Worlding Sei Shônagon: The Pillow Book in Translation

Michel Revon (1910) French

81 Michel Revon Les Livres d’Impressions. Le Makoura no Sôshi (pp. 194–224) Anthologie de la littérature japonaise des origines au XXe siècle 1910. Paris: Librairie Delagrave, 1923 This anthology of Japanese literature by Michel Revon (1878–1946) was to remain a seminal work for generations, influencing scores of French writers and intellectuals from Edmond de Goncourt to Marguerite Yourcenar. Revon taught in Tokyo for many years, and later at the Sorbonne, where he eventually supervised André Beaujard’s doctoral thesis on Sei Shônagon. The cover page to this anthology, reprinted several times by Delagrave through the 1920s (and eventually reissued in 1986 by Vertiges), identifies him rather grandly as a “Former professor in the Faculty of Law in Tôkyô, Former Legal Counsellor to the Japanese Government , and Lecturer on the History of Far-Eastern Civilizations in the Faculty of Letters in Paris” (my translation). Revon leaves no doubt of his profound admiration for Sei Shônagon, who “merits special study, first because she is a very interesting type of woman, and also because the genre that she invented soared immediately, with her book of sketches, to heights of excellence that none of the later im- Michel Revon (1910) 82 pressionists could equal” (195). Although denigrating her overall skill at composition, he concludes: “but here and there … a more extended bit appears, revealing genuine art and showing that the author of these sketches can, on occasion , paint a brilliant picture, a convincing portrait, or neatly offer a sustained anecdote. As for her style, it reveals both a deliberate concision and an almost unconscious naturalness, allowing the most varied subjects to be tackled with an admirable flexibility” (198–99). Revon’s stated aim with regard to The Pillow Book is to translate the first third of the text, and in the end he does offer his readers more than twice as many passages as almost all of his predecessors. Several of these, however, consist of nothing more than the heading and a brief remark of his own, such as “MOUNTAINS. Just a list again.” (204) or “FESTIVALS. Somewhat specialized for the European reader” (218). In the introduction he nonetheless sets forth his approach to translation as follows: “My sole aim has been the most complete faithfulness possible. A difficult task, since, as a general rule, the Japanese language is extremely vague and often allows for all sorts of interpretations of a given passage” (4). French 83 L’aurore du printemps1 Ce qui me charme, au printemps, c’est l’aurore. Sur les monts, tandis que tout s’éclaire peu à peu, de fins nuages violacés flottent en bandes allongées. —En été, c’est la nuit. Naturellement, le clair de lune ! Mais aussi la nuit obscure, où les lucioles s’entre-croisent ça et là. Et même quand la pluie tombe, cette nuit me semble belle. —En automne, c’est le soir. Le soleil couchant, lançant ses brillants rayons, s’approche de la crête des montagnes. Les corbeaux, qui se hâtent vers leurs nids, volent par trois, par quatre, par deux : c’est d’une tristesse ravissante. Et surtout, quand les longues files d’oies sauvages apparaissent toutes petites, quoi de plus joli ? Puis, quand le soleil a disparu, le bruit du vent, le chant des insectes, tout cela encore est d’une mélancolie délicieuse. —En hiver, de bonne heure, il va de soi que la chute de neige est charmante. Et l’extrême candeur de la gelée blanche ! Mais, plus simplement, un très grand froid : vivement, on allume le feu, et on apporte le charbon de bois incandescent ; c’est ce qui convient à la saison. Cependant, à l’approche 1 Les commentateurs japonais intitulent ainsi ce chapitre, d’après les premiers mots par lesquels s’ouvre l’ouvrage. Divers autres titres, également ajoutés après coup, ne répondent souvent qu’en partie au contenu du chapitre qu’ils ont objet de distinguer. Un commentaire bien connu est celui de Kitamoura Kighinn : le Makoura no Sôshi Harou no akébono-shô, « Choix (de commentaires) de l’aurore de printemps ». Ce titre ingénieux veut sans doute évoquer, d’une part le début fameux de l’ouvrage lui-même, d’autre part l’idée que, tout comme l’aurore du printemps décrite par Sei Shônagon, le commentaire...