 Power and Agency in Malina 136 3.5.2 Fairytales and Transitivity: Representation of the Princess of Kagran 140 3.5.3 Ich: The Representation of Emotions 159 3.5.4 The ‘Father’ 167 3.6 Overview of Franza 171 3.7 Textual Analysis of Franza 178 3.8 Political Iconicity 180 3.9 Overview of Simultan 183 3.10 Extended Metaphor in ‘Ihr glücklichen Augen’ and its Translation ‘Eyes to Wonder’ 185 3.11 Conclusion 194 Chapter 4: Feminist Criticism, German Literature and Ingeborg Bachmann in the Anglo-American Literary Polysystem 199 4.1 Bachmann’s Anglo-American Reception 200 4.2 Women’s Writing and Feminist Criticism in English-speaking Countries 202 4.3.1 The Reception of Bachmann and the ‘Todesarten’ in the Anglo- American Literary Polysystem 217 4.3.2 The Perception of Bachmann as a Writer 226 4.4 How did the English Reception Differ from the German Reception? 233 4.5 Are the Differences in Reception and Style the Result of Gender? 235 Chapter 5: Transposing Bachmann’s ‘Todesarten’ into the 21st Century: How this Case Study Illustrates the Effect of Gender on Translation 238 5.1 The Thesis Questions and Methodology 239 5.2 Women’s Language in Source and Target Texts 245 5.3 How the Translators Transform the ‘Todesarten’ Style 250 5.4 “Jetzt quatscht sie wieder”: The Role of Gender in the Reception of Bachmann’s ‘Todesarten’ Texts and their Translations 264 5.5 Are the Differences between the Source Text and Target Text the Result of the Translator’s Gender? 269 4 Appendices 277 Appendix I: Examples from Malina in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish 277 Appenix II: Analysis of Franza 288 Appendix III: Examples from Simultan in German, English, French and Italian 290 Appendix IV: Further examples from Malina in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish 293 Appendix V: Further examples from Franza in German, English, French and Italian 301 Appendix VI: Further examples from Simultan in German, English, French, and Italian 307 Appendix VII: Examples of Text Analysis 312 Appendix VIII: Correspondence with the translators 314 Bibliography 316 5 Acknowledgements I am sincerely grateful to my supervisor Professor Jean Boase-Beier for her knowledgeable guidance and support during the many years of my PhD. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without her patience and invaluable advice. It has been an immense joy to learn from her. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr B.J. Epstein for her helpful advice and attention to detail during the transferring up panel and the second half of my PhD. For her help during the first year of my PhD, and for suggestions made as part of the transferring up panel, I would like to thank Dr Valerie Henitiuk. Claire Foreman at Wymondham College first piqued my interest in stylistic analysis which eventually led to my choice of research topic, and I benefited from the rigorous standards to which she held me during my first two years in the UK. The following people have provided useful insights, thoughtful suggestions and, on occasion, practical help, and I feel privileged to have met them: Kate Anderson, Kate Armond, Marius Bazu, Antoinette Fawcett, Damian Fisher, Hiroko Furukawa, Susanne Klinger, Liz McDonald, Davide Rizza, Cecilia Rossi, Clara Stern. I give particular thanks to Philip Wilson for his kindness and generous support in the form of proofreading, advice, and encouragement. For the most feminist act I have experienced, thank you to Antoinette, Hiroko, Susanne, Clara and Philip for welcoming my small daughter at the PhD seminar in Literary Translation. Being able to be part of the group helped in so many different ways. For their continued support during a very difficult time, I will always be thankful to Ruth Roberts and Miriam Crasnow. Thank you to Sarah Spector for always being there. My parents made it possible for me to study in the UK. I am grateful for their interest and financial support. I am grateful for financial assistance from the University of East Anglia’s Nursery Hardship Fund that allowed me to keep working on my PhD, and conference grants from the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing that made it possible for me to attend the conferences of the Poetics and Linguistics Association in Malta and Heidelberg. This thesis is dedicated to my beautiful daughter Gwendolin. Thank you for accompanying me on this adventure. 6 A Note on the Translation of Titles and Quotations Unless otherwise noted, all translations of foreign-language quotations and titles not printed in italics are mine. Translations of titles presented in italics within square brackets constitute published works. Translations of examples in Chapter 3 followed by a page number are taken from Philip Boehm’s translation Malina, Peter Filkins’ translation The Book of Franza, Mary Fran Gilbert’s translation Three Paths to the Lake and Lilian Friedberg’s translation Last Living Words. Translations of examples in Chapter 3 not followed by a page number constitute my suggestion of alternative options. 7 Gender and Style in the Translation and Reception of Ingeborg Bachmann’s ‘Todesarten’ Texts 8 Chapter 1: Introduction This thesis explores the role of the author’s and translator’s gender in translation by examining style in the ‘Todesarten’ [literally: death styles; ways of dying] texts by Austrian author Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) and their English translations: Malina (1995; first published in 1971) – Malina by Philip Boehm (1990) Simultan (2008; first published in 1972) – Three Paths to the Lake by Mary Fran Gilbert (1997; first published 1989) Das Buch Franza (2004; first published posthumously in 1978) – The Book of Franza by Peter Filkins (1999) The word ‘Todesarten’ translated literally means ‘ways of dying’ or ‘types of death’.