The Impact of Constraint Visibility on the Translation of Constraint-based Writing

The translation of constrained literature involves a number of difficulties not always present in the translation of more conventional texts. Many of the typical methods used by translators become insufficient when confronted with constraint-based writing, or more specifically with the enormous variation offered by this current of writing. Whereas it might be possible to formulate a method for the translation of one particular constraint—a lipogrammatic cookbook, perhaps, or an Acrostic Builder’s Compendium—potential writing by its very definition precludes any comprehensive methodology. All the same, for the translator of works of constrained literature, it quickly becomes clear that instinct alone is not sufficient; some sort of overarching logic is needed to assist in the organization of such a task. If we subscribe to the idea that all translations are first and foremost a reading of the source text, and give priority to a lectural approach before a textual one,¹ we might put ourselves in a better position to effectuate our task. To fully understand a constraint-based text, the translator-reader must take on the role of a co-conspirator who has a part to play in the process as well.

In his Esthétique de l’Oulipo Hervé Le Tellier points out the demands placed on the Oulipian reader, indicating that in some cases it is possible to read a constraint-based text without worrying about the implications of the constraint.² But if we fail to approach the text on its multiple levels, are we truly reading the work to its fullest possibilities? This cannot be a reasonable option for the translator-reader if the reader of the target-text is to have the luxury of making this choice. And so, in order to achieve a more complete understanding of what is to be translated, recreated, decoded and recoded, the translator as reader must determine what in fact is in play; how it is displayed to the reader; and how it affects the work as a whole.

Several different methods have been proposed to classify Oulipian constraints, and they have resulted in limited success. The Table de Queneleïeff and the Table des Opérations Linguistiques et Littéraires Élémentaires or TOLLE (developed by Raymond Queneau in 1973, and by Marcel Bénabou in 1983, respectively)³ have their uses when it comes to separating one constraint from another, but they leave certain questions unanswered that must be considered by the translator if the text is to affect the reader in the same way as it does the translator-reader: specifically, with respect to constraint visibility. An alternate approach can be found in the essay “Exhiber/Cacher” (or “Reveal/Conceal”), in which Marcel Bénabou provides a system of classification based on constraint visibility. What relationship, he asks, is forged between the reader and the constraint used in the composition of the constraint-based work?

Quel est leur statut par rapport au lecteur? Doivent-elles nécessairement être portées à sa connaissance, et si oui, de quelle façon? Doivent-elles, une fois accomplie leur mission (à savoir aider à la production d’un texte), demeurer perceptibles au sein du texte dont elles ont favorisé la naissance? Ou bien ne devraient-elles plutôt, comme les échafaudages une fois construite la maison, disparaître?

(Bénabou 1)

Bénabou informs us that debate among the Oulipo’s members as to the exhibition of constraints (and by extension, their visibility) is not a recent development but began shortly after the group’s founding. He described this difference of opinion as follows:

. . . [C]ertains comme R. Queneau, J. Duchateau ou H. Mathews, ont ce que J. Roubaud a joliment appelé un jour la pudeur de la contrainte: ils ne la dévoilent pas; d’autres, comme G. Perec, I. Calvino ou J. Roubaud luimême, sont moins pudiques et n’hésitent pas à révéler tout ou partie des contraintes ou structures employées.

(Bénabou 1)

It is thus a matter of auctorial preference, which is then combined with the nature of the chosen...