Jane Austen in Switzerland: A Study of the Early French Translations (review)

This eagerly awaited publication of Valérie Cossy's dissertation (defended in 1996) is significantly enhanced by theoretical engagement with recent translation theory. The translations of Jane Austen's novels into French have received virtually no attention, even though they were translated relatively quickly. The focus of this study is on Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park (which appeared in the Bibliothèque britannique in 1813 and 1815 respectively) and two free translations by Swiss novelist Isabelle de Montolieu, a version of Sense and Sensibility in 1811 (Raison et sensibilité) and one of Persuasion (1817), retitled in French La Famille Elliot. In analysing the reception of Austen's works, Cossy is not primarily concerned with the faithfulness of the translations but with the process of translation and how the translated text finds a place within a new literary system. This focus on target-oriented rather than source-oriented translation draws on the theoretical approach of Antoine Berman in Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne (1995) to consider the texts in their wider historical context and as part of a process of cross-cultural transfer. Austen was being translated into French at a time when Swiss writers tended to see the novel as a vehicle for morality and when Swiss readers were less sophisticated than those Austen was writing for. Cossy makes a convincing case for seeing the complex socio-political and literary context of post-revolutionary society in Switzerland as crucial to understanding the reception of Jane Austen's novels. They were appreciated not for their representation of everyday life or for their satirical portrayal of English society but for their moral value.

The first section deals with the Bibliothèque britannique, a journal created in Geneva in 1795 to popularize science and disseminate moral literature. Cossy provides a useful overview of the journal, its editors, and the literary context in which it was established. The editors had a paternalistic view of what fiction was and a particularly rigid concept of women's role in society. The translation of Pride and Prejudice was adapted to serve the conservative purpose of the periodical even though this ran counter to the spirit of Austen's original. Cossy provides a clear sense of the distance separating the way English and Swiss readers of the novel experienced the text. So, for instance, Elizabeth's character is reworked for the Bibliothèque britannique to remove any trace of impropriety; the courtship scene is modified to assert the journal's moral seriousness; and the narrative remains exclusively under the control of the narrator, whereas in Austen the readers were invited to judge for themselves. Cossy usefully brings in the broader literary context, but she is equally adept at close textual analysis, demonstrating how conventions of French classicism affected the use of language as well as the content.

Mansfield Park is similarly integrated into the Bibliothèque britannique's moral universe. For Cossy, the translator's modifications are "a rare illustration of a contemporary reading of Austen" (156) as the careful reworking of the text from being a parody of conservative fiction to becoming a conservative novel shows clearly the parts of the text that did not fit the Swiss sentimental paradigm. So Sir Thomas becomes an amiable patriarch, Henry Crawford a mere villain, Fanny a full-blown sentimental heroine, and Mary Crawford (renamed Flora, a suitably non-Biblical name) a straightforward coquette, who is allowed "none of the redeeming qualities of the original" (172). Austen's narrative is consistently revealed to be at odds with her translators' conception of the sentimental novel and is reduced in the Bibliothèque britannique to serve a conservative moral agenda.

The second half of the monograph examines two adaptations by Isabelle de Montolieu, an early pioneer of Swiss literature. Cossy sketches the background both to Lausanne society and to Montolieu's literary career in order to establish her importance as a figure in the literary...