A Socio-Historical Study of the English Translation of Beauvoir's Le
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Rehabilitating Howard M. Parshley: A Socio-historical Study of the English Translation of Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe , with Latour and Bourdieu By Anna Bogic Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the MA degree in Translation School of Translation and Interpretation Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa, Canada This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Anna Bogic, Ottawa, Canada, 2009 ABSTRACT: This study documents the problematic translator-publisher relationship in the case of the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe . The socio- historical investigation of the case study demonstrates that the 1953 translation was complicated by several factors: the translator’s lack of philosophical knowledge, the editor’s demands to cut and simplify the text, the publisher’s intention to emphasize the book’s scientific cachet, and Beauvoir’s lack of cooperation. The investigation focuses on two aspects: the translator’s subservience and the involvement of multiple actors. Primarily concerned with the interaction between the translator and other actors, this study seeks answers that require investigation into historical documents and the work of other scholars critical of The Second Sex . In this enquiry, more than one hundred letters between the translator, H. M. Parshley, and the publisher, Knopf, are thoroughly analyzed. The study combines Bruno Latour’s and Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological concepts in order to provide a more detailed and encompassing examination within the context of Translation Studies. The letter correspondence is the primary evidence on which the study’s conclusions are based. ii RÉSUMÉ : Cette étude illustre la problématique de la relation entre le traducteur et l'éditeur dans le cas de la traduction en anglais de l'œuvre de Simone de Beauvoir, Le deuxième sexe . La recherche socio-historique menée dans le cadre de cette étude de cas montre que plusieurs facteurs ont compliqué la traduction de 1953 : le manque de connaissances philosophiques du traducteur, les demandes répétées de l'éditeur de raccourcir le texte et de le simplifier, l'intention de l'éditeur d'accentuer le cachet scientifique du livre et le manque de coopération de la part de l’auteure elle-même, Simone de Beauvoir. La recherche se concentre sur deux aspects : la soumission du traducteur et l’intervention de multiples acteurs. Cette étude s'intéresse dans un premier temps à l'interaction entre le traducteur et les autres acteurs. Ensuite, elle cherche à obtenir des réponses qui exigent des analyses de documents historiques et de travaux d’autres spécialistes qui ont critiqué la traduction, The Second Sex . À cette étape, plus d'une centaine de lettres échangées entre le traducteur, H. M. Parshley, et l'éditeur, Knopf, sont minutieusement analysées. L'étude combine les concepts sociologiques de Bruno Latour et de Pierre Bourdieu afin de fournir un examen à la fois approfondi et global dans le contexte traductologique. Les conclusions de cette étude s’appuient enfin sur la correspondence entre l’éditeur et le traducteur. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their support of this work through the CGS-Master’s Scholarship, the School of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Ottawa for their assistance and encouragement, Dr. Luise von Flotow and Dr. Clara Foz for their much appreciated guidance, support and thoughtfulness. I would especially like to thank Dr. Luise von Flotow for inspiring me to work harder. I am greatly indebted to Elsa Parshley Brown and Laurie Brown Kennedy for giving me the permission to use the letters and for showing great interest in my project. Likewise, I am grateful to Knopf Doubleday Publishing for giving me the permission to use the letters written by their editor-in-chief and to the Smith College Archives, Northampton, MA for their help with the letter correspondence which made this study possible. Finally, I would like to thank my dear Yannick for his patience and encouragement that helped me make it to the finish line. iv Dedication In memory of my loving grandmother, Anica, who taught me strength. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .........................................................................................................................ii Résumé ......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................v Table of Contents .........................................................................................................vi INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE : THE PUBLICATION AND THE RECEPTION OF THE SECOND SEX ..............2 Brief Overview of the Publication and Immediate Reception of Le deuxième sexe in France ...................................................................................................................4 Public Reaction ......................................................................................................5 The Right ...............................................................................................................5 The Left .................................................................................................................6 Private Reaction and Personal Attacks ...................................................................7 Publication of The Second Sex in the United States .................................................7 The First Wave of Receoption of The Second Sex .................................................12 The Context ..........................................................................................................12 Public Reception ..................................................................................................13 Private Reception .................................................................................................15 The Second Wave of Reception of Le deuxième sexe .................................17 CHAPTER TWO : REVIEW OF THE CRITICISM OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION .............21 Margaret A. Simons: 1983 ......................................................................................22 Deirdre Bair: 1987 ..................................................................................................25 Richard Gillman: 1988 ...........................................................................................27 Simons’s Interview with Beauvoir: 1989 ...............................................................28 Yolanda Astarita Patterson: 1992 ..........................................................................30 Sheryl Englund: 1992 and 1994 ..............................................................................31 Anna Alexander: 1997 ............................................................................................34 Elizabeth Fallaize: 1999 ..........................................................................................34 Toril Moi: 2002 .......................................................................................................36 vi CHAPTER THREE : LETTERS FROM THE ARCHIVES : AN EXPOSITION OF THE LETTER CORRESPONDENCE .......................................................................................................39 Scope and Content of the Collection ......................................................................39 Summary of the Letter Correspondence ................................................................40 Pre-translation Correspondence: July 1949 – January 1950 ................................41 Translation Correspondence: January 1950 – August 1951 .................................44 Post-translation Correspondence: August 1951 – April 1953 ...............................52 CHAPTER FOUR : APPLICATION OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES TO THE “M AKING ” OF THE SECOND SEX : A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSLATOR ’S SUBSERVIENCE AND THE MULTIPLE ACTORS IN THE TRANSLATION PROCESS .............................................57 SECTION I ..................................................................................................................60 Brief Introduction to Latour’s Actor-Network Theory or “Sociology of Translation” .........................................................................................60 Latour’s “Sociology of Translation” in Translation Studies ....................................63 A Critical Analysis of the Translation Process and its Multiple Actors: Parshley as One of Many ...............................................................................................................64 The Issue of the Missing Quotations ........................................................................65 The Issue of “Esoteric” Words ...............................................................................67 The Issue